„A spicy new indie RPG” Fight an evil corporation and reconnect the community through great food in Dosa Divas

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to play one of Summer Game Fest’s best RPGs. Thirsty Suitors. It stars two sisters traveling home with their spirit-mech, slowly but surely fighting off the corporate influence of their youngest sister, who is trying to control everyone through her fast-food empire. Fight off corporate goons in turn-based combat and cook some delicious dosas for the people you meet along the way. Dosa Divas is a game about community, food, family, and returning home.

Fight corporate power, build community, and cook some great meals in Dosa Divas

The two sisters, Samara and Amani, ride atop the spirit-mech, also known as Goddess, to explore the world between battles. In this overworld, there are various objects and stacks of boxes that you can walk through, giving a satisfying crunch and sending pieces of them flying. I had way too much fun with this simple mechanic. It reminded me of those toy commercials from my childhood, where kids had an inexplicable wall of plastic blue squares for their new toy to crash through and look awesome. Something about the colorful mech fits that vibe so well.

In of combat, Dosa Divas follows in the footsteps of Thirsty Suitors. It features a similar turn-based structure but introduces additional complexity in its timing blocks and strikes. This isn’t one of those RPGs where you can just put the controller down, press A every few minutes, and eventually break through. Combat is all about timing. Press A at the perfect moment and you’ll deal extra damage. Press A to block at the right moment, and you’ll take zero damage. But it’s also not as simple as just learning the timing of each enemy. During my half-hour demo, the same basic enemies continually changed their attack style. As I fought them, intently watching for the indicator that told me when to block, I soon realized that these enemies would often try to deceive me and throw me off, making it appear as though they were about to attack, to bait me into mistiming my block. The first few times this happened, my party was nearly knocked out from just a few full-strength attacks.

The enemy attack animations are so perfect for this. As soon as I feel like I have the most basic enemy figured out, the next attack, he slithers across the ground like a snake, completely throwing me off my timing. Even if it were the same, I would have been busy laughing at how unexpected and snake-like this man looked. The next level of enemy had an attack that tossed his briefcase at me. Then, later on, he did a whole juggling routine trying to fake me out as to when he would throw the briefcase. He would literally point up in the air, then point at me, and with an itchy trigger finger, sometimes my brain would misfire and press the button too early. These tactics are great gameplay, but also fit so well with these scummy corporate goons trying to trick me at every turn.

There are five flavor profiles, think salty, sweet, spicy, etc., and every enemy has a flavor craving. Use the proper skills or attacks to leave an opponent stuffed. Once stuffed, an opponent’s defenses are broken down, and they will be stunned, unable to attack for a short period. In each battle, you can use boost points to slightly change each character’s attack profile and deal some extra damage. Your party also has an ultimate meter that builds up every round, eventually culminating in a devastating team attack.

Related:„Orientation is like a scene from Indiana Jones” My time with the Escape Academy 2's Summer Game Fest demo

I know I’ve been spending a lot of time on the combat mechanics, but Dosa Divas is not all about fighting. In the demo, I encountered a small fishing town struggling with the evil corporation. They recently signed a bad deal with the company, which is now stealing all their fish right out of the water with some massive vacuum device. To put a stop to it, my party needed to track down some construction workers and provide them with an energizing meal.

Throughout the demo, I was grabbing ingredients from the world. Onions sticking up out of the ground, peppers growing on a small plant, even a fun fishing minigame added a few fish to my bag. The spirit-mech, Goddess, is designed to help craft the best dosas. Choose a primary ingredient and a few additional ones, then it’s a flurry of a few minigames. Time the twist of the pepper mill, chop the knife at the right moments, and prepare some other ingredients. Depending on how well you complete these minigames and what ingredients you select, you can get various levels of temporary bonuses.

Helping the fishing village, providing them great meals, and ridding the environment of annoying corporate ments helps build your reputation with the town. As your reputation improves, you unlock new skills and abilities in battle. In the demo, I was able to unlock an ability to deal massive damage by knocking a cooking pan back and forth between me and the enemy with well-timed button presses. And another skill that deals more damage the longer I hold down the button, but then has a sudden drop off in power past a certain point. I’m very curious to see what other skills and abilities can be unlocked in Dosa Divas.

A few other great details from my time with Dosa Divas: I encountered a dog in the overworld, and Goddess was able to pet it. At that point, it started following me around, but I'm not sure if it would have done that otherwise. There are unlockable skins for Goddess that look great to explore, but the original skin is just so iconic. I was also able to play my demo on the Steam Deck, which proved to me that this will be an excellent game for portable gaming devices and consoles.

I love the concept of Dosa Divas. It’s sharing a wholesome way to reconnect people with their culture and community through food, while also spreading an anti-corporate message. It’s a great way to highlight that these two themes are often inextricably linked. Samara and Amani are powerful sisters, but I can only imagine what their eventual confrontation with their corporate sister will be. I hope it all ends well, but I am here for the journey. I have complete faith that Dosa Divas will present a fascinating story entwining all these themes together.

But we will have to be patient to learn more. While we’ve known about Project Dosa for a little while, the title Dosa Divas was only revealed last week. There is no expectation for a release date this year, but I am hopeful that it will be early 2026. Dosa Divas is planned to launch on PC via Steam, but I hope to see it in other places as well. You can add it to your wishlist now!

• indie games
• RPG
• Summer Game Fest