Creating and Evaluating "Making Beshbarmak": Games on Traditional Cuisine of Central Asia

This paper presents an exploratory evaluation of "Making Beshbarmak," a computer-based video game about food rituals in Central Asia, focusing on meat preparation and hosting around beshbarmak, a traditional dish of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The game guides players through preparing and serving the dish while introducing traditional design patterns, historical context, and Kazakh food terminology. The authors' central aim is to test whether such cultural heritage games can spark curiosity and support learning among audiences with little prior exposure to Central Asian culture, a group distinct from the diaspora communities for whom the game was first developed and tested.

The study used a playtesting design with ten English-speaking North American participants, each playing for roughly 20 to 30 minutes. Mixed-methods pre- and post-play surveys measured baseline cultural exposure, familiarity with Central Asian cuisine, recognition of key terms, and gameplay feedback, supplemented by qualitative observation and thematic analysis. Reported results indicate that participants showed increased interest in Central Asian culture and cuisine after playing, and praised the game's interactive preparation process, flashcards, imagery of items such as yurts and patterned textiles, and its calming, immersive audiovisual atmosphere.

The authors also situate the work within a broader gap in the games market, noting that only three Steam titles developed by Kazakh and Kyrgyz creators were available in early 2025, compared with a substantially larger number of East and South Asian food ritual games. They frame the project as a contribution to serious games research and to the representation of underrepresented cultural narratives. The authors explicitly caution that the small, exploratory sample limits generalizability, and they propose larger and more diverse studies, expanded interactive features, and assessments of long-term learning outcomes as future work.