Dosa Divas is an RPG where you solve every problem with cooking: "Everything is themed around flavor profiles, including attacks and enemy weaknesses"

For Outerloop Games founder and creative director Chandana Ekanayake, the core concept of Dosa Divas came from five words: "two aunties in a mech". Ekanayake left the idea to simmer as the studio finished up another project, then pitching it to the rest of the team and getting feedback from game dev friends. After its announcement back in 2024, the lid has been lifted on Dosa Divas, a vibrant and colorful turn-based RPG with cooking at its core.

"While the story has changed and evolved, a lot of the initial themes of reuniting, family dynamics, and cooking as a way to connect communities are all still in there, along with sentient mechs, evil corporations, and mech battles," Ekanayake says.

Dosa Divas follows Samara and Amani, two sisters who are on a mission to defeat an evil fast food empire, one that happens to be run by their third, younger sister, Lina. Through the power of Samara and Amani's home cooking, the two travel from town to town on the back of their sentient food truck mech Goddess (an incredible string of words there), feeding the locals and fighting Lina's goons along the way.

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Diva drama

A major part of the story is the family drama between the sisters. Sibling bickering is one thing, but these girls take it to a whole new level. Leading an all-powerful tube food empire is a little over the top, but that's youngest sibling behavior for you. You learn more about what broke this family apart when you enter the spirit world, a space granted to you by Goddess where you can cook and also learn what happened between the sisters.

"In this world, spirit mech cooked food was the specialty in a restaurant that Samara, Amani, and their family ran called Dosa Divas," Ekanayake says. "There was some drama years prior, everyone went their separate ways and the player gets to discover what happened and why there's such a disconnect with the family."

A small band of underdogs overcoming a huge corporate power sounds familiar for sci-fi, but Dosa Diva's take on the genre feels entirely unique. For the setting, Outerloop's worldbuilding inspirations came from South Asian culture. "We started thinking about how we could take some South Asian inspirations and how that would shape the look of the mechs, the world, the characters, and of course the food in the game," Ekanayake says. "We wanted our sci-fi world to have history, culture, color, and feel lived in."

Outerloop's South Asian inspirations are present throughout their entire work. From the studio's debut bird-buddy adventure Falcon Age, to 2023's 'punch your ex in the face' simulator Thirsty Suitors, it's now also here in the colorful, vibrant sci-fi world of Dosa Divas. "While there is technology, the world feels grounded," Ekanayake says. "We looked at Pakistani truckers and their ornate trucks decorated with colors, shapes, and influences from their particular cities. They take a piece of home with them as they're away on the road. We looked at three wheeler taxis/auto rickshaws that I grew up riding around in Sri Lanka. Goddess' mech design came from turning one of these three wheelers into a mech."

Order up

Controlling Goddess, players will be grappling, drilling, and jumping through different villages, searching for local ingredients to use in recipes, and taking food orders from hungry locals who have been forced to eat bland food. To fulfill these orders and snap villagers out of their food tube haze, you need to enter the spirit world and cook up what they've requested. This also involves taking that person's personal taste preferences into account, meaning you'll need to make variations of different dishes. "The ingredients fall into various flavor categories and sometimes folks will want a spicy version of a dish, or a sweet version of a dish," Ekanayake explains.

Cooking is the way to winning the hearts of different townsfolk, and through your delicious, hearty meals, you'll be reconnecting communities with their culture and history while also gaining reputation used for mech upgrades and abilities. You need to feed the masses, but also your team! Mixing and matching different ingredients lets you discover new dishes, and chomping these down in the throws of battle acts as buffs and healing items.

Lina has various corporate goons that control each village, an assortment of suited lawyers in mechs, mall cops, tech bros, and even other spirit mechs. The trailer shows one encounter with a giant crab-type mech with two huge pincers and thick metal legs. To attack you, it hulks its massive weight into a cartwheel and karate chops you with a giant claw. The fight animations look incredibly stylish. I love how brawler Samara uses a giant wok to slam into enemies and how spirit mage Amani unleashes a spectacular slap with her spatula. Goddess gets in on the fights too – a one-ton mech spinning and flipping with the lightness and grace of a gymnastic olympian.

Fights play out in classic turn-based fare, complete with character strengths, weaknesses, blocks, timed attacks, and powerful Ultimates. But a fun difference is Dosa Diva's flavor profiles. "Everything is themed around flavor profiles, including the attacks and enemy weaknesses," Ekanayake says. "There's Spicy, Savory, Sweet, Sour, or Salty. Exploiting these weaknesses comes from matching various flavor type attacks and skills each of the party members has, and will learn new skills and team Ultimates through the course of the game."

"There's a shield or plate next to each enemy and a number to show the times they need to be hit to break their shield/plate. Once the plate is broken, they are in a Stuffed state and won't attack the player for a number of turns. While in a Stuffed state, players can do twice the damage to those enemies."

This 'stuffed state' concept really tickles me. It's such a tongue-in-cheek idea, and one of the many reasons why Dosa Divas looks so fun, colorful and inviting. Everything here feels totally fresh: the thought and consideration given to the worldbuilding, the flavorful fights, and the spicy family drama that will hopefully resolve in a heartwarming reunion. I can't wait to get my hands on what Dosa Divas is dishing out.