PancitoMerge: How an Indie Mexican Studio Went Head-to-Head With Pokémon

Carlos Rosado van der Gracht of Yucatán Magazine sat down with Mérida-based video game developer Antonio Uribe, also known as Fayér, to talk about his most recent project, PancitoMerge, a hit puzzle game on the Nintendo Switch inspired by Pan Dulce and Mexican culture.

Yucatán Magazine: Your game, PancitoMerge, made it to the front page of the Nintendo Switch store in Mexico and is doing quite well on US and European electronic storefronts. What was that like?

Antonio Uribe: It’s super exciting to see one’s game on the front page of the Nintendo Switch store. But what is even more gratifying is that for a little while there, we were neck-and-neck with major new releases in the Pokémon and Minecraft franchises. We are not getting rich off this project; PancitoMerge is an inexpensive game, but it’s still super exciting.

YM: How many copies of PancitoMerge have you sold?

AU: I am not at liberty to speak to how many digital copies we have sold on the Nintendo eShop and Steam. Let’s say we are really happy with the results.

YM: Which platform did the game perform best on?

AU: PancitoMerge did best on the Nintendo Switch. But I think we got lucky with the timing. The game feels really great on Switch because it’s so much fun to play on the go. We also got a significant boost from Nintendo Latin America, which published promotional images and social media posts about the game. That really helped to push sales. We got quite a bit of buzz going.

YM: Why do you think players connected with the game?

AU: It’s not a complicated game. The aesthetics are attractive, so I think it was easily accessible to many people. People seem to be loving the Pan Dulce elements and the Day of the Dead bonus content. There is also another unlockable version of the game that combines elements of Mexican and Japanese cultures, which is very cool. Besides, at 99 pesos, the game is inexpensive, so folks have been more willing to give it a try.

YM: Can you explain what kind of game PancitoMerge is?

AU: The gameplay is a puzzle game, similar to Suika. When we started thinking about developing it, we were working on some larger games for another studio that did not do as well. I wanted to work on a smaller game. I started working with Vanilla, a great artist I had commissioned before but had never really met in person. We built a demo, and I just can’t imagine having the project work as well without her specific art style.

YM: What tools did you use to build the game?

AU: We used the Godot engine, an open-source game development tool developed in Latin America. This allows us to really cut down on costs. Not to mention that digital distribution allows us to compete directly with just about every other developer in the world, whether they’re development teams in the hundreds or small independent teams like our own.

YM: Tell us about the team behind the game.

AU: I am from Michoacán, but I have been living in Mérida for five years now. The entire team is from Mexico. Majo joined us and is from Puebla. She developed the music for the game. Inu, a friend from Durango who lives in Japan, helped us port the game to Switch, and he was a huge help. He really became a co-developer. With him, we were able to refine the gameplay, the leaderboards, the interface, and all those things that don’t seem like a big deal but are really important.

YM: Where did you draw inspiration from?

AU: PancitoMerge draws on many influences. But I really feel like it has a lot of my own style built into it, which is something fairly obvious, especially when you look at other games I have produced. In many ways, this game is a return to my roots, making smaller games with simple mechanics but a lot of charm.

YM: How did you get started in game development?

AU: I started gaming when I was still a computer science student. Things started very informally, with small mobile phone games. But things slowly