Asobi tech - the Science of Play
ABOUT

Asobi.tech [Ah - So - Bee . Teku]
Founded 2007
The name Asobi.tech, and the logo represent two halves of a whole, like the two brothers and their Eastern/Western upbringing. We have taken the Japanese word for Play, Asobi, and an English word for a type of Science, Tech. Bringing them together gives us Asobi.tech - the Science of Play. We specialise in making games with tight and addictive gameplay, with a retro aesthetic, for both modern and retro systems. To us, game development is not just about creating games. It’s about creating joy that we can share with others.

History
The two brothers, Quang and Viet, born in Hanoi, Vietnam, along with their parents fled the country back in 1979 as refugees with nothing. They settled in the UK as part of the Vietnamese Boat People refugee exodus. Their parents did everything they could to provide a better life for their children. Learning English as a second language, re-training with new skills to be able to get jobs, and even after giving birth to a third brother, did the best they could to raise them all with what little the had.
They managed to save enough to buy the brothers their first microcomputer, a ZX Spectrum +2. This peaked their curiosity to learn BASIC, then onto making games. But it was when they got an Atari ST and STOS that their passion for creating videogames was truly ignited. They now had access to sprites, sounds and everything else needed to make games that everyone could enjoy. The journey of self education continued to the PC with PASCAL then C, which branched out to Nintendo Game Boy development in 1999. Fast foward to 2007 and the brothers go independent and the name Asobitech is chosen for the games made by them.

Full time studio
The year of 2020 brought us all many challenges, but gave Asobi.tech a chance to refocus and we went from a part time to a full time studio. From August 2020, Quang is now dedicating 100% of his time, resources, and effort into Asobi.tech. Getting back to roots we completed, self published, and distributed a Game Boy game, Super JetPak DX, during a global pandemic to people in over 25 countries around the world. April 2021 saw the Asobi.tech family grow a little more with the hiring of a Production Manager. We welcome K on board to the team, they are here to keep us in line and our video game projects on track.

Vietnamese Boat People news article scan

Quang
Quang left university for a job coding GameBoy Color games with a small studio in 1999, after being head hunted for the games he created as part of the GameBoy Homebrew scene. Being thrown in to the deep end, he worked as the solo programmer on multiple titles tirelessly for a year, before unfortunately, burning out.
After a few years away from videogames, living the life of a Breakdancer, Quang returned in 2007 to found Asobi.tech, indie game development studio. Along with Viet, doing artwork, they worked in their spare time. Re-learning and perfecting their craft. Taking part in many Game Jams along the way, managing to place and win a number of them.
To help foster a stronger indiegame developer community, Quang started GameMaker Meetup, a monthly community event, with guest speaker talks, networking and discussion on game development.
In February 2017, the Amazon UK Developer team made Quang an Amazon Appstore Hero, to help relations between developers and Amazon.

Viet
Viet, the older of the two, always has had a flare for art, especially computer art.
It started with ASCII manipulation to create game sprites then pixel pushing on the ZX Spectrum with OCP Art Studio via keyboard, as he was not able to afford a mouse back then. Transitioning into the 16bit era with a mixture of NeoChrome, Degas, Deluxe paint and the humble STOS sprite editor, all on the Atari ST. Finally moving onto Windows PCs with Paint Shop Pro.
He has pretty much done all the art for the games Quang has coded, included working along side him on GameBoy Color titles.
Currently Viet's pixel art is created directly on an iPad and iPhone with the app Sprite Something, including sprites, backround and the animation.

K
K is experienced in the production of live, streamed and studio recorded content. With a background in live shows, events, YouTube series, podcasts, online streams, and radio. K has a real passion for facilitating the creation of fun, entertaining and interactive content. Not only facilitating and managing those projects, K also has a creative side and likes to get hands on in generating ideas, with experience in writing on comedy and horror genre projects.
As an avid gamer with a strong leaning towards retro gaming, K has been a big supporter of Asobi.tech for some time and is delighted to be joining the incredibly talented team and being part of the exciting journey ahead.


Quang

Viet

K





asobi [ah-so-bee] - Japanese word for playing, to play
tech [teku] - abbreviation of the word technology