In an interview with The Malaysian Reserve, Wan Hazmer said he had to find his own way to embark on the journey which took him to his eventual career. This is because when he entered tertiary education, no institution in Malaysia offered any courses that were related to video game development, as the concept was almost unheard of in Malaysia at the time.
Wan Hazmer, who is currently the founder of game development studio Metronomik Sdn Bhd, said his interest in video games was first stoked when his father bought him a computer in 1985. He would also go to his cousin’s house, where he would play video games on consoles such as the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
As he grew up, Wan Hazmer began to develop a critical eye for the video games he played.
“When I was 16, my cousin told me that I was quite critical with the games that I played – criticising how terrible the game levels were, design, et cetera,” he said.
Eventually, this led to his desire to create great video games and he began to work towards becoming a video game developer. However, at the time, there were no courses for game development in Malaysia.
Wan Hazmer enrolled in Asia Pacific University, which was then known as Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology, where he studied computer programming. Such was his passion for game development that in his assignments, he would include elements related to video games.
“I knew deep down that making games was what I really wanted to do.”
After he graduated in 2001, Wan Hazmer began working at a digital advertising company, where he learned skills that would help him as a game developer, such as the ability to make things beautiful and usable at the same time.
Six years later, Wan Hazmer entered the Casual Gameplay Design Competition 2007, which required participants to create a flash game with a given theme in four weeks. His games, The Last Canopy and Ballistic Wars, won first and third prize respectively.
This success inspired Wan Hazmer to take the next step in his career: He moved to Japan and join the video game industry there as he believed the video games made in Japan were more creative.
“I was completely illiterate in the Japanese language. That led me to sign up for a one-and-a-half-year course at a Japanese language school.
“I slowly started on my (video game) proposal, improving it whenever I learned new words. Lo and behold, I was able to finish my proposal within the one-and-a-half years, and that was when I started to send it to the many Japanese gaming companies.”
Wan Hazmer subsequently landed a job at world-renowned video game developer and publisher Square Enix in 2010, where he worked on Final Fantasy XV, one of the most highly-anticipated video games of its era. The majority of his work in the game was in town-making.
As Wan Hazmer has an interest in cultures, this suited him well.
“This was where I was given the opportunity to be the lead designer, leading a 70-man team to build towns, as well as the gameplay within the towns,” he said.
“At the same time, I had the opportunity to help out on other projects such as Final Fantasy Type-0 and pre-production work for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII,” he said.
Wan Hazmer even included elements of his homeland in the game by including Malaysian food in the town of Lestallum. He said he considered it more fitting for the town than trying to force his own culture into the game.
He returned to Malaysia in 2014 and went on to establish Metronomik, an intellectual property creation firm dedicated to the creation of new video games.
He is optimistic about the future of the video game development industry in Malaysia, saying: “The industry has grown exponentially. Through the support of Malaysia Digital Economy Corp, it has become much easier to get into the industry. A lot of software is also now free to own.”
Wan Hazmer said his team is currently working on the game No Straight Road, which will be released for personal computers and on PlayStation 4.
He is also interested in introducing aspiring video game developers to the field.
“I also hope to be able to reach out to primary and secondary schools to introduce creative thinking as a way of learning. I hope to be more involved in the area of education as it is important to nurture the next generation of game developers,” he said.