Meet Hidea
The team that cooked up Cat & Soup.
‣ Company: Hidea
‣ Founder: Kim Dong-gyu
‣ Mission: To be a beacon of light and new opportunities in the indie game industry
‣ Established: 2012
‣ Go-to emoji: 🐈🍲
When game developer Kim Dong-gyu’s daughter wanted a cat, he decided to make it happen – by drawing a clowder of them for her in Cats & Soup. This is the story of how a cat-raising game helped transform Hidea from a one-person enterprise to a team of more than 30 developers.
What they’re known for
The beautiful art, calming music and adorable cooking kitties that stole the hearts of cat lovers around the world.
Behind the scenes
‣ Despite his work on Cats & Soup, Kim has never had a cat, even to this day.
‣ Kim found chubby cats cute and originally made the stars of his game round. But his daughter told him slim cats were better, so he added them to the game too.
‣ The rest facility currently known as Wild Flowers was called Tulip in the beginning, but that changed after players told Kim that tulips can actually be harmful to cats.
‣ A lot of players show their love for cats in the reviews, leaving comments such as “Please don’t let the cats out in the rain to prepare cooking ingredients” and “Please let the cooking cats have a break too”.