NEWSHow Weiling Peng Blends Realism and Cozy Art in Good Coffee, Great Coffee
June 3 2025, Published 1:33 a.m. ET
The heart of any game is found in its art. From charming character designs to a friendly user interface (UI) design, the game art sets the tone for the player’s experience. Game artists not only create visuals, but they also use them to establish a game’s identity. Weiling Peng, Lead Artist at indie game studio TapBlaze, has used this approach for the company’s most popular title, Good Pizza, Great Pizza. So when TapBlaze set out to create their follow-up title, Good Coffee, Great Coffee, Peng used the same inviting and playful artistic choices as a foundation. And when presented with the challenges of designing for the new game, she made innovative artistic choices specific to the coffee experience, blending realism with a cozy art aesthetic.
From Pizza to Coffee: A New Visual Challenge
When the TapBlaze team set out to apply their cozy game aesthetic to coffee, Peng led the way for the new game’s artistic vision. She began with the kitchen, where the core gameplay for Good Coffee, Great Coffee would take place. But translating the aesthetic from pizza to coffee wasn’t so straightforward. Initially, she used the same top-down view as in Good Pizza, Great Pizza. However, Peng noticed it obscured the view of the machines and drinks. So she shifted to athree-quarter perspective to better showcase coffee’s dynamic process.
“We experimented with over 20 different layout drafts,” says Peng, reflecting on the challenges. “Pizza has a relatively straightforward, linear flow, but coffee-making involves multiple machines and zones, each with its own function. My goal was to design the kitchen in a way that flowed naturally for the player. That meant changing the camera angle for a better view and placing the machines in a realistic order that still made sense for gameplay.” Peng was dedicated to making the user experience (UX) as friendly as possible to achieve the relaxing and cozy aesthetic TapBlaze is known for.
And to get it just right, Peng collaborated with professional baristas in Los Angeles. She immersed herself in the real-life cafe experience, learning the intricacies of brewing coffee to ensure the final kitchen design felt authentic and intuitive.
Turning Players Into Artists: Drink Visuals & Latte Art
After settling on the perfect kitchen layout, Peng focused on the drinks themselves. Whether it’s the colorful syrups, the steamed milk, or the various toppings, every visual element had to be realistic and playful. Peng wanted to bring each cup of coffee to life.
“I collaborated closely with our engineers to perfect the liquid mixing effects,” Peng explains. “We wanted to create an experience where the liquid swirls dynamically, making the drinks feel alive, without sacrificing the game’s cozy, stylized aesthetic.”
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Latte art is a core feature in Good Coffee, Great Coffee, born from Peng’s vision to encourage players to become artists. She suggested the team enroll in a barista training course to help bring this idea to life. This hands-on experience became one of the most collaborative and enjoyable parts of development, offering valuable insight into translating the joy of latte art into an engaging in-game mechanic.
“We brewed espresso and steamed milk, but our favorite part was learning how to skillfully pour the milk to create heart and tulip patterns on lattes,” she says. “After that, we wanted to give our players that same satisfying feeling of drawing on their lattes in-game.”
The result is a latte art mechanic that’s both intuitive and rewarding, where players are free to choose the size and shape of their milk pour with their hands acting as a paint brush. The mechanic turns every drink into a canvas, blending coffee-making with the joy of creative freedom, making each player feel like an artist in their own right.
A Successful Artistic Brew
Under Peng’s artistic direction, TapBlaze’s 2D games have evolved from simple restaurant simulators to cozy escapes where players enjoy the warmth and fun in her detailed work. She oversees multiple areas of development, including character design, background design, UI/UX design, in-game decorations, animations, and company merchandise. Peng sees her job as “pushing game art beyond the confines of just ‘assets for a game,’” which explains why her artistic style attracts millions of players worldwide and has harnessed a dedicated fanbase.
Good Coffee, Great Coffee became a global hit, reaching over 12 million downloads in its first month. Peng’s choice to achieve realism within a cozy aesthetic was integral to its success. Her work on Good Coffee, Great Coffee earned her NYX Game Awards titles in 2025 for Best Art Direction, Best Character Design, and the Grand Prizes in Simulation and Casual categories for Mobile Games.
Peng hopes to continue redefining the role of art in games and representing women in the industry. Her passion for Good Pizza, Great Pizza and Good Coffee, Great Coffee fuels her ambitions to expand TapBlaze’s transmedia presence and elevate cozy games as a genre. With dreams of eventually creating her own game, Peng aims to push the boundaries of 2D design. Her work signals a shift in the gaming industry, proving that games can be comforting escapes and profound artistic experiences.
