GEORGE TOWN, Nov 9 — P’ng Yi Wei always enjoyed playing computer games, and his father used to tease him that he might be better off creating games.
That playful suggestion planted a seed, and today, the 35-year-old is the founder of award-winning independent game studio Kurechii.
P’ng studied multimedia design at The One Academy, where he often incorporated interactive game elements into his web design assignments.
“I tend to gamify my websites to make them more fun and interactive for users,” he said.
After graduating in 2009, P’ng and two friends transformed a college project into a full online flash game, also known as a browser game, which can be played using only a web browser.
They created an arcade game called Reachin’ Pichin, which they submitted to a Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) competition.
They won a RM50,000 grant from MDEC, which allowed them to further develop and publish the game.
Reachin’ Pichin went on to win the Best Casual Game award at the Kre8tif Awards in 2010.
“It was a success and I decided I wanted a career in game design and development, but at that time, it was hard to get jobs in game development in Malaysia,” he said, noting that local companies at that time often focused on designing assets for other larger game companies rather than full games.
“So, I decided to start out on my own, moved out, rented an apartment and started working on designing my own game alone,” he said.
His parents were initially unsupportive, doubting the viability of his chosen path, but P’ng was determined.
“Due to the success of our first arcade game, designing another game became sort of like my ‘skim cepat kaya’ (get rich quick scheme). I was thinking if I can come up with a game within a month for my college work, surely I can do it again and create more games,” he said.
He soon created King’s League, a simulation strategy game that launched in 2011.
“Within two weeks, the game was downloaded one million times,” he said.
The game’s popularity solidified P’ng’s commitment to his career.
“It amazed me, it made me believe that I can really commit to this.”
That same year, Kurechii was officially established and his two friends, who initially had day jobs, joined him full-time.
Their next game, King’s League: Odyssey, won multiple awards, including Best Action Game at Armor Games, Best Strategy Game at FGL Ninja Awards, Best Mobile Game at the 2014 Casual Connect Asia Indie Prize and Best Game at the 2014 Independent Games Festival China.
King’s League: Odyssey now has over eight million players worldwide.
However, Kurechii’s journey wasn’t without challenges.
“We went on to create more games, but not all were successes; there were failures too,” he said.
At one point, financial strain left him with a single-digit bank balance after paying staff salaries.
This led him to question his choice, wondering if he had made a mistake, but creating games was still a passion he believed he would return to, even if he gave up and pursued something else.
“It was challenging at times, especially when flash games were slowly being overtaken by computer games, and then mobile games,” he said.
As flash games declined in popularity, Kurechii adapted by embracing newer technologies and hiring technical talent to develop mobile games.
Today, Kurechii has a team of 24 employees and a portfolio of games that includes Chicky Duo, King’s League II, King’s League Odyssey, Postknight, Postknight 2 and Tiny Guardians.
Postknight and Tiny Guardians have won various international awards, including Best Indie Game and the Grand Prix of the International Mobile Gaming Awards SEA.
Currently, Postknight has over 16 million downloads, Postknight 2 has over two million and Tiny Guardians has over 500,000 downloads.
King’s League is a strategy management game, Postknight an adventure role-playing game (RPG) and Tiny Guardians a tower defence game.
Kurechii’s Prism world connects games like King’s League, Postknight and Tiny Guardians, incorporating Malaysian cultural elements in a subtle way.
Prism, inspired by Malaysia’s multicultural society, includes diverse characters with Malaysian-inspired costumes and foods, such as durians in Postknight and recently, limited time food specials local favourites like kopi-o, nasi lemak and bubur cha cha in Postknight 2.
“It was impressed on us in college to always incorporate Malaysian elements in our designs, so we wanted to do it subtly by including certain Malaysian elements in our games without it being too overwhelming,” P’ng said.
“We are now developing new games and these are also connected to the Prism world and we will continue to build on it,” he said.
He said their aim is to create memorable characters within the Prism world ecosystem to encourage players to keep downloading and playing their games.
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