How an indie studio is working to define mobile gaming in Asia

From our jaunt into Taipei Game Show 2015, it looks like there are two types of Taiwanese indie developers: those who develop for the international market, and those who are influenced by the needs of the greater Chinese market.

Team Signal, developer of the much-lauded indie rhythm game Hyper Square, falls into the former category. Co-founder Scott Chen, 28, who spoke with Games in Asia at the show, even said that Hyper Square is considerably more popular in the West. But how does a Taiwanese developer break free of the Eastern influence it has no doubt grown up with?

Chen and his other co-founder, 30-year-old Brian Lee, first met in Carnegie Mellon University in the US where they were doing a Master’s degree in entertainment technology. Chen was there straight out of university while Lee had already worked for a game company in Taiwan for a couple of years.

The curriculum there made sure each student worked in different teams every two weeks, on rapid prototypes for new games. Chen eventually found himself paired up with Lee. They found a good match in each other: Chen says they had similar tastes, interests, standards, and expectations of quality.

Brian Lee and Scott Chen.

The first game the budding team worked on was called Hebi Hanabi, a prototype developed in a 48-hour game jam. The two-player shooting game for the PC was a finalist as Unity Unite 2012’s best student project. But the next game it developed was more significant. It’s why Team Signal is called Team Signal.

The Last Signal was developed for the Microsoft Kinect, and allowed players to control sound waves in the game via hand gestures. It was focused on story and atmosphere, and the IP for the game was eventually sold to Microsoft. This was also in 2012. While Microsoft did not end up shipping the game (the IP is back in Team Signal’s hands!), The Last Signal was the catalyst for the studio’s birth.

“Because of [the sale], we thought games can actually make a living for us, and we can actually make things that we enjoy, and make money as well,” Chen says. The funds from the game sale were enough to not just start the company, but also keep it running for another six months. Team Signal was born.

It also came back to its native Taiwan – both Chen and Lee are Taiwanese. Chen says there are two reasons for their return. “We think we can make something more defining of Taiwanese culture,” he says, adding that they also saw a lot of potential in Asia in the past couple of years.

“The indie scene is growing year by year, we want to be a part of it,” Chen says. Though the two US-educated founders are based in Taiwan, they don’t feel that they’re removed from the more active indie development scene in the West. They connect with most indie developers via the internet anyway. “It’s not that disconnected from them regardless of where we live and develop,” he says.

Chen and Lee went on to hire Chargo Wang and Sam Chen – who runs a steamed bread store on the side! – as a programmer and UX designer, respectively. They also took on three part-timers as product support.