Are you a fan of I Love Taimei's Taiwanese fried chicken and bubble tea? Have you checked out Bobatopia, the game that features its menu? Read on to find out more about the ideas behind the creation of the game below!
Q: Please give the readers a short introduction about yourself and your organization. What is your organization about? What is your “origin” story?
I am Yadah Wang, Chief Marketing and Technology Officer from I Love Taimei. We are a Taiwanese fried chicken and bubble tea chain store in Singapore. Our passion lies in delivering the best of Taiwanese street food culture to the world, transforming street food with a contemporary twist and expanding its boundaries to bring comfort food to a whole new level.
Q: What is your organization’s work environment like? Any quirks or interesting stories you would like to share?
Our work environment is always exciting, we are constantly interacting with new and different groups of people daily. This stimulates new ideas for us and keeps us going at a fast and rhythmic, open and insightful pace.
Q: What inspires the creation of Bobatopia? What makes you decide to create the game?
Bobatopia was originally created because we wanted to create a way for our consumers to indulge in comfort food and have fun at the same time. We came up with the idea of creating a board game as it gathers family members and friends together and is also a perfect condition for enjoying good food altogether!
Q: Manufacturing and quality control is often a challenge many creators face, especially when they are producing the goods abroad. We understand that you decided to manufacture your games in Taiwan. Why did you decide to manufacture there?
I Love Taimei has always sourced many of our ingredients from Taiwan and directly import them to Singapore. Thus we keep contacts with many personnels from Taiwan who helped us in our manufacturing needs. Our illustrator for Bobatopia, Jay Wu, is also from Taiwan and he assists us in the supervision of production of Bobatopia in Taiwan directly. This helped us greatly and allows us to have a smooth production process through out.
Q: Shipping and logistics are big challenges that many creators stumble over. What are some of your challenges you faced and how you over-come them?
I Love Taimei has 13 operating outlets to date and covers an extensive area over Singapore. We have established our logistics to be able to cater for island wide coverage, making it easier for us to tap onto our existing logistic systems to distribute our resources. This helps us to overcome the logistics issue when we launched Bobatopia.
Q: The artwork for Bobatopia is very unique with the ingredients doing sorts of fun activities. How did you come up with that inspiration and what is the feedback from the consumers about the artwork?
Our love for Taiwan’s street food culture inspired us to create illustrations that feature our very own menu items come alive and as if living out the Taiwanese culture. You can spot items like Extra Crispy Chicken to even the toppings added for bubble teas like pearls and aiyu jelly. We also incorporated Taiwanese elements such as the iconic Taipei 101, night markets and even references to the Taiwanese movie “Initial D” to our menu item Tofu Fries.
Bobatopia’s characters are now part of our brand image and we have customised our packaging and store fronts to feature them. Our customers have given positive reviews with the new image and shared with us on various platforms like their instagram stories, how the characters on the packaging are cute and well-liked.
Q: How does your organization handle marketing for your brand and your services?
We enjoy interaction with our customers and try to gear our marketing strategies to be interactive in nature so that we are always able to connect with them constantly. With Bobatopia, we are also able to attract young and youthful audiences to also experience the traditional Taiwanese street food culture.
Q: What is the best part you like about the game?
We love that it incorporates every aspect of I Love Taimei, including our menu items, topping choice, flavour choices and outlet locations. Perhaps by the end of the game, players will be so familiar with our menu that they can make an order without even looking at the menu list! We also love that it also carries very detailed illustrations of the characters that have a fun personality and make them come to life through interesting scenarios illustrated in the cards.
Q: Where can your game be found?
You can check these at any of our outlets or via the Singapore Boardgame Design website or Singapore Boardgame Design Shopee.