Good Pizza, Great Pizza’s artist talks toppings, tasty treats, and thirst traps

As Good Coffee, Great Coffee passes nine million downloads within one month of release, and with Good Pizza, Great Pizza having over 300 million downloads in total, artist Weiling Peng must be feeling pretty good about her efforts. She’s the sole artist behind the two games, and we got the chance to ask her some burning questions of our own, and from the communities that love the games.

Good Pizza, Great Pizza, by TapBlaze, focuses on running a pizza shop and making meals to fit customers’ needs. You can find it on Nintendo Switch, mobile, and Steam platforms. There’s now a sort-of sequel, Good Coffee, Great Coffee, available on iOS and Android that has you running a delectable café.

We collected some tasty questions from the Good Pizza and Good Coffee Reddit pages to involve the community, as well as adding some of our own. Without further ado, here’s a look into the creative mind of Weiling and her thoughts on the creepy baby, pizza toppings, and more.

Pocket Tactics: What’s your favorite thing about either (or both!) games?

Weiling Peng: When I joined Good Pizza, Great Pizza, it was already a long-running game with a well-established art style. My role has been to build on that foundation, creating new content while staying true to the original look and feel. One of my favorite parts is designing seasonal decorations, especially adding little interactive surprises and seeing players notice them.

With Good Coffee, Great Coffee, I had more creative freedom. Since it’s a sequel, we kept the overall vibe but introduced upgrades, like full-body character designs and customers finally sitting at tables! I know that’s something players have wanted in GPGP for a long time, but updating all the existing characters and furniture would be a huge task. So I’m really happy we could make it happen in GCGC from the start.

What inspired Good Pizza, Great Pizza?

Good Pizza, Great Pizza was inspired by our studio founder Anthony Lai’s personal love for pizza and his childhood experience of hanging out at pizza shops in New York City. He wanted to capture the joy, challenges, and small moments of running a pizzeria in a way that feels cozy, fun, and approachable. In fact, Good Pizza, Great Pizza was the third pizza game our studio developed – proof that the third time really is the charm.

With Good Coffee, Great Coffee, we wanted to carry that same spirit forward, but open up even more possibilities. Coffee naturally invites a different kind of experience – it’s not just about speed, but also creativity and connection. It gave us the chance to introduce more layers of interaction, like a wider variety of ingredients, more complex machines, and more personal moments with customers. Our goal was to build a world where players feel like they’re not just serving orders, but creating small, meaningful experiences with every order.

How do you decide the color palette to use in each game?

We have an art direction guide for both GPGP and GCGC. For GPGP, we use a warm, earthy-toned palette that feels cozy and appetizing. We also follow rules for brush strokes, line weight, and color to keep characters and decorations consistent in that cute but slightly quirky style.

In GCGC, we kept it similar but adjusted the tones to reflect a calm morning vibe – lighter, more muted colors to match the coffee shop feel.

How do you balance realism with the game’s aesthetic when designing ingredients?

Inspiration always starts from real life – I look at how toppings actually look, how they’re cut, and how they sit on a pizza. But I always try to take it a step beyond just reality, especially when it comes to making things visually appealing in the game.

For regular toppings, we aim to keep them recognizable, appetizing, and true to life – since they’re part of the core gameplay, players need to identify them quickly at a glance. But with topping skins, that’s where we can really have fun! They can take on all kinds of shapes – flowers, animals, anything we can imagine. We push the visuals as far as we want, as long as they’re still readable and feel playful and satisfying in the game.

How do you create the simple but fun designs? This goes for characters and environments, too.

We try to keep designs simple but expressive – just enough detail to show personality and identity without overwhelming the screen. I think of it like capturing the essence of a character or object. It’s okay to leave some blank space – what you don’t draw can be just as powerful.

Is there a specific way you decide which toppings to add to the games?

Topping decisions and story writing usually happen side by side – we think about what fits the gameplay, but also what makes sense for the chapter’s story. We tend to pick toppings that are underrepresented in current categories, are recognizable globally (sorry, Italians!), or have some connection to the narrative, especially in the main chapters.

