Tondo

Inspiration

I grew up in Cameroon, where cooking is never just cooking. It is rhythm. It is community. It is the sound of Koki being pounded in a shared courtyard, the smell of Ndolé drawing people together from across the neighbourhood. Food in Cameroon is a language — and I noticed that no mobile game had ever tried to speak it. Most cooking games treat culture as a skin. Change the flag, change the menu, keep the same mechanic. That always bothered me. When I thought about what a game built around genuine cultural identity would feel like — one where Italy teaches you speed through your fingertips, Japan teaches you patience through a swipe, and Cameroon teaches you rhythm through a beat — Tondo became inevitable. The other piece was Nana Rosé. I wanted a story about a woman who traveled the world through food, left pieces of herself in every kitchen she touched, and never finished the journey. Players inherit her passport and complete what she started. That idea — of continuing something left unfinished by someone you love — felt personal in a way I didn't expect.

What it does

Tondo is a mobile Simulation & Management game where the player inherits their grandmother's travel passport — stamped across 12 countries, with 3 pages missing. You travel the world, cook authentic dishes using culturally specific mechanics, earn the trust of local communities, and slowly piece together the mystery of what Nana Rosé was searching for — and what the word Tondo means. Every country changes how cooking physically works. Italy is drag-and-drop speed. Japan is precision swipe cuts where knife angle matters. Cameroon is rhythmic tap-pounding — match the beat or spoil the dish. The mechanic is the culture. Players don't just visit new countries. They feel them through their hands. Progress is tracked through a living Treasure Museum, a handwritten Journal that updates after every round, a World Passport, and a growing network of Mentor Chefs who teach transferable techniques before a final duel. Five retention systems — mastery, collection, discovery, progression, and mystery — run simultaneously in every session.

How we built it

Tondo was designed as a full pre-production package for the Meta Horizon Creator Competition. The four artifacts — Game Design Document, Player Journey Map, Visual Concept Package, and Production Plan — were developed iteratively over two weeks. The visual identity was built around one constraint: every screen should feel like something Nana Rosé would have touched. Aged paper textures, handwritten fonts, passport cream backgrounds, vintage gold rewards. The UI mockups — kitchen gameplay screen, Nana's Journal, Treasures & Museum, World Map, and Passport — were designed for portrait mobile and tested for readability at a glance. The game design was built around a single thesis: most cooking games change the restaurant. Tondo changes the kitchen. Every system — reputation engine, VIP customers, treasure drops, journal unlocks, museum wings, mentor duels — feeds back into that thesis.

Challenges we ran into

The hardest design challenge was scope. Tondo has nine countries, fifteen in the full narrative arc, a museum with 120 treasures, and a mystery that spans an entire journey. Making it feel large while keeping the MVP ruthlessly small required constant discipline. The Production Plan went through several iterations before the answer became clear: one country. Italy only. Prove the mechanic works before building the world. The other challenge was cultural authenticity. Designing Cameroonian mechanics meant thinking carefully about what rhythm actually means in the context of Koki and Ndolé preparation — not just adding a tap minigame, but making the gesture feel true to the communal act of cooking. The same question applied to Japanese knife technique and French plating culture. The mechanic had to earn its cultural context.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The thing I am most proud of is that Tondo does not feel like a cooking game that added a story. It feels like a story that happens to be a cooking game. The mystery of Nana Rosé is woven into the progression loop itself — not delivered through cutscenes, not locked behind a paywall, not optional. Every treasure has a memory. Every journal page shifts the mystery. Every mentor chef adds a piece of her past. The Cameroon chapter in particular — where a letter surfaces with one word circled in red ink, and the player forms their first real theory about what Tondo means — is the emotional midpoint I am most proud of designing. I am also proud that the game genuinely represents Cameroon as a full cultural identity, not a backdrop. The Bamenda Bell. The community kitchen. The rhythmic pounding mechanic. Cameroon is not a level. It is a world.

What we learned

Building Tondo taught me that the strongest game designs are not the ones with the most systems — they are the ones where every system serves the same feeling. Everything in Tondo asks: does this feel like something Nana Rosé would have touched? That single question made every design decision easier. I also learned that representing your own culture in a game is both the most natural and the most demanding creative act. It is natural because you know it from the inside. It is demanding because you owe it accuracy, not just affection.

What's next for Tondo

The full vision spans 15 countries along Nana Rosé's original route — Italy, Japan, Cameroon, France, Morocco, Mexico, India, Brazil, and beyond — with each country introducing a new physical cooking mechanic and a new chapter of her mystery. The word Tondo is never defined within the game. Players build their own understanding through the experiences they have, the people they meet, and the memories they uncover. The final journal entry — written from home — is the last thing players see.

After that, the journey becomes theirs.

Built With

• docx
• openai
• word