In 2018, Chris Li and Jai Bunnag founded Hong Kong–based studio Finifugu Games. What began as a graduation project for uni turned into something more after the debut of its first game Too Many Cooks, eventually growing into its current team of 10.

Relaxing idle games with an occasional focus on human-like animals going about their days, including Too Many Cooks, Life of King, Otter Ocean and Animal Express.

• The conceptualisation of Too Many Cooks was very low-tech. To test out the gameplay of distributing food ingredients, the team drew pictures onto pieces of paper and tossed them onto a table. They joke that this game could easily have been a board game!

• Otter Ocean was inspired by a T-shirt that shows two otters holding hands. After a series of tests, they found that an unusual bird’s-eye view suited the game perfectly.

• Initially, the team’s full name was Finifugu && Friends, with the dual ampersand – the AND operator in Boolean logic – symbolising their focus on collaboration. The && symbol is still featured in the studio’s logo.

• When making Animal Express, Jai put his architecture training to good use in order to create expert designs for the layout and seating of narrow carriages.