GEORGE TOWN, July 2 — When Twilight Foundry Games founder William Chong began exploring his Peranakan heritage, it inspired him to preserve local culture and traditions through a video game.

He said it was unfortunate that many millennials, as well as those from Generation Z and Generation Alpha, knew little about Malaysia’s rich cultural heritage.

Combining his passion for local culture with his love for traditional kuih, Chong created Kooeh: A Timeless Delight, a cosy restaurant management game released last month.

“The game was inspired by our heritage, our food, and the stories that live in both of them,” Chong said at a press conference with Penang executive councillor Zairil Khir Johari during the game’s launch.

He said kuih in Southeast Asia was more than just food, as it carried memories, traditions and a sense of community.

“Through our game, we wanted to turn the cultural richness into an interactive experience that players can enjoy, understand, and remember,” he said.

As an independent studio, Chong said the team faced the challenge of transforming a culturally rooted concept into a polished commercial product while working with limited resources and tight deadlines.

“We believe that the story mattered, and we believe Malaysian creativity deserves a larger stage,” he said.

Chong said the studio comprises just seven people and emphasised that the game was created entirely by humans.

“Every illustration, every animation, every line of writing of the story and the dialogues, every design decision, the gameplay, the cultural detail in the game was created by our team of humans,” he said.

He added that the game’s illustrator, Chini Choong, is a talented one-handed artist based in the Klang Valley who completed all the artwork using her right hand.

“So, I’m proud to say this really clearly: Kooeh is made entirely by humans, for humans,” he said.

While AI may shape the tools of the future, Chong said culture, emotions, memories and storytelling would always come from people.

“We are also especially proud that this marks a meaningful step for Penang and for Malaysia’s growing creative industry,” he said.

He hopes the game’s launch sends a message that world-class games can be made in Penang by local talent, based on local stories and for a global audience.

In Kooeh: A Timeless Delight, players manage a kopitiam in an alternate world, serving traditional Malaysian kuih and drinks to animal customers inspired by Southeast Asia’s endangered wildlife.

Rather than centring the game on internationally recognised Malaysian dishes, Chong said the team deliberately chose to spotlight kuih.

“We felt like, ‘Hey, people aren’t talking about kuih.’ At the same time, I like kuih. I specifically like dodol, that’s why I put it inside there,” he said.

“We realised there was a lot of stories and communities tied behind those. Each of the kuih has a story,” he added.

Players can prepare 26 menu items, including dodol, kuih lapis, ondeh-ondeh and vadai, alongside drinks such as sirap bandung, teh tarik and kopi O.

“You run a kopitiam in an alternate world. That’s why you serve customers that are animals,” Chong explained.

He said the animal characters were deliberately chosen to highlight endangered species from the region, including tapirs, tigers, elephants, crocodiles, hornbills and water buffaloes.

Development of Kooeh took more than three years.

“Eventually the last two years were accelerated because we received funding from Microsoft’s Xbox Grant and Cradle’s CIP Spark,” Chong said.

“We didn’t need to do outsource jobs to generate cash flow, so that’s where we got to do it faster,” he added.

Meanwhile, Zairil said Kooeh is Penang’s first commercially developed video game to launch internationally on both Steam and Microsoft Xbox, following its release on June 17.

“While we always think of Penang as just a tech manufacturing hub, this shows that our digital content on the creativity side is also doing well,” he said.

“I hope that this will inspire other would-be game designers from Penang,” he added.

Kooeh: A Timeless Delight is currently available in English on Steam and Xbox, with Indonesian and Brazilian Portuguese language support planned depending on player demand.

It retails at US$10.99, with a 20 per cent discount for players in Southeast Asia.