Malaysian Game Development in 2022
Game Dev Hangout
Last week, Weyrdworks was a part of an industry event called Game Dev Hangout. This was a gathering for local game developers in the Klang Valley to network and get feedback about their games in development from their peers.
E-Sports Integrated, Spacerubix, Puchong
This was sponsored by the good people of the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) who worked with E-Sports Integrated (ESI) at Spacerubix to sponsor the venue and of course, coordinated with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Malaysian Chapter of which I currently lead in the country.
Mohan Low Director of Digital Creative Content at MDEC
Weyrdworks at GDH
Over 100 game developers from Malaysia gathered under one roof to exchange ideas and formed new connections. It was the first time after 2 years since the pandemic since the industry had a physical meet-up. While Weyrdworks is no stranger to Game Dev Hangout (since we created the event), for a number of devs on our team, this was a first.
Weyrdworks artists demonstrating Monster Nest
The team brought our current game in development, Monster Nest to the show (More on this game in a future post).
We can’t stress how important it is to have live play tests early and often. Other than the usual game bugs, the key takeaways from such play-testing sessions is the user experience, initial reactions, player behaviour and how the key theme or message of the game translates in the real world.
It’s also a great opportunity for the team to practice the game pitch as we have to briefly explain the game repeatedly throughout the event. This helps us refine our marketing message throughout development which is especially useful for a game that’s exploring a new concept or unknown genre which Weyrdworks is quite fond of doing.
Monster Nest is a diabolical eugenics game where you breed and battle abominations to protect your eggs
History of GDH
Besides being the co-founder and studio director of Weyrdworks, I also helm the Malaysian Chapter for the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) as the Chapter Coordinator. This is a voluntary effort, and a responsibility handed down to me by my predecessor Bazil Akmal Bidin who is now the Outreach & Training Manager at PlayStation Studios Malaysia.
One of my proudest contribution to the local scene has been setting up Game Dev Hangout (GDH) under the IGDA banner. GDH started as casual cafe hangouts back in 2016. Since then, we’ve consistently had gatherings every 2 months leading up to the start of the pandemic. There has also never been a hangout without a Weyrdworks game play-testing session.
Humble beginnings - Game Dev Hangout started as a small Starbucks gathering in 2016
Eventually, the community grew so large that we had to be kicked out of dal.komm Coffee. From then on, GDH had been hosted at universities, art schools, private schools, game studios and start-up incubators. During the pandemic, the community moved to a virtual hangout on Discord.
Kicked out - The game development community grew too big and rowdy for the cafe scene
Game Dev Hangout continues to be an important part of the games development industry in Malaysia. The event has helped connect talent to game studios, facilitated peer-to-peer feedback, and encouraged developers to run sharing sessions on industry best practices. With social distancing restrictions easing up, we can expect to see more GDH events in the future.
Naturally we will be at every Game Dev Hangout. We did create the event after all. Weyrdworks is dedicated to headlining every Game Dev Hangout with a game showcase to improve its craft. With every play-test session, we aim to be the best at developing delightful user experiences in all our games and services.