The Indie Informer

I was shocked at the response Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 evoked when it launched earlier this year. It’s an excellent RPG, but as it broke into the mainstream, many echoed the sentiment that it had “saved turn-based games.” Expedition 33 is great, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that turn-based Japanese-inspired RPGs with real-time combat elements, flashy UI, and well-written characters have always been here; some people just haven’t been paying attention to the indie space.

Well, it’s time to pay attention. Dosa Divas, the next game coming from Thirsty Suitors developer Outerloop Games, is a turn-based Japanese-inspired RPG with real-time combat elements, flashy UI, and well-written characters. It’s going to be one of the indies to keep an eye on as it gears up for release in 2026.

I love trying new foods. There’s plenty to appreciate about cultures different from mine, but one of the things that really intrigues me is what people sit down to eat come mealtime. Dosa Divas reintroduced me to dosas, a staple of southern Indian cuisine that I would liken to a type of savory pancake. The game goes all in on its culture, something I always appreciate, while telling a universally relatable story about complicated family dynamics and the joy of sharing good food.

Dosa Divas is about liberating a techno-future-esque world by reintroducing home-cooked meals to people who’ve grown hollow from exclusively eating fast food made by an evil corporation run by the protagonist’s younger sister. LinaMeals’ goons are everywhere, and the player needs to fight them off using their food-based powers (Dosa Divas doesn’t use the traditional elemental magical attacks, instead, opting to use elements like “savory”, “salty”, and “spicy”). The slice of turn-based combat I got to try at Summer Game Fest was relatively simple but satisfying to get a hold of and master since it incorporates real-time elements to deal more damage and negate incoming attacks. It’s not the most complicated system in the world, but the appealing art style and flashy UI elements make Dosa Diva’s combat feel like a symphony of visuals.

Those appealing visual elements don’t just start and stop with combat, however, since the protagonist can travel to the Dosa Dimension – a mind palace where they can cook dosas to order for the townspeople in desperate need of something cooked with love. The Dosa Dimension is a visually striking representation of what it can feel like to cook a meal when the stakes are high: a dramatic red shrine where ingredients aren’t kept in plastic mise en place; instead, they sit on stone risers inside ceramic bowls. The cooking is done using giant utensils and pans the size of truck wheels. It’s dramatic, but the shift in tone from the main world feels self-aware while also conveying some of the subtext of the story with the way Dosa Divas reveres the tradition of making home-cooked meals.

The cooking sections introduce a handful of Cooking Mama-esque mini-games where your performance impacts how useful the dosas you make will be, since they pull double duty as important quest items and stand-ins for the potions and elixirs you’d find in other RPGs. I was pretty terrible at the cooking sections of the game since they require quick reflexes that I wasn’t ready for, however, the vibe I got from the mini-games was that you’re not meant to master them right at the start of the game, you’re supposed to get better with practice and time.

One of the elements of Dosa Divas that my time with the demo didn’t explore is its themes surrounding death and dying, or maybe something closer to simply letting go of a relationship that doesn’t serve you anymore. One of the tag lines for the game is “One last meal,” which feels like the game is going to be diving into something a little heavier at some point. The way the story was presented to me seems like those themes will have something to do with the family drama central to the story, but I wasn’t able to get much of an idea of how that will play into the game as it goes. Luckily, Outerloop Games has proven to be gifted at telling nuanced, relatable stories with Thirsty Suitors and Falcon Age. Based on the limited view I saw of the story of Dosa Divas, it seems like the studio is on track to deliver another well-told narrative.

Dosa Divas has charm. It has life behind its eyes and a likable cast with messy backstories that ride around the world on what looks like a junkyard transformer. The story is intriguing, the combat is satisfying, and the cooking elements serve as a great lesson in cuisine taught over the course of a handful of easy-to-learn, hard-to-master mini-games. After my session with the game at Play Days, Dosa Divas went from something peripherally on my radar to a game whose Steam page I’ll be checking weekly as I wait for Outerloop to announce its release date.