With the Busan Indie Connect Festival 2023 happening this weekend, we got the chance to meet up with Cuisineer Game Designer Lydia Rosette Teo from BattleBrew Productions for a short interview.

[Interview is edited for clarity]

In Cuisineer, players step into the shoes of Pom, who one day returns to her hometown of Paell only to discover that her parent’s restaurant has been closed for business and has racked up debt. To clear her parent’s debt, Pom has to go dungeon-delving to collect ingredients and cook up tasty treats and re-open the restaurant.

Winning Awards

Considering that Cuisineer has picked up a lot of awards at various events that it has shown up at, we asked Lydia how her and the team felt to have all of that praise even before the game launches.

“It’s really a huge honour and we’re just hoping that people’s expectations that we can reach it when the game launches. Super excited for that.” said Lydia.

Adding More Food Items To The Game

Cuisine in Southeast Asia has definitely been a good way to generate buzz on social media. We asked Lydia if the team had incorporated any request to add more dishes to the game from social media.

To which, Lydia replied by saying that the team have not taken any. However, she did mention that if players are interested, the team might consider a future DLC that adds in more food to the game.

The Potential of SEA-made Games

With Cuisineer being picked up by Marvelous Europe and XSEED Games, we asked Lydia if the Southeast Asia region have the potential for big grown titles.

“Oh definitely, I think what’s really sad is that people don’t go and look into the games that you can find in the SEA region. But there’s so many amazing games, so many amazing people and you just need to look a little bit deeper and you can find some really cool games.” replied Lydia.

Cuisineer

We asked Lydia if she had any exciting things to tell us about Cuisineer before the game’s release.

To that, Lydia said “You can wishlist us [Cuisineer on Steam], the game is going to be coming out really soon and lots of exciting news. And remember when the game comes out, don’t play it if you’re hungry, alright?”

Biggest Feature Of Cuisineer

Now that we have an inkling that Cuisineer will be releasing soon, we asked Lydia what’s the one biggest feature that’s the most exciting about the game.

“Oh gosh, let’s see. For me personally, the biggest feature… I can’t really say that might be a spoiler. But I guess the second biggest feature that I personally like is the cooking and the restaurants. I’m just serving customers and cooking delicious food is really what gets me going.” replied Lydia.

“Goreng Pisang” or “Pisang Goreng”

The last question we asked Lydia was a fun but simple one, “Goreng Pisang” or “Pisang Goreng”.

Upon hearing the question, Lydia was having some self doubts with giving her answer. But eventually, she responded with:

“Goreng Pisang? Oh no! Am I going to get cancelled?”

Thus ended our short interview about Cuisineer. We would like to thank Lydia Rosette Teo for taking the time to our question.

For more information about Busan Indie Connect Festival 2023: