A Taste of the Past
"How am I supposed to be whole without you?"
Meet Mei, a shy, Chinese-American high school student dealing with the sudden passing of her mother. After losing all of her mother's recipes, Mei embarks on a train...only to realize her ancestors have boarded as well. She must uncover her mother's recipe for traditional noodles while learning about self-love, grief, and healing.
Experience a story of growth through reliving precious moments with family and cooking. A Taste of the Past is a relatable and touching journey about holding those you love close.
- Complete cute cooking minigames. Gather ingredients from your ancestors to chop vegetables, fry noodles, and wrap soup dumplings.
- Experience a cozy, heartwarming tale. Write poetry, talk about boy troubles, and re-discover why you started painting.
- Stylized hand-drawn art.
- Original voice acting, writing, art, and music.
Follow us on Twitter to hear about our next game and support us on Ko-Fi! This game was originally made for Ludum Dare 48 — you can check out the jam version here.
*Our WebGL version does not support full-screen. In order to experience our game full-screen, please download the version for your computer!
Credits:
- Writing: Emily Pitcher Instagram, YouTube, Itch.io, emilypitcher8@gmail.com
- Art: Isabelle Szeto Twitter, Julia Lee Instagram, Jaimi Qiu Twitter Instagram, Caroline Wang Instagram
- Programmers: Richard Cheng Itch.io, Johnny Wan Itch.io
- UI: Caroline Wang Instagram
- Music/Sound: Caio Jiacomini Instagram Twitter Itch.io
- Voice Acting: Grace Lulu Fang Instagram, Mei Tam Instagram
- Special Thanks: Dennis Woo, Ray Hsiao Itch.io, Kelvin Nguyen
Contact: sonderingstudio@gmail.com
Download
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Comments
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Thank you for sharing this beautifully touching game! It was an emotionally-rich experience; I loved the overall structure, story, art style, and mini-games that "taught" the player-character how to cook their birthday dish, in-between sections where I learned more about the player-character's ancestors on the memory train. I teared up when it ultimately ended with a flashback of them cooking with their mom. Short but still very fulfilling! : )
this is so good
love the story and the art! am crying though
i really like the food and story, keep it up!!
Not a fan of "sentimentality" but this feels good.
I like the final image of the food.
It's been some time since release and I hope everyone involved is still as proud now as they were at release. I hope my review (and this comment) are not awkward. I'm just always a sucker for these sorts of reflections on family and heritage.
Perhaps this is an annoying question to ask about Chinese-American media, but was Emily or anyone else on the staff inspired by Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club? If not, I would highly recommend reading it. I've heard mixed reviews on the movie adaptation though.
i cried.
this is a beautiful game. <3
What a lovely game.
The art is lovely, but my favorit detail is her dead familys text appearing with a pen sound effect while her text effect appears with a typing sound effect.
thank you!
Dear goodness, this made me genuinely cry.
thank you <3
This was a beautiful experience. The lovely art, touching dialogue, calming music/audio, and poignant concept all blended perfectly. As an Asian person living in a Western country, it was also wonderful to see a portrayal of that blend of culture and heritage.
Thank you!
I lost my nana in 2015. She was more of a mom to me than my own mother, who I do not speak to. My nana was my world and I miss her every day. This game made me cry, but not all tears are bad. There are so many things I don't know about my nana, so many things I didn't ask or learn because I was in my early 20s, selfish, and self-centered. I thought about her today because of some old Facebook posts and to come across this game when I miss her like this... Thank you.
Many parts of A Taste of the Past were inspired by my grandma, who is more of a mom to me than my own mother too. Thank you for your kind words <3
I lived outside my country in Texas for a while but I can understand a bit of the scenes added to this little visual novel commenting on the joy of finding a store that sells products similar to those sold at home and a disconnection because of what was around and cultural differences, even though I didn't spend a lot of time growing up in an environment different from that of the family is a topic that I consider interesting and I can at least slightly empathize with.
On the other hand I have always been curious about Chinese culture even though my only experiences have been small visits to the Chinese-American, but I really appreciate games like these that serve as small windows into things that I cannot see directly from my small part of the world .
Without a doubt, a game that you should try and I'm glad that they polished minigames, added subtitles and improved the drawings of the characters from the jam version, understandable details when you expand the development time to more than a couple of days.
thank you!
If crying in h mart were a game and about being chinese american
Aww, thank you!
Hey, are u a New Order fan?
I've seen them in concert. - Emily
OMG LUCKY
Thank you for this beautiful game!
If you want, you can check my full game playthrough here:
this game made me very emotional and made me appreciate my mom more and I wanted to hug her but she's outside rn, 10/10 almost made me cry
thank you!
*cries in knowing the fact my farmor tries to pass on her culture*
I just wanted to say thank you so much for creating such a beautiful game! The artwork was stunning and the writing felt so realistic. I couldn't tell if it was based on a true story or just excellent writing! Decided to record this a while back and I was completely swept up in the experience.
thank you! <3
this too realistic,it like real life,fuiyoh,the train stuff aint realistic but ok,same goes to the train bell cuz that aint how a bell sounds like,but overall this is pretty asian and chinese,im asian,btw what noodles are the game based on?
Beautiful game and cute mini-games! Congrats to the team!
Had to ask my parents to translate the Chinese characters after my Let's Play & Narrate stream...and I enjoyed myself too much whilst narrating the puppy.
How cute, thanks so much for playing our game!
It was very beautifull!
Thank you!
I keep playing this game over and over its just so pretty!
Thank you!
Hi! I've run into a bug in the game where it will not allow me to progress pass the washing hands mini-game. No matter how long I click and hold and allow the bar to fill up, the mini-game never completes. I've also tried downloading the game on steam and itch, as well as trying to play it in the browser but I still got stuck at the washing hands mini-game.
You're only supposed to wash your hands up to the black line!
Yes, I know that. I always allow the bar to pass the black line and I’ll continue to hold but I’m still stuck as the mini-game never completes.
It is not supposed to pass the black line. You let go at the black line.
The game is so nice! The minigames are well-made and the story is bittersweet. <3
Aw thank you!
very sweet, the minigames were incorporated well and were very effective for how simple they were
even though i havent had the same experiences the writing made me emotional u_u
Thank you!
i'm not a person to cry at games but this one really got me
Thank you :)
ok, you got me, i'm crying TT
this game served as a cute little reminder to just hug the people you love extra tight... the writing, art, and voice acting were all so beautiful and emotional. great job on this game!
as someone who also dealt with the loss of a parent at a young age like mei, a lot of the things she said resonated with me. it was kind of like, "wow, it's not just me that thinks that?" haha, and so it was both rly relatable and comforting.
p.s. the little minigames were so cute, too!
Thank you so much!