Developed by Singaporean studio General Interactive,The Diner at the End of the Galaxydraws on a wide array of influences, but it makes a point to shine a spotlight on pieces ofSoutheast Asian culturethrough its lore and worldbuilding.
Cozy games make an excellent vehicle for exploring various cultural influences, as illustrated by theJapanese-influencedMineko’s Night Market. The tone of a more relaxing game allows symbols and ideas from various cultures to be spotlighted, and that’s as true for the futuristic, faraway setting ofDineras it is of a cat-loving night market. That’s important, especially when it can be too easy to use words or names and call that cultural representation, explained General Interactive’s founder Mark Fillon in a recent interview with Game Rant.
Fillon called that kind of name-based inspiration a trap that other games can fall into, where inspirations are as shallow as they come, butDiner at the End of the Galaxyintentionally avoids that.
We took inspiration from Southeast Asian history and heritage and infused it into our lore. Sometimes, names of places, names of people, and names of civilizations will be based on Southeast Asian culture … I think there’s a tendency to fall into this trap of tapping into a culture as an inspiration in the narrative only for it to be at a superficial level, right? ForDiner at the End of the Galaxy, the lore behind certain civilizations mirrors real historical events.
An example he gave was the species in the game known as the Pugita. The Pugita are a species ofCthulhu-like octopus creatures, and soDinerused the word for ‘octopus’ found in the Philippine language Tagalog for the species. That, he said, is the superficial level of cultural inspiration, but the Pugita also have a deeper connection to the history of various Southeast Asian cultures.
Earlier in their history, the Pugita were colonized by a capitalist foreign power. The colonialism narrativefound in 2019’sGreedfallwould’ve been easy to repeat, but instead,Dinerfollows Vietnamese history, with the Pugita throwing off their colonizers and seeking to spread the revolution to other oppressed peoples throughout the Pataliputra Galaxy. That story, Fillon explained, is echoed across Southeast Asia, both through the region and through history, grounding the game’s exploration of colonialism in the experiences of a particular global region.
That region is so influential throughout the game that the system that the diner–and therefore the bulk of the game’s narrative–is located in draws its name from the region. Nusantara is the archipelagic area of Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and parts of the Philippines.Dinershortens Nusantara to Nusa. This could be the superficial inspiration that Fillon warned against in a different game, but with the wayDinergrounds itself in the experiences of Southeast Asia the name Nusa comes off more as a way to tie together and encapsulate all those influences.
For Fillon, even the game’s relationship with the central theme of a restaurant simulator, food, is grounded in the Southeast Asian experience. While he knows themes of food in games have been on the rise industry-wide, even earningplayer-run food festivals inFinal Fantasy 14, it’s the way food is central to life in Southeast Asia that fuelsDiner at the End of the Galaxy.
I like to think that games that are being produced out of Asia have a certain emphasis on food because food and cuisine are such an important part of our culture. I’m sure it’s true in the West as well, but at least here in Asia, food dominates daily life. In fact, in many cultures here in Asia, it’s absolutely normal to greet someone by saying “Have you eaten?” It’s the central role that food plays in our lives that has found its way into our game design as well.
Connecting deeply with a sense of place has always been important for many indie games fromBroken Roads’deep connection with the Australian Wheatbelt toThaumaturgefocusing heavily on the history of Warsaw, but those games actually are set in those locations. WhatDiner at the End of the Galaxyaims for is more akin to the K.B. WagersIndranian Warnovels, recreating a human culture often underrepresented in fiction and doing so in the context of sci-fi.
Players can expect to be asked if they’ve eaten by way of greeting in early 2024 whenThe Diner at the End of the Galaxyenters early access.
The Diner at the End of the Galaxywill enter Early Access in Q1 2024 on Steam.
