Malaysia may be known for a great many things, but being a video game development hub is not one of them. Recently, a certain indie video game studio found itself on the front page of international gaming news. This studio, which has been developing a game set in the American Midwest, is based in Malaysia and founded by Malaysians.

Hidden Chest Studio is a relatively small video game development company based in Petaling Jaya, founded by Kesh Ganesparan, Alex Tan and Tan Yi Ming. Their first project, a game called Midwest 90: Rapid City, garnered attention in the US for its creative depiction of the American Midwest.

“Kesh came up with a prototype for Midwest 90: Rapid City right before the pandemic and he recruited Yi Ming and I to further develop the game,” Alex said. “After we secured the 2020 Digital Content Creator Challenge grant from the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, we formed Hidden Chest Studio together.” “We are Malaysians and we believe that there’s plenty of talent available here,” said Alex, adding that many overseas game companies were looking to take advantage of the low production costs here.

“Creating a game takes years of research and practise in various areas, whether it be programming, drawing, 3D modelling or designing,” said Alex. “This is why I think passion especially is so important as it will push you through the tough times.”

Being Hidden Chest Studio’s first game title, Midwest 90 seems a strange but creative decision. But it actually makes sense in context. According to Alex, the setting was inspired by a restaurant in Petaling Jaya called Betty’s Midwest Kitchen, owned by a friend of Kesh. “One night when Kesh was eating one of their popular burgers, he started imagining, ‘What if there were monsters outside trying to get it?’” And just like that, Midwest 90 was born.

“In a nutshell, Midwest 90 is a single-player isometric story-based tycoon game where the player runs a restaurant called ‘Midwest 90’ that cooks and serves monster meat.”

The game is only in its middle stages of development and the Covid-19 pandemic has been no help.

Source: FreeMalaysiaToday