Interview with Yung from Spacepup Entertainment

lainecsy
Aug 7, 2015
8 min read

Thanks to Yung from Spacepup Entertainment. He is willing to take the time out of his busy schedule to answer any questions during the interview. His further insights and explanations on game were greatly appreciated.

Picture: Spacepup Entertainment

How many years have you been in industry? as a game designer/developer?

About 5 years. I started out in the industry as artist, game artist. Next condition I move on and I became a game designer then a project lead. Now I run my company (Spacepup Entertainment).

What is your favourite thing about the game industry?

Favourite thing about the game industry, I think 2 areas. One is the challenge, and the second thing about there is a lot of passion. So, you meet a lot of people with passionate. Then, you see the passion in other people also inspire yourself.

Let's say you go to a company or even you work for a game company. The position is not stable. There's chance the company may go down or (on the next year), it's very risky. So that's why when people so () in the game industry. You can see that either they are very hard-working or they really like the challenge. They really like the games. This is what I appreciate.

About how many toys & games have you had published?

My company Spacepup started up in one and a half year, so actually we develop games more for bigger production games. So far we only published one title called Cyberrunner Zero, it's in the Google Playstore. We actually are going to publish another game soon within one or two months. We will do announcement.

Which horror game you think is the best and Why?

I think my favourite the one that inspire me in the first place is Fatal Frame (1-3). Amnesia is a very interesting game because they have no combat, we don’t fight with the ghost. We actually run away and try to hide. That’s a very different kind of horror game. Fatal Frame is a little bit like fighting with the ghost. Half of the scary factors is the jump scares or the creepy parts. But when it comes to Amnesia, we also running away maybe not as exciting but also very scary when you are playing.

Tell No One comes with Window and Mac platforms and also support Oculus Rift. How do these inspire the core design of a new game idea in Tell No One?

VR is a very interesting topic. When we first started working on this project, from the start we already spotted the Oculus Rift at that time I think they only have only version 1. That was two years ago we got the first idea.

When we first saw the Oculus Rift, VR is going to be quite a big thing in the future, maybe not this year maybe after that. As a form of entertainment, you can see that even in solving a simple game the sense of feeling you are being in there is very strong. It will be extremely scary and it will be interesting to build it as well.We haven’t done any horror games, ourselves we also like horrors we like the challenge of tackling new game design and that.

When we came to VR, we will think firstly what the things that we can do with the Oculus Rift. You know with the VR goggle, how it changes the ways you play game. So, firstly you are wearing a goggle you can look around and now you can even has a tracking on where you head position is. So, things like become part of how it factors in designing a game, designing the way how information presented. Because now we play the horror game we use our mouse maybe hand or the controller, what Oculus Rift is good at it separate the controller from the view, so now I am wearing goggle I can look around but my character can still be facing at certain direction for doing things. So when to the puzzle for example, you have to solve the puzzle quickly but you also have to watch off maybe there is ghost or maybe there is something come and chase you. So, things like sound will play an important role here.

I can also play with a lot scarier because when you looking the thing disappear. I mean with mouse we also can do the same thing but the illusion is not there. It’s not that kind of stereoscopic view that is unable let us to fell afraid because we still see things on screen. That’s why we went with Oculus Rift. And then, we think how we want to innovate the way we use the Oculus Rift. For example, when you look around we still need to use the mouse, what we try to do is to reduce some of these works. So, it’s like when I turn to the left the camera itself or the character let’s say I turn to a certain position, the whole camera will start to rotate, so now I have more control on my character through my head, I look here more the character will turn here, I knock my head maybe as a “Yes”, so if I have dialogue for example with another character, I shake my head as a “No”.

What is the basic structure for developing a game?

