Press start for a cosy ride

Inspired by the 1990s Goa, Raahi is an upcoming sandbox style game which romanticises the beauty in an ordinary life

VINIKA VISWAMBHARAN

The upcoming slice of life sandbox style game ‘Raahi’, created by co-founders of Kalp Studio: Akshat Sinha, Mannat Jain, and Rishabh Raj, is set in Majili, a fictional coastal town inspired by 1990s Goa. Instead of combat, chaos or competition, players step into the sandals of an auto rickshaw driver named Sandy and spend their days ferrying passengers and simply soaking in the rhythm of a small town.

It is gentle by design. And that element comes from something deeply personal. “I’ve been living in Goa for a while,” says Sinha, who is the design and creative lead. “When you stay there long enough, you realise how different the pace of life is. It’s calm, warm, unhurried. We wanted a game that feels exactly like that. And Goa felt perfect for it.”

He describes the setting not as a calculated choice but an instinctive one. “Thematically it just made sense. The kind of gameplay we wanted, the kind of emotions we wanted players to feel, all of it fit naturally with Goa. It comes from my own lived experiences more than anything else.” Indeed, living between Bengaluru and Goa, Sinha often finds himself collecting references without even trying.

“I’m always taking pictures,” he says. “A balcony, a tiled roof, the way plants grow over a wall, a tiny shop sign. I keep sending these to the team and saying, look at this, we should have something like this in the game. Goa keeps giving us material.”

Raahi itself began with old friends coming back together. Sinha, Jain, and Raj met during their undergraduate days at Whistling Woods International in Mumbai, where they studied game design. After graduation, they drifted into different careers and countries. Sinha moved to the U.K. to teach and work in the industry. Raj worked as a programmer and consultant. Jain moved into data science at IIT Madras while continuing her interest in games and content creation. Eventually, they decided to reunite.

“We thought, why are we not making something together? We’ve always wanted to build our own game,” says Raj, who is the people and tech lead of the studio. That decision was shaped by a shared frustration with the current gaming landscape. “A lot of games today constantly push you,” he explains. “You’re fighting, racing, chasing rewards. It’s always about the next hit of dopamine. We wanted to go the other way and create something quieter. Something that shows beauty in ordinary life.”

Raahi falls into what they call the ‘slice of life’ genre, where the drama comes not from danger but from everyday interactions.

Jain, who is the operations and marketing lead and also handles narrative design, says the team was deliberate about choosing an ordinary protagonist. “In most games the hero is larger than life,” she says. “They’re powerful or aspirational. But Sandy is just a normal guy with simple dreams. That makes him more relatable. You see yourself in him.” She adds, “We want players to romanticise routine a little bit. Because routine can be beautiful too.”

The sandbox structure supports that philosophy. Players are given destinations but not dictated routes. Wandering is encouraged. “We tell you where to go, but not how to go,” says Sinha. “If you take a detour, you might find something interesting – a new character, a mini game, a small story. The town map can be viewed from a postcard graphic. That freedom is very important for us.”

The town is dotted with activities that reflect Goan life like making feni by crushing cashew fruit with your feet, pouring chai carefully into glasses, fishing by the lake, guiding boats from a lighthouse, and jamming with musicians in the hills. “These are not big heroic tasks,” says Raj. “They’re simple things people actually do. That’s what makes them meaningful.”

Jain says the team always saw Raahi as a way to carry a slice of India to a global audience. “Cosy games already have strong communities in the United States, Japan, South Korea and Brazil, and growing markets in China and Taiwan. We even found interest in places like Kazakhstan,” she says. For her, the genre answers a modern need. “Everything is built around instant dopamine, especially with social media. People want a break. We wanted Raahi to feel slower and softer.”

That is also precisely what made them choose to set in the 1990s, a time before smartphones and constant connectivity. “We really wanted that analogue feeling,” explains Raj. “Before the internet took over everything. People talked more, shared things physically. Life felt slower. We wanted to preserve that.” He describes Raahi as “a living archive”. “It’s like a time capsule of what a small coastal town felt like. We want players to feel like they’re visiting a memory.”

Music plays an intimate role in building those memories. Sinha has composed the original soundtrack himself, and the team plans to collaborate with Indie musicians. As players grow closer to characters, they receive their favourite songs as cassettes for the auto’s radio. “Back then you’d share a cassette with someone you cared about. It was personal. We wanted that same feeling in the game,” says Raj. “Every cassette feels like a friendship. It’s not just a reward, but a connection.”

The town of Majili is also populated with people who feel recognisable rather than dramatic. A chai seller, a PT teacher, a love interest who’s a vet, a police officer, a retiring town secretary, stray dogs and cats, shopkeepers, and neighbours. “We’re trying to capture the full demography of the place,” says Raj. “Different communities, different professions, different stories. When you drive around, you should feel like this is a real town.”

That attention to detail extends even to the town’s name. “Majili is fictional, but it’s rooted in Goa,” says Sinha. “I wanted it to sound like it naturally belongs there, like Siolim or Majorda, something you could actually hear locals say.” The team has even imagined the town’s history going back hundreds of years. “We thought about who settled here first, why they came, how the town grew. That history makes everything feel more believable,” says Sinha.

At game conventions like GamingCon Bharat, visitors queued at their modest booth. “We had almost 200 people test the game. People genuinely connected with it. It made us feel like we’re on the right track,” says Jain. They also presented their game at Norwich Games Festival in Norwich, England. Watching someone play quietly for 15 to 20 minutes without rushing, felt like a win for Sinha.“That’s when I know we’ve done something right.”

Raahi is still in development and will be out in 2027. But its intent is clear. As Raj puts it, “We just want people to slow down for a bit. To notice small things. If someone finishes the game and feels a little lighter, that’s enough for us.”