Apopia: Sugar Coated Tale has been nearly a decade in the making, and that time shows in its emotional weight and design ambition. What began as a deeply personal project for Quillo Entertainment Director and Co-Founder Onon Ng (Andy) at Quillo Entertainment grew from a small prologue into a full release shaped by trauma, self-reflection, and a refusal to rush the creative process. We spoke with Ng about the game’s eight-year development, its message, and why crafting the right experience mattered more than hitting a deadline.
Can you describe what Apopia means to you as a personal project? What do you wish players to take away from playing it?
Onon Ng: After developing this game for more than 8 years, it eventually became part of my life and identity.
In the real world, I am a very introverted person. I’m afraid of acting awkward, facing difficult conversations, and so on. But deep in my heart, I always come up with countless stupid little ideas, and I believe there are people out there who would love and laugh at them like I do. I think that was my starting point for becoming to be a game dev and making my very first game: Apopia.
Not only that, as I decided to open my heart to write the story, all the traumas, sadness, and joy came from my real experience and emotion. I believe it is a way to send a warm message to people who experienced the same or similar circumstances to let them know “you are not alone.” It’s not only a way to help some people, but also a way to save myself from my past.
I hope that when people play the game, the things they care about won’t be just the graphics or gameplay, but the true emotions and love that I aim to deliver to the players. I hope they can open their hearts. Let’s laugh and cry together.
The game has been in development for nearly ten years. What happened?
Onon: Too many things happened during those years…I’ll try my best to give you the whole picture.
Looking back, Ricky and I started this project in 2017. Our first checkpoint of the development was the Prologue and we wanted to finish development of that in 1-2 years. However, due to our lack of experience in game development and participation in an animation project (Apopia: The Broken Crown), Apopia: Prologue was finally released in 2021.
Fortunately, players loved our Prologue! It has received a lot of positive feedback so far, which has led us to be approached by our publisher Happinet and kicked off the development of the full game – Apopia: Sugar Coated Tale.
Initially, we targeted to finish the development by late 2022 or early 2023. So, we only had around 1.5 years to finish the game. During the development, we encountered many challenging decisions. In short, we often had to make decisions between doing things quickly or taking our time to make it as good as possible. We chose the latter.
We decided to spend additional time making sure the experience, in terms of story writing, visuals, gameplay, were all done with our best instead of rushing it out. In the end, we weren’t building a product, we were crafting an experience, and one we’d want to play ourselves, while staying true to my initial idea of delivering a message / an experience to help others.
Throughout every decision during development, I asked myself, “is this the very best decision to make?”. If it was not, I did it again, and again until there’s no regret at all. That’s where the extra years were spent.
Apopia features dual narratives. Did you run into any challenges telling two different stories?
Onon: It certainly wasn’t an easy task to do, but I don’t recall any major challenges regarding this decision.
I think the key is to always remember the message I want to deliver. The dual narratives are a way to help me better deliver my message, rather than serving as a gimmick. It provides two perspectives for players to feel and relate to. It’s like when you put your heart into something, you’ll automatically know what to do.
Is there any source material in popular culture that influenced Apopia?
Onon: I think D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) is the biggest influence on Apopia. Besides developing Apopia, I am a Dungeon Master who wrote a lot of stories for players to enjoy. The process of preparing a session and hosting a session is just like the process of game development. It is not a one-way storytelling, but an interactive way. And I’m not the sole writer in a game. The story is only complete with the players’ decision making.
Also, developing a good D&D campaign requires you to be both emotional and logical. While the key is to get everyone hyped, there’s a logical system around it. This thinking process influenced the making of Apopia a lot.
Apopia was also influenced by game titles like Doki Doki Literature Club, Undertale, Yume Nikki, Earthbound, Fran Bow, Ib etc. These are some of the game titles that I remember most even today. I got inspiration from these titles to create the powerful emotion in Apopia.
What is your favorite animal in the game?
Onon: Bunnies *hop hop*
But my favorite character is Nico.
Apopia: Sugar Coated Tale is out now for PC through Steam.
