One of the more interesting parts of delving into the indie game dev world is the realisation of how wide a network of people there are working on their own games, which all have their own unique twists. I’m always drawn to Indonesia, for my family ties and how close it is to Australia, so when I found out about Toge Productions I jumped into the discord server to have a look around.
Perhaps more through chance than any design, I saw a stream of Coffee Talk, this interesting relationships based game, and wanted to find out a little more about the dev scene in this country. From my experiences of Indonesian gaming, there is a large focus on mobile games and older console games and this is perhaps partly due to my own anecdotes or ignorance. So I sent through a request to ask some questions with the friendly people at Toge Productions and they were nice enough to give me the time for some really interesting answers.
Coffee Talk is set to come out in Late January and you can play the demo right now on ITCH and wishlist the game on steam. I must say that my playthrough of the demo was beyond relaxing, and the time flew by getting to know the group of coffee shop regulars as they told their stories. I can only wonder what the broader story has for us to discover, and can not recommend enough for people to go check out the demo in time for release!
I was drawn towards Toge Productions when I heard it was an indie dev house from Indonesia. This is not something I had really heard much about. How is the developing industry going over there?
The game development scene is still very small. Mostly self funded indie teams or studios. Many of them started from making flash games back in early 2010s.
What do you think are the main challenges making games in Indonesia?
The game dev scene in Indonesia is relatively new. There are not many people that have experience in making games, so everything is starting from scratch and trial and error. Another challenge is funding. It’s not easy to find investors, especially when you don’t have experience or successful record. Another big challenge is marketing and visibility. Getting senpai to notice you is very hard when you are worlds apart.
So tell me about Coffee Talk about the inspiration behind making a game that is built around relationships and storytelling?
Coffee Talk is the result of our internal game jam. It was Project Green Tea Latte and you can actually play the build on our itch.io page. The game’s idea came from Fahmi, back then he was our marketing guy and he wanted to create a game that replicates the feeling of watching the rain while enjoying a warm drink. Listening to conversations and just chilling. He was also a fan of Va-11 Hall-A so obviously we drew a lot of inspiration from there. As for the stories, they are loosely based on our personal experiences.
Coffee Talk is soon to be released, and the Demo plays fantastic! What do you spend your last few weeks before release working on?
We spent the last few weeks polishing, testing, and bug fixing, reaching out to people. Also, we have a fan art competition ongoing on our Twitter! Do join! :p
What are you hopes for the release?
Hopefully the game is well received, and the story in Coffee Talk is created based on slice of life stories, so we hope that the players can feel related to the story as well. We’re very excited for the release of Coffee Talk, and we hope our community is also excited to play the full game!
Is there anything in the game that you think will surprise fans of the game upon playing the full version?
That’s a secret! :p
Hopefully people will enjoy the full game and experience some surprising moments.
What do you think is the key to good Coffee Latte Art (And how can we get Baileys to like it!)?
The key to great latte art is… Practice makes perfect.
What’s next on the agenda after release and celebrations are over?
We currently have some other titles that we are working on, which is Necronator: Dead Wrong, When the Past was Around, and A Space for the Unbound. You can wish list them all on Steam.
One last little bit of advice from Toge Productions!
Grab a cup of coffee, or tea if you don’t drink coffee, or any drinks you love. Sit down, relax, and enjoy the story of Coffee Talk.
I can’t thank the people at Toge Productions enough for giving us an insight into the world of developing games in Indonesia. To find out more, visit the following links and follow the team on Twitter with @coffeetalk_game and @togeproductions! And any comments giving me advice about latte art is very much appreciated!
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