[LEVEL UP KL 24] EXCLUSIVE: Building Games Across Borders: Kurechii’s Yi Wei P’ng Speaks on Global Success

We had the opportunity to interview Yi Wei P’ng during LEVEL UP KL, where the founder of Kurechii shared insights into the Malaysian studio that has quietly been reshaping mobile gaming for the past 15 years. While many might not immediately recognize the studio’s name, chances are they’ve encountered their work – particularly Postknight, the mobile RPG phenomenon that has captured over 18 million downloads worldwide.

From Flash to Global Success

The Kurechii Journey From humble beginnings in Flash game development back in 2009, Kurechii has evolved into a versatile studio that defies easy categorization. “We develop all kinds of games from flash games to PC and then browser mobiles,” P’ng explains, though he acknowledges their mobile success has somewhat defined their public image. “It’s not that we only make mobile games, it’s just that I happen to have one of my most popular games, Postknight, So I think that’s probably how people get to know us and kind of see us as a mobile game company.” This 15-year journey represents a steady evolution in both platform expertise and market understanding, setting the foundation for their current success.

The Coffee Theory

Yi Wei P’ng delivered an insightful talk on game design, offering a unique perspective on the fundamental differences between mobile and PC/console gaming experiences. Using an everyday analogy that resonates with anyone who’s ever grabbed a morning coffee, he elaborates: “In the morning, if you want to drink coffee, you’re not drinking it for the taste as much, but more towards making you feel energetic—that’s more functional. When you want a good cup of coffee during the weekends at cafes, you really get into the taste, you don’t mind waiting 30 minutes.”

This philosophy directly influences their design approach. “Imagine like you only have five minutes, you open your mobile games and there’s cutscenes and all that, right? Like you don’t wanna play that,” P’ng explains. “Having this realization can really help us when we are designing the game, trying to make a fun game, but we can do it in a very different way just to fit this use case up for the players.”

Conquering Global Markets

For Kurechii, market selection has been crucial to their success. “For indie games, the market is very important because it’s already a niche market,” P’ng emphasizes. “So I think it’s very important to actually target the global market whenever possible. So that like, for example, you have 10 millions, if you filtered 10%, you still get one million.”

The studio has found particular success in certain regions: “The market that works well for us is definitely like the US, China. There are also some other markets like Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.” However, Yi Wei P’ng notes that cultural considerations play a significant role: “In Korea and Japan, there’s more cultural influence. So it’s a bit harder. But if you talk about the US and China, there are a lot of people, there’s more open to all kinds of different things.”

Abyssfall

The Next Chapter Kurechii’s latest project, Abyssfall, represents both innovation and continuation. “It’s something that we are trying to innovate,” P’ng shares. “We’ve been working on Postknight 2 for about four to five years already. So it’s like, you know, being indie developers, we be a bit itchy about like we want to work on something new.”

The game is designed to bridge the gap between casual and core gamers through its grid-based combat system. “Grid bases have the nature of making things easier to understand, we do want to make our game appeal to more casual gamers,” P’ng explains. “But casual gamers, when they go to action games, there’s a lot of things happening in real time they cannot understand fully. But if you actually put it into Grid Base, they can understand that.”

Building a Connected Universe

The Long Game Rather than creating standalone titles, Kurechii takes the ambitious approach of building an interconnected universe. “Each game we continue to build our world. So hopefully one day we will be able to accumulate enough to have a world that is impressive enough,” P’ng shares. This strategy comes with its own challenges, but he sees them as opportunities: “For developers, we actually learn and grow when we go and solve all these problems that we have created, we need to solve some issues about the bad character design that we have previously.”

Looking Ahead

The studio’s future looks bright with multiple projects in development. “Aside from Abyssfall, we do have another new game that we’re trying to work on,” P’ng reveals. “We don’t want to let our followers think that we go into Abyssfall and then we abandon Postknight.” This new Postknight-related project is slated for announcement next year, demonstrating Kurechii’s commitment to both innovation and maintaining their established franchises.

Through this approach of thoughtful market targeting, innovative game design, and persistent world-building, Kurechii continues to carve out its unique space in the gaming industry, building on past successes while exploring new horizons. In an industry often focused on the next big thing, their strategy of patient, continuous development stands out as refreshingly distinctive.

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