You awaken, refreshed and alert, in a sealed dining room. There is a blank 3-course menu – starter, main, dessert. Once you fill in the menu with appropriate items, it will be reviewed and prepared for free by a top-quality chef – who must agree to the menu, but he’s like a chill Jon Favreau chef, don’t worry – and delivered to the room. If your menu is rejected three times, you lose and you are shot by a bazooka.
There is a camera about 3 feet away from you which is constantly recording your face. You must always face this camera or you will be shot by a bazooka.
Your task is to eat the entire three-course meal without ever producing a freezeframe of your face that looks “weird”. It is, rather notoriously, very hard to not look weird for a single frame when eating. Thus, if you succeed in this task, you will win a million zenny. If you fail, you will not be shot by a bazooka. You leave and return to your life.
If you put a random assortment of people in this room…
- Some will pick a well-known everyday meal without particularly challenging textures and take to it slowly, constantly and carefully maneuvering around it, maintaining a poker face, small bites, slow chewing, no surprises.
- Some will think very hard about which menu items will give them the best chance of success. They will get burned by the gotcha that Jon Favreau will always refuse to serve an all-liquids menu.
- Of those, some will consider burning one or two of the “menu fails” trying to make Jon Favreau prepare such things as a single grape as a main course. They will think very carefully about whether to burn one or two.
- Some will ponder for a long time about what it means for a freezeframe of a face to look “weird”. They will try to determine who’s judging the freezeframes and see if they can play around that.
- Some will get so preoccupied with this notion, unfortunately bouncing off their own self-image, that they willingly forfeit the challenge.
- Some will reckon against the high difficulty of the challenge and simply order a lavish meal, leaving with at least a full belly and some locked-in utility.
- Some will try to block the camera lens and then get shot by the bazooka as consequence.
- Some will try to dodge the bazooka shot.
This is game design.