Khana Khazana Express
Game Design · Illustration
An illustrated board game that transforms the shared rituals of food and travel on Indian Railways into a playful, collaborative experience.
Can a train compartment become a community through food?
From passing around homemade tiffins to chasing chai at station stops, food has a way of turning complete strangers into companions. Khana Khazana Express grew out of these memories, celebrating the warmth, chaos and community that make travelling by train in India such a uniquely shared experience.
Exploration
Drawing from memories, observations and existing search-and-find games, I explored how play could capture the social culture of Indian train journeys. This led to a modular board game that recreates the organised chaos of train compartments through regional food, vendors and shared moments, using familiar mechanics as a tool for cultural storytelling.
This project taught me that play can be a way of preserving culture, capturing not just how we travel, but the moments, rituals and people that make the journey memorable.