by Mehari Woldegebrel Gelaw
Kaldi is a 3-lane endless-runner that retells the story of how coffee began — through the eyes of the young Ethiopian goatherd whose goats' strange energy after eating red berries led to history's first cup. Rather than a generic telling, the game is grounded in real geography: Kaldi's journey unfolds through the misty afromontane cloud forest of Kaffa, near Bonga in southern Ethiopia — the actual region the legend and the word "coffee" itself are traced to. Players guide Kaldi through three levels of rising difficulty, switching lanes, jumping, and ducking past forest obstacles while gathering wild coffee cherries growing on roadside bushes, before a final misty waterfall crossing leads to a hermitage where monks first roast the mysterious berries. Built entirely in Dala Studio — from core mechanics to level design, narrative story panels, and UI/UX polish — Kaldi is envisioned as the first entry in a planned "Ethiopian Legends" game series, each exploring a different piece of the continent's folklore.