Two brothers are going the Rovio way with their gaming startup

Own Super Squad game.

Indonesia’s video game industry is just waking up. Local game companies have been around since the late 90s, but most of them limited themselves to publishing international online games in Indonesia. Others were essentially outsourcing studios, taking on jobs from bigger foreign games studios without getting much credit for their work.

About seven years ago, a shift occurred. Indonesian developers started creating their own intellectual property, mostly for Flash-based titles. The rise of Flash games made it easier for smaller studios to publish and distribute games. This new attitude of creating things locally was passed on to the next generation – smartphone game developers.

Among the developers of this new era, one games studio stands out. It’s Own Games. The startup hails from Bandung, Indonesia’s third largest city after Jakarta and Surabaya. What makes Own Games different is its Rovio-like approach. It bases its intellectual property and business model on cute characters.

It started with a contest

Own Games came to life when Eldwin Viriya, the game studio’s co-founder, got bored at his previous job. In 2011, Eldwin worked as a junior lecturer at Parahyangan University in Bandung, teaching programming to students only a few years younger than he was.

Eldwin Viriya (right) and Jefvin Viriya (left).

To pass idle time, Eldwin started making a game. Not long after he started, he got wind of a competition in which contestants were asked to develop a mobile game for Nokia.

He invited his little brother Jefvin to help. Jefvin was in his final year of high school and wanted to find out whether studying IT was the right thing for him. During the development phase, Eldwin handled the art assets and the game’s main engine, while Jefvin helped his brother with coding and balancing the game design. Despite their limited prior experience, they came out as one of the competition winners with their debut game, Beyond the Well. They came in third place, along with a small cash prize of IDR 10 million (US$1,000). More importantly, they had established a good connection with Nokia. The brothers decided to take this game developer business to the next level.

One for all

Maybe it was Tako who helped the brothers succeed with their first-ever game.

Tako is a cute character with yellow skin, humanoid features, and a mouth like an octopus’. Some might say Tako is a cute version of the legendary Cthulhu. You’ll encounter him in various adventurous roles in the games – as a shepherd in Eyes on Dragon, or as a Power Rangers-like superhero in Own Super Squad.

Own Games’ debut game starring their mascot, Tako

Eldwin first created Tako and his companions for an animation contest he participated in during high school. He pulled the character out of the hat for that first game he made for the Nokia contest. Ever since then, Tako has been a central cast member in each of Own’s games, including the latest one released last April. It has tens of thousands of downloads on Android, but the developers prefer not to share the number of the game’s monthly active users across all platforms.

After Tako