Pinata hopes for a smash hit with first games

The Pinata production team.

Many game development studios often find themselves ensconced within or near the Singapore startup hub that is Block 71. Some hide out in the heartland neighbourhoods, while others, buffered by investments or big names, take entire levels in tall office buildings. Pinata Studio, on the other hand, has chosen to nestle in a central part of Singapore, right next to the city’s best pig stomach soup hawker stall.

The location keeps the startup under the radar, but that suits Pinata fine. The six-man studio (occasionally supplemented by interns) only recently launched its first proper game, after all. Apart from games, the two guys behind Pinata develop apps and sell web services, which gives them enough of a profit to continue game development worry-free.

Pinata is run by its CEO and co-founder Andy Li. The 25-year-old Singaporean founded the company with his university friend, Steven Jauw, also 25, back in 2012 when they had just finished their studies.

Building the pinata

Pinata team photo. Andy Li, 25, is second from left in the first row. Steven Jauw is not pictured.

Li and Jauw studied in Melbourne, Australia. Li says the city had little in the way of entertainment. The duo found themselves hanging out at coffee joints on a regular basis, not doing much with their expensive diplomas except drinking coffee. This, Li says, was a time when Draw Something was huge, and he was hooked on it.

He had always been a gamer, playing competitive Warcraft III and Starcraft II, and making Rock Band champion in Singapore before he left for studies overseas. It was these experiences that inspired Jauw to suggest they should start their own game studio. They quickly came up with a basic concept.

“We thought of this idea while we were in a gross public jacuzzi with old men, around the concept of spot something,” Li says. Spottle was to have an engine that allowed its players to create their own crime scenes. They would be able to change objects into whatever they wanted (like a table or a telephone), which other players could then search for on the completed map. It was a hidden object game gone multiplayer.

Li and Jauw hit up outsourced developers, but then discovered the exorbitant costs involved. So they decided to do it themselves.

In 2012, the duo came back to Singapore and embedded themselves in the Games Solution Centre as Pinata Studios. Several unfortunate incidents there – which Li would rather not talk about – led to them moving out of the incubator and into an office owned by Li’s uncle. Though Li was a banker by training and Jauw an engineer, they taught themselves to program, made a few prototypes and conceptualized some visuals, then started hiring.

Loading screen of Pinata’s very first game.