Ideal Meal started out as a class project, and at first it had nothing to do with ramen. It was about making houses out of different combinations of shapes, and despite being a solid game none of us were passionate about it. Then, during a meeting, one of our teammates said something about making a game about picking up big dumplings with oversized chopsticks. It was a joke, but as we turned it over in our heads we realized how much we liked the concept. Thus, Ideal Meal was born. We continued refining and rebalancing the game after we turned it in for class, and decided to formally refine it through Finishing+Polishing so we could take it on a festival run and publish a limited print of the game.