Food in the game is kinda blah. Its just something to blow money on and maybe attempt to immerse yourself in the game. Left click to munch, play a sound effect and the model enters the screen and then it vanishes. Trouble is it doesn’t do much.
We have Beer, the fun consumable that makes you progressively drunk, skews your vision and summons projectile vomit. Instantly perceivable passive effects. One of the most colorful experiences in the game is wandering the plaza at night, maximum drunkenness making all the lights and billboards look like a broken TV.
Now, despite the humor of the game I doubt we’ll ever get other hard drugs like cocaine or something worse… but we do have mountains upon mountains of sugary treats.
So like what if eating candy could give you some sort of sugar rush or eating a hotdog gave you hallucinations of Franky around the map?
I remember a silly drugs mod from Garry’s Mod, that among other hazardous substances included a watermelon. Eating it would give you hallucinations of melons falling from the sky, the sky would change to a scrolling melon pattern and trippy music would play.
More relevantly, remember Elevator Source? The penthouse blender would let you blend fruit drinks to give you weird screen effects. You don’t have a sense of taste in a videogame, therefore the player’s senses usually find a way to fall into visual or audio
Film grain, Sharpness, and material overlay effects are widely available in UE4 I’m sure. What if they were applied in a variety to food items for a temporary-yet-stackable effect like beer has?
I would suspect sugar rush could be exhibited by a screen sharpen effect and maybe a small burst of movement speed, maybe a little bloom. Either entirely cosmetic or an actual powerup like the Virus adrenaline milestone even.
Who knows what Franky is putting in those hotdogs, what about a hallucinogenic hotdog rain if you eat too many of them?