A video game to showcase Vietnamese cuisine

The Vietnamese New Year took place yesterday. An important celebration for the community of this country of which Charlotte Broccard is a part: she therefore created a video game around this event. The goal: to prepare a virtual meal for the Lunar New Year.

Create a mobile video game to go in search of her origins: Charlotte Broccard is half Swiss on her father’s side, half Vietnamese on her mother’s side. She wants to highlight this culture: “I wanted to go digging on the Vietnamese side, and I realized that it was mainly in the kitchen that it happened, at least in my family. So I went to find what I knew about Vietnam, the recipes, and then I wanted to share them through this video game,” says the young woman, who works as a game designer and illustrator. The goal of the game: to prepare a meal for the Vietnamese New Year. You have to wash the Chinese cabbage, grate the carrots, make the spring rolls… All this before the guests arrive. The difficulty of the game lies in the stopwatch: It only leaves a few minutes to complete the entire meal. So you have to be quick: “It’s above all an entertainment game: for fun, to let go, to laugh, there are a lot of surprises hidden in the game… But by playing, you also integrate certain knowledge” says Charlotte Broccard.

“When I go to my grandmother’s, I really feel in a very Vietnamese environment”

To create this game, the artist spent time with his grandmother. They went to Asian supermarkets to choose the ingredients, then they cooked together. In this way, Charlotte was able to learn recipes, but also discover the traditional utensils for their preparation. “When I go to my grandmother’s, I really feel in a very Vietnamese environment: the decorations are Vietnamese, the smells, everything we eat at her house is really typically Vietnamese. So it was in this environment that I immersed myself to create this game,” she explains.

Succeed in the game… to cook for real

The game is over in minutes, but players rarely win on the first try: it takes a bit of practice to finish the game. And once the meal is ready, a surprise awaits the apprentice cooks: “At the end, once the player has finished the game, he can discover the recipe book, to prepare the dishes for real” smiles the illustrator. The Têt game is available on AppStore and GooglePlay.