Hakono is a little company in Singapore started by Wynd Lui that builds puzzles and interactions for all sorts of activities, events, and public platforms. Their dedication to the creation of interactive puzzles and storytelling has guided their experiential works in the form of furniture and installations. Take a look at inside the box and explore the alternative means to bring games to life.
Check out the website – https://www.hakono.com/
Q: Give the readers a short introduction about yourself and Hakono. What is your role? What is your company about? What is your “origin” story?
Hi! I’m Wynd, and the founder of Hakono. Hakono is both ‘a business and a project’ as well as ‘a hobby and a profession’. I founded Hakono in pursuit of an effective way to make money off of my skills, while being able to benefit from doing things that I find interest in. Originally, whatever the business focused on was arbitrary; I did anything that made sense and was fun to do. I left my dead end job in 2018 and spent a year picking up electronics and programming – which lead to me building a box, the hako (箱), which was the basis of this business.
Before that, a little bit about my past. I picked up a Diploma in Multimedia (Animation) from NAFA, and then proceeded to pick up a BFA in Digital Art & Animation at Digipen. After graduation, I had found a real lack of prospect for someone with 7 years of professional education in the industry that I have trained in, and the hyped up government support for the industry had silently disappeared while I was in my final year of study. A year of job searching led me to a different industry altogether, and I spent my next few years in the advertising industry before I left and founded Hakono.
So what’s in the ‘hako’ that I mentioned earlier? Well the box is a portable escape room experience that I built with my ex-classmate from NAFA, and current business partner, Yang Jie. COVID-19 happened soon after I launched the product and I have found it to be unsustainable as a business model and thus abandoned it. I left it with my friend Jedidiah from AlterCulture to use as a teaching and networking aid, and I have benefited from it as well, as Jedi is well connected and has helped greatly in my own marketing efforts!
Q: What does the name ‘Hakono’ mean? How is this name in line with your vision for your company?
Hako (箱) means ‘box’ in Japanese, as I had revealed earlier to be the inspiration for the name. No (の) means ‘of’. I thought about how everything that I wanted to do was sorted into little boxes and stored in this huge metaphorical warehouse called Ambition, and found it to be suitable for a business name as a foundation for which to build my hopes and dreams. Also, the domain name was available, and I am greatly influenced by Japanese culture.
The ‘hako’ that started it all.
Q: What services does your company provide to your clients or customers?
Although I have abandoned the box and the pursuit of creating portable escape rooms as a form of revenue, it is nevertheless still the basis for my business, which is about building and providing experiential and interactive products and events. Recently we are very much more directed towards B2B operations because of the COVID pandemic, but we have plans and ideas for B2C which include workshops and merchandising of Hakono-branded toys. All our stuff is tech driven but still very tactile. We have built kinetic sculptures and creative installations for the likes of People’s Association, Esplanade, and NAC, and we mostly fabricate using wood and bare metal, for the steampunk aesthetic we are quite fond of.
Currently, I am working with a company called El Masnou, providing the tech for an Escape Room experience called ‘Otah & Friends’ that is targeted at families with children under the age of ten. We help them build the interaction part of their experiences that fall beyond what they can achieve with analog solutions. I also have been commissioned by People’s Association for One Tampines Hub (OTH) to build a kinetic installation that has been postponed to August/September in light of the Phase 2 measures.
Hakono also does outdoor events and art installations.
Q: What challenges have you and your company faced since it first started?
COVID, definitely. Because most of my work involves public interaction, this virus has consistently interfered with my most well-laid plans. Every single time I have begun to see progress, the pandemic quickly has me by the ropes again. Everything else is just elbow grease, no contest. I find my work fulfilling, and thus I do not suffer much from frustration when I meet ‘normal’ challenges. COVID, on the other hand, is not ‘normal’.
Q: What is the process like in creating escape room experiences? In what ways does this differ from designing video games or table-top games?
Unfortunately, I have never seriously designed a video or table-top game, so I wouldn’t know. But I can imagine that user experiences take precedence instead of game mechanics, and the biggest difference would be that people really like to break things. As such, durability and repeatability becomes a number one concern for everything.
To design the escape room is simple. You just think of what you think is cool, and how to build it, and how to make it better. Then you have that thing you built, and the other things you built, and you try and fit them together or modify them so they can fit into a narrative and aesthetic. Boom! Escape room.
Q: What are your favorite games or examples of entertainment media?
I’m a big fan of FPS and RPG games because I like to experience the story instead of passively listening, reading or watching the action. So any combinations of FPS and RPG are great for me. Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Baldur’s Gate, Bioshock, Deus Ex, Outer Worlds, Borderlands, Stalker, Wasteland… the list really goes on.
Q: Who do you look up to as inspirations for work or life?
I never really have idols or role models actually. I just envied successful people in general when I was younger, but always wanted to be myself and do it in my own way. I don’t find people inspiring because I know that most of the top people are there because of luck, though I’m not discounting hard work. It’s just that if you put in more than 100% of work, you will never admit that luck was what put you above and beyond the other hard workers. So I try my best to create a life with less RNG, to have more contentment and satisfaction without needing to follow in anybody’s footsteps. I don’t think about how hard I’m working because it will always end up being about comparing yourself to other people. I don’t need to be Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, a Ghandi or a Theresa, a Tesla or Einstein. I can just set their achievements as my goals, and that’s good enough.
Q: What is your company’s work environment like? Any quirks or interesting stories you would like to share?
It’s a modest workshop for honest work. I don’t yet have employees. There was this one time the coffee shop drinks stall auntie under my block shouted at me for always changing the order last minute, except for the fact that I always ordered the same drink and she probably had problems with her hearing especially through my mask. I didn’t buy from the store again after.
Q: Looking forward, what is your ambition?
Well, like I said, the warehouse has many little boxes. Some boxes are bigger than others. I would want to start an art school for doing what I do. I would like to create a toy culture around my toys like Tamiya cars or Gundam kits. I also would want to start an automated farm in Japan and retire there. Many things! I will take the path of least resistance and see what I can get first!
Through design and craftsmanship, Hakono is continually discovering novel ways of interaction and visual dialogue.
Q: If you have anything more that you would like to talk about, feel free to add them here.
Yes! The kinetic installation titled Train of Thought for OTH will open around August/September if Phase 2 lets up, so look out for it! Also, Otah & Friends volume 2 and 3 will be launching soon if the COVID measures loosen and life goes back to pseudo normal! Be sure to look out for those and catch it if you can! Also, be sure to check out my website at www.hakono.com for more videos of my stuff!
Red Hare Studios Games 