From the art side, I always offer input during the decision process to make sure the toppings work visually. They should feel appetizing, readable, and fun when placed on a pizza – so I make sure whatever we choose looks good in-game, matches the overall vibe, and has the potential to inspire creative topping skins later on.

Where do you get inspiration for character designs?

Our writer usually starts with a story draft and character description, and then I bring the characters to life visually. I draw a lot of inspiration from real people – friends, people I see in restaurants or on the street, and even myself sometimes.

Our office is located on a busy street lined with restaurants, so we’re constantly surrounded by interesting characters. One of our in-game mailmen was actually inspired by someone who used to stop by our building regularly. We love creating diverse and relatable characters that reflect the real world, while still keeping things stylized, charming, and fun.

Who is your favorite character you’ve created?

I’d say Octavia and Cicero. I love designing characters who have layers – ones that hint at a story or inner complexity. They’re the kind of characters who leave you wanting to know more.

It appears that people thirst over characters in the games – were you aware of this, and how do you feel about it?

Oh yes, we definitely see it – and honestly, I love it. It’s kind of the best feeling when players are emotionally invested (or very thirstily invested) in characters you helped bring to life. For April Fools this year, we even released a fake dating sim mockup because the community had been so into certain characters. It was a lot of fun.

How come the baby can order coffee?

Isn’t it just the perfect touch of weird in an otherwise cozy game? We never wanted the world to be too realistic. It’s a game! Anything can happen.

Do you have any other projects you’re working on right now?

Right now, we are focused on GPGP Chapter 6 and the GCGC new event. Our team is really small – just 13 people – so our priority is to keep both games alive and full of new content.

Will there be more chapters like Good Pizza, Great Pizza’s Chapter 5 that introduce new gameplay elements to Good Coffee, Great Coffee?

Yes! Just like in GPGP, new mechanics in GCGC will continue to roll out through seasonal events and main chapters – that’s something we plan to keep consistent. Gameplay-wise, coffee gives us a lot of room to explore: different beans, ingredients, more complex kitchen machines, and even the train station, which may eventually open up the world map or hint at a bigger connection between the GPGP and GCGC universe. There’s a lot of potential, and we’re excited to keep building on it.

Related to that, is there DLC in the works for GCGC? Will Good Coffee, Great Coffee come to Steam?

New events and story chapters for the mobile version are definitely in the works – we’re always adding more cozy content for players to enjoy! As for Steam, we’re planning to bring Good Coffee, Great Coffee to PC once the mobile version is more settled. It’ll be a proper adaptation for the platform, not just a direct port, so we want to make sure everything feels right before launch!

Is there potential for a sequel to either GPGP or GCGC?

That’s something for the future. But personally, I’d love to expand the “Good, Great Universe.”

Here are some lovely comments from the subreddit, too, which go to show how wholesome the community is, and how much fans appreciate the art and artist:

Ask “Do you know we appreciate you?” (Sent in by animitztaeret)

That means a lot. I honestly get creative energy from reading comments and seeing fan art – it makes everything feel worthwhile. Thank you so much for supporting the game!

It makes me incredibly happy when characters show up in seasonal or themed attire with cute little details, I love it so much. No questions, just this comment (Sent in by Racoonstepmother)

I’m so happy you noticed that! We add those little details to create a stronger festive feeling and to surprise players during their day-to-day pizza making. It’s kind of like a visual Easter egg – something small, but meant to spark joy and make the experience feel fresh. In one recent Pizza Pass, I gave George and Ella matching flower headdresses to hint at their father-daughter relationship. Seeing players pick up on it – and even make fan art – totally made my day.

Well, there you have it – insights into the pizzas and pizzazz of GPGP, and the cute caffeine-filled care that goes into GCGC. A big thank you to Weiling for her time and to the Reddit communities for their thoughts.

If you haven’t tried either of the cooking games, we highly recommend them as exquisite indie game experiences – plus, they both look excellent on even the best budget gaming phones out there.