Nekojima: an adventure in balance

This article is based on an interview with Karen Nguyen and David Carmona, founders of the studio Unfriendly Games. They tell us the story of their second game: Nekojima!

The prototypes

As shown in the comic strip above, the story of Nekojima began for us during some renovation work, with the idea of creating a dexterity game unlike any other.

At first, our game was called “Crazy Cables”, but Nekojima quickly took its place!

To create it, we only needed two prototypes:

We had the mechanic, we had defined the heights of the beechwood posts, the cables and their colors. The cables were thin and elastic, and we had colored them with markers. The board was just a roughly colored sheet of paper.

Then we decided to upgrade the materials: for the cables, we used an anorak-style cord because it’s sturdy, flexible, and above all it holds a given shape. We created a wooden board and a level counter. There was still some fine-tuning to do, but the heart of the game was already there.

Competitive, definitely, since we are “Unfriendly Games”… but this time, a cooperative mode really fit well. So we decided to add it, and today it’s one of the best decisions we made for this game.

The magic of Gilles Warmoes

To bring this island and our game to life visually, while browsing Behance we discovered the work of Gilles Warmoes, a Belgian illustrator. One of his illustrations caught our attention, and we invite you to discover his work. For us, it was the illustration around tea, that Asian universe, the dominant and highly contrasted color: this was exactly the spirit we were looking for our Nekojima board. We contacted him and, even though he hadn’t yet had the chance to illustrate a game, he was enthusiastic and very inspired.

During the Kickstarter campaign, we proudly displayed — together with Bebert, Karen’s brother — the 3 exclusive cats from the campaign on our wallpapers.

The evolution of the board

The first players

To get our game tested, we decided to tour the festivals:

• In 2022, we headed to the Festival International des Jeux: at night, the festival hosts “the OFF nights” and our game received very positive feedback. To our great surprise, there was a queue to play it — we couldn’t believe it!
• May arrived and we left for Toulouse for Alchimie du Jeu. This time, it was during the prototype contest that we had the same experience, and Nekojima won the Family trophy!
• July and October, Paris est Ludique and the FLIP: once again, plenty of enthusiastic players and, once again, trophies with the “Family” prize and the “Special Jury Prize – FLIP Creator trophy”.

There were many more festivals and lots of encounters! We’re now eager to continue this adventure.

The struggles

Why not sign with a publisher?

After Virus War, we asked ourselves the question. But after thinking it through, we wanted to keep full control over our projects. Negotiations didn’t live up to our expectations and several responses were slow to come. So we chose to remain sole publishers and to look only for a distributor.

Communication, with no respite

Nekojima is our second game. The lesson Virus War taught us is that a good game that goes unnoticed isn’t a great success. So we launched ourselves into a real communication phase. One year, almost no break… Conventions, emails, presentations and more presentations. We love it, but frankly it’s exhausting: would we be able to keep up the pace? We met many distributors before finally signing with Blackrock Games, both for Nekojima and for what comes next.

Kickstarter, with knots in our stomach

To fund the game, we went with a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. At that moment, it was impossible to silence that little voice: “What if it doesn’t work? What if all of this was for nothing?”. In short, an emotional rollercoaster! Fortunately, a great start — but we never let go and kept communicating, mobilizing more backers and replying to them day and night. Our investment paid off, but it was no walk in the park.

3,800 packages, three pairs of hands

And then came THE moment we always underestimate: shipping. 3,800 packages to prepare. Just three of us: the two of us and Laetitia — Karen’s mom — whom we will never thank enough. Preparing the orders, cutting cardboard protection, printing labels, taping, checking, starting again. Whole days, on our feet, repeating the same movements while staying focused so as not to miss anything. The back, the hands, the fatigue — and that constant pressure of not putting the wrong address on a package being shipped to the other side of the world.

And today, would we change anything?

Honestly! No, not a thing. Since 2023, people have been playing and playing again, and that makes us very happy. All those efforts were necessary to put the game forward; today, we are fulfilled.

We are now working on new projects, including “Terrasses de Kanoa”, a tactical tile-laying game where you have to gather resources in abundance to build landscapes. The game is clever, smooth and satisfying — watching your territory take shape before your eyes is a real pleasure. And on top of that… Gilles Warmoes is on board again!