At PAX West 2024, VGG got to meet Toge Productions, the Indonesian studio behind the likes of Coffee Talk, A Space for the Unbound, and Kriegsfront Tactics. We spent our time with the game newest to us, Whisper Mountain Outbreak — a four-player co-op survival horror game — and sat down to chat with Toge Productions CEO and Founder Kris Antoni.
Bringing Southeast Asian games into the spotlight
It's no secret that we're big fans of what Toge Productions has been doing these last few years. With articles on Moses and Plato, Kriegsfront Tactics, and Coffee Talk Episode 3: Hibiscus and Butterfly, we're well on our way to having covered everything the Indonesian publishing house brought to PAX West. And there's a simple reason why: Toge Productions represents the exact blend of representation, quality, and variety that we want to see more of in the games industry moving forward.
We were lucky enough to sit down with Kris Antoni, the CEO and Founder of Toge Productions, to chat about the one game we hadn't played from their studio yet (Whisper Mountain Outbreak, which we'll get to shortly) and about what it means to this team that they've helped uplift so many voices from Southeast Asia through their efforts.
All it really takes is one glance at their library to see that Toge Productions is unafraid of trying new things. From a narrative-heavy visual novel about brewing coffee and tea to a mecha tactics game that channels Front Mission, the studio chases whatever they think might be fun and successful, regardless of genre.
"We have this annual game jam where everybody on the team, including those not involved in game development itself, can pitch ideas and explore whatever kind of game they want to make," Antoni explained. "That's how we came up with Coffee Talk. And then suddenly we'll have a zombie game, suddenly there'll be a tactics game. We always want to explore new things."
The few bits of connective tissue seem to be a general retro-modern aesthetic and a dedication to representing Southeast Asian cultures, particularly Indonesian culture, as that's where the studio calls home. The region has been booming in recent years, particularly in the indie dev scene, and Toge Productions certainly is one of the major faces trailblazing the movement.
"I believe there's a lot of potential in the history, the culture, that's in Southeast Asia," Antoni told us moments before handing us Indonesian coffee to walk away with — a blessing after several long PAX days fueled on a despicably bad hotel brew. "You know, there's just so many medieval fantasy games. We want to bring something new to the global audience and give more chances to indie developers in the region to tell stories that are uniquely Southeast Asian."
Through initiatives like the Toge Game Fund Initiative, Antoni and his team hope to offer a "safety net" to smaller developers in the region so they have the opportunity to experiment, try new things, and find their footing in a tumultuous industry. It's not the only time we've seen successful indie studios turn around and share the wealth this year, and we hope the projects funded through initiatives like this become classics before too long.
Because it's only in the indie space that we get things like, say, the revival of Resident Evil Outbreak with an Indonesian spin? Let's talk about our hands-on impressions of Toge Production's latest, Whisper Mountain Outbreak.
Hands-on with Whisper Mountain Outbreak
Whisper Mountain Outbreak is a top-down co-op zombie shooter that blends the puzzles and resource management of classic survival horror with the cooperation and communication of modern day squad-based horror games. Think Lethal Company meets Resident Evil, but top-down and pixelated.
The indie space has always been a place where unsung gems can be revived, but Whisper Mountain Outbreak's biggest inspiration in the PS2-era online multiplayer game might be the most unexpected indie revival yet.
"I'm personally a huge Resident Evil fan, and I believe Outbreak was the best multiplayer RE game ever," Antoni said. "Sadly, it was released when not everybody had broadband internet. I believe that game didn't flop because of the design, but because of the limitations of technology, so we kind of wanted to try to bring that experience back."
When I was young, I remembered being obsessed with Resident Evil Outbreak conceptually, but not having the friends I needed to play it with properly, so... to Whisper Mountain Outbreak I go.
With regular hordes raiding on a timer and the scripted fights waiting inside the hospital, it was a delicate dance to keep myself alive. And with no one to back me up, it was even more fragile than I expected.
Whisper Mountain Outbreak tells the story of Mount Bisik (meaning whisper) — a mountain disrupted by mining and deforestation. The ravaging at its base disturbed the spirits that protect it and unleashed hell on those who took advantage of its natural resources. You are part of a search and rescue team that is deployed into the area to find out what's gone on and see if you can figure out how to stop it, blasting through zombie-like monsters and piecing together what's happened from the remains as you go.
I loved the way Toge Productions twisted the usual corporation goes too far horror trope into an experience that draws from Indonesian folklore, with the zombies being a reflection of the wrath of the disturbed mountain spirit guardians rather than the typical chemical disaster. But the story and monster designs are grounded in a way that are understandable and familiar to anyone, with Indonesian cultural tidbits sprinkled in. It's a testament to what Toge tries to do with their entire library, and it's well integrated here.
Your mission starts at home base, where you gear up and pick a mission. The demo mission I had available was to retrieve a specific scroll from a hospital, but thanks to the setup, I had to go it alone instead of deploying with up to three teammates. This made things... challenging.
I wasn't fully prepared for just how difficult it could be. My first run ended within minutes as I was surrounded by hordes and left with no ammo pretty quickly. You've really got to focus on crowd control in Whisper Mountain Outbreak, managing your stamina, which you need both to run away from danger and for melee attacks to hold enemies at bay. I may have found myself a sitting duck once or twice with no juice left for melee after running from a risky situation.
Once I figured out the slower pace of the game — and the more methodical clearing out survival gameplay it requires versus the chaotic action game I tried making it — I put in a solid run in the end. But it still ended in death. With regular hordes raiding on a timer and the scripted fights waiting inside the hospital, it was a delicate dance to keep myself alive. And with no one to back me up, it was even more fragile than I expected.
Balancing the solo and multiplayer experience is key for the team, as they noted the game's difficulty multiplier levels up with each added player and that those timed hordes are beefier with more players. I'm sure that balances well with having someone able to watch your back and having access to even more inventory slots (you've only got eight, and that has to account for weapons, ammo for each weapon, and more).
In between the zombie killing and desperate survival, Whisper Mountain Outbreak sprinkles in some classic Resident Evil-like puzzling. You look for key cards in an employee's locker by finding their dead body somewhere, search for journal entries that explain the complex mechanism of some odd tree-based lock system on a safe, and slowly unlock wings of this complex and darkened facility as you go.
In my short time with the demo, I only got to see the beginnings of a few puzzles, but was amazed at how involved they seemed and was fascinated by the idea of gathering the pieces to solve them with a group of pals instead of having to do it alone.
Antoni described the co-op feel to us like this: "The focus isn’t on shooting zombies; it’s more about collaborating with your friends, escaping, and solving puzzles. It’s basically like an escape room, but you’re being chased by zombies. Someone has to guard the door, someone reads clues and solves puzzles, and together, you find a way out."
After finally getting my footing in the game, I ended up in a position where I was low on healing items and surrounded by zombies. But it wasn't any normal zombie that finally took me out... rather, some strange giant that crawled around on all fours with long flowing black hair emanating out from its heaving form. Multiplayer horror games are all about those moments — all about screaming in terror at something unexplainable while a friend in the other room rushes in to see what happened — and Whisper Mountain Outbreak seems primed to deliver that, along with some classic survival horror vibes.
If you're into that, go and wishlist the game on Steam today. The demo is currently up on Steam and will be updated around Halloween, so hop on with some friends to see what the curse of the mountain has in store for you.
Want to see more like this? Check out all of our PAX West 2024 coverage.
Comments