How an indie game studio in Surabaya found the way back to a dream

Be it work related or not, my days are usually spent sitting at the computer and browsing the internet. But for the past two weeks, my routine has been a bit different. My Facebook page, which is usually occupied with cute pictures of cats or babies, was suddenly filled with fantastic and colorful artwork. Next to the images was a compelling hashtag that piqued my interest: #MojikenCamp.

Mojiken Studio is an indie game studio based in Surabaya, Indonesia. The studio has produced two original games so far; Vamp’s Revenge and Ninjakira Combo Showdown. The studio is also responsible for several outsourced games, illustrations, and animation works for other clients. Even at its young age, several months after the studio was founded in August 2013, Mojiken had the “honor” of having one of its games pirated by a Chinese developer last year.

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If you follow Mojiken’s hashtag, you can find a bunch of Facebook posts that have fascinating screenshots of their games. Some of them are actually game teasers, and Mojiken collaborates with local indie musicians for the in-game musical scores. This is something I’ve only seen one other time in Indonesia, by a firm called Digital Happiness on its game DreadOut.

Everyone learns everything

To satisfy my curiosity, I spoke with Eka Pramudita Muharram, a 2D artist and one of Mojiken’s co-founders. Muharram explains that Mojiken Camp is an internal program for all members of Mojiken Studio. The program aims for each member of the studio, regardless of their position and skills, to build a complete game from scratch. Some of the challenges in the program include making a game with simple tools like Construct 2, creating pixel art and animation properly, and learning how to do basic video game marketing. In the future, the Mojiken’s program might cover other things like video game music composing, says Muharram.

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All of the games that come from Mojiken Camp will be compiled into one package and labeled as an experimental game project. Each game will be released weekly for free through itch.io, a site that’s widely referenced as a BandCamp for video games. So far, Mojiken Camp has released four games on the site.

The first game, Ultra Space Battle Brawl, was made by Muharram himself. If you’ve played the game, you may realize that it’s heavily inspired by Pong. Muharram admits that one of the programs at Mojiken Camp encourages team members to create a “clone of a classic video game,” but to incorporate their own features into the game to give it a totally different feel.

An idea born from anxiety

Muharram says that Mojiken Camp was born from his feeling of anxiety towards the studio’s current situation. According to him, Mojiken mainly survives by handling outsourcing projects. Some are successful, some are not. Often, Mojiken’s assigments deviate significantly from building games – for example, working on animated infographics, comics, caricatures, illustrations, and more.