Game Design ✦ Cultural Research
Timeline
Sept - Dec 2025
Role
Game Designer
Tools/Programs
Figma, Godot
Have a potluck together, and discover family folklore through different dishes on the table. Each player takes a turn to spin the table roulette-style to introduce the new dish for everyone to enjoy. By interacting with the dishes—preparing, serving, trading, or storytelling—players unlock discussions of self-identity, cultural histories, and family folklores tied to food, migration, and cultural exchange.
Created by The Roundest Table
Colonialism erases our individual histories, and this game is about coming up with different ways to resist colonialism and criticizing/subverting the premise of colonial traditions through family/personal folklore and personal authenticity. Criticizing the colonial history of Thanksgiving, we want to examine the culture of potluck as a way of decolonization and a method of supporting communities through times of stress.
The game's story unfolds through “meals”: each level focuses on a region or culture. Players encounter characters(in this context: Audrey, Sargylana, Yi, Fei) who share stories about ingredients, rituals, and personal anecdotes. The gameplay mixes cooperative and shareable elements:
Players spin the turntable and receive a random dish to learn about / interact with the dish to complete a challenge / explore the cultural story behind the dish through a short animation or text.
Players get to play mini-games while uncovering personal stories behind each dish and share interpretations of their reflections.
Souvik Mukherjee, Videogames and Postcolonialism: Empire Plays Back, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Nisa-Waller, A., & Piercy, G. (2024). Autoethnography as a decolonising tool: bringing identity into the classroom. Higher Education Research & Development, 43(5), 1142–1155. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2024.2307924
Aubrey Anable, Playing with Feelings: Video Games and Affect, University of Minnesota Press, 2018
Heldke, Lisa M. Exotic Appetites: Ruminations of a Food Adventurer. Routledge, 2003.
Anthropy, Anna, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives,and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form, Seven Stories Press, 2012
TO BE CONTINUED...