Developing a game, that is a lot of area to be considered. Most important of all for a game is you have to build the foundation of code, the architecture of the game. Let’s say you are building a horror game you have to decide very early, you have to decide the UI, where is the camera or how is the look of the game, where would I see the player, and what would I see on the screen. You have already got a plan on it. You must think of your system function, what are the reusable mechanics. The reason is because, if you want to create everything, you don’t have enough time and resource for it. What you have is, you must how to reuse all the function as possible, to reduce the efforts of keep creating new things. When you create a lot of new things, you need a lot of time and cost for it. For example if you are building a new game, you must get ready, you must think of the UI, the mechanic. Then you must also think of the content, how is the content with a scale, scale means like how is the level one, when the play maybe around 30 minutes and 1 hour what is the player doing and how is the progress.

For certain type of games, let’s say horror game what’s important is that you must think a few level, what the player get, will the player get a lot new knowledge and new ability? And then what is the story, of cause foundation for a horror game is the story. So, it’s very important that when you do the horror game. First thing you must think is the story and split it up into the UI, into the code and so on.

So, after you have all this already then you can do the phasing, phasing means like when the player first play what the player do (feel), is it a very stressful activity, or very relax activity? When is it? Stressful activity can be maybe a very difficult gameplay or a very difficult choice that the player has to make.

What are the gaming engines you can use for developing games?

There are so many. If you just google a game engine, for bigger scale game is Unreal4 engine it’s free with the royalty, and there is Unity, which have the free version with everything inside already, if you want some additional bonus features you can get the paid version for Unity. Unity is good because they have a lot of plugins and tutorials. Other than that, you are working on 2D games you can try Gamemakers, Gamemakers also available for 3D but they do more on the 2D. Construction game engine, stencyl is a flash based game engine, RPGmaker and so on.

Where do you think the games industry will be in the next 5-10 years in local market?

In the next 5 years, local will definite see a lot more game companies. Government is very heavily pushing for games right now. There’s a lot of trends, there’s also a lot of workshop and also some good successful case coming out of Malaysia game developers. Overall is a positive look, there will more game companies coming out. Whether or not all these game companies will make it it’s hard to say at this moment. Even though the government is pushing, the international game industries market is merging I would say. It’s becoming more and more difficult for small companies to survive in a international industry. Nowadays, it’s like a cycle, every 10 years all the leader when they become successful they will become the biggest company today right now. They will start to eat up all the smaller companies, or they will eat up the entire market share. Because they got the money and resources to do that, they will be the one who are leading the industry also they will be the one who conquering the industry. Then, maybe along the way some new technologies and some new social or cultural shift come along and then things will change again.

We saw last time there’s a lot of console or PC games, and then suddenly Facebook comes along and change everything, people start playing Facebook games, a lot of companies become big because of Facebook games, and after that mobile came along, and then the game everything change again. All the big company last time were small companies become big companies. So, that’s where the industry stated now, we are at the phase this next 5 years where big company will become bigger and small company will become smaller. It may be a bit harder, because there is too much playing in game, a lot of people getting into the game industry. In Malaysia we are good because government pushing it, in the big scale is very difficult to beat, so you have to fight 3 times harder, because in Malaysia we are slower than the rest of the world. When Europe and US they have their game industry which were very big already and Malaysia we are still starting. In fact, we can say that this last 2 years game industry is growing. Fung Wan Online (Phoenix Games Studios), but even that all these companies just die out. Now that the mobile is coming out, that’s how those companies start to grow again and industry is starting to grow again. It looks more positive and more sustainable in order for the game companies to work.

If you were to give beginning game inventors/developers one bit of advice, what would it be?

Don’t stay comfortable with just one thing. If you stay comfortable you will definite get stuck I will say, It not for games, game industries is always evolving and changing. They change from PC to console and PC again, if you stay comfortable you will definitely left behind. Even now we have things like VR and AR, we have new way of input. Ten years ago you see PlayStation and Gameboy as a trend, last time you may see PC as a trend, now you see mobile as a trend. We don’t know how it will be in the future, maybe Virtual Reality, Augmented reality, Omni or limb motion. Who knows? One thing that is important, that is always keep learning. Don’t stay comfort with what you are now.