PUBLISHED ONOctober 11, 2024 9:30 AM
For some, a final year project (FYP) may just be another assignment in school. For others, they put their heart and soul into making their ideas a reality.
Kopiforge co-founder Jay Wong wanted his FYP game Sedap! to be something unique and based on the food he grew up with, he shared in an interview with AsiaOne for the second season of My Gamer Life.
Jay, 25, co-founded Kopiforge with his university friends, Nadiyah Toi and Foo Jing Ting. Together, they have worked on Sedap! for over a year.
Sedap! is a co-op cooking and combat action-adventure game where players encounter creatures inspired by Southeast-Asian mythology and folklore in order to get ingredients to serve up Southeast-Asian inspired dishes.
They started work on the game in 2022 for their FYP, submitting their work towards the end of 2023. After taking a break, the trio continued to work on Sedap!, developing the game in earnest at the start of 2024.
"You don't see a lot of Southeast Asia in video games nowadays," Jay told AsiaOne.
Jing Ting, 26, was instrumental in helping Jay and Nadiyah with the programming of Sedap! in mid-2023.
After graduating in 2022, Jing Ting had found a job in engineering but eventually quit to work on Sedap! full time.
"I decided that I wanted to give a career in game development a proper try. I decided that I would probably be happier here and so far I do think that has been the case," Jing Ting told AsiaOne.
While the three of them may enjoy working on something they are passionate about, the stresses and responsibilities of running a company also plagues them.
Jay and Jing Ting pointed to financial limitations and increased workload as their biggest challenges.
"Being in an indie studio means that we ourselves have to look for our next round of funds and work on a game at the same time," Jay said.
"There's honestly a lot for us to do and timelines are pretty tight… so there's always a bit of risk and fear that the longer we take the more our development costs rise," Jing Ting added.
Nadiyah, 24, said: "For me, the biggest challenge would probably be marketing and trying to build hype for our game."
"We're a really small voice trying to get heard in a sea of much larger releases," she added.
Watch our video for the full interview with them.
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