KuloNiku: Bowl Up! Developer Interview Highlights Indonesian Food Customization
The interview offers a rare look at how local Indonesian dining culture shaped a game mechanic, distinguishing the title from other cooking sims.
Reporting from 1 source: Game Spark.
Game Spark interviewed Gian, developer of the Indonesian restaurant management sim 'KuloNiku: Bowl Up!', released April 7 for PC and Mac. Gian discussed the game's unique customer order system inspired by real Indonesian food customization, its influences including 'Persona' and 'Food Wars!', and the challenging development of its turn-based cooking battles.
Game Spark's developer interview with Gian of Gambir Studio covers the design of 'KuloNiku: Bowl Up!', a restaurant management sim set in the town of Kuloniku. Players restore a grandmother's meatball shop by fulfilling detailed customer requests-a system Gian says was inspired by Indonesia's real practice of customizing food orders down to specific seasonings and disliked ingredients. The game launched April 7 for PC and Mac at 1,400 yen (discounted to 1,120 yen until July 10). It does not currently support Japanese.
Gian cited 'Good Pizza, Great Pizza', 'Cooking Mama', and 'Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma' as cooking influences, while story and social elements drew from the 'Persona' series and the manga 'The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You'. The art style was inspired by 'Mega Man Legends'. The turn-based cooking battles, called Meatball Brawls, were reworked at least twice; Gian prototyped them with physical paper cards. Player feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with some saying the game made them hungry enough to go eat noodles.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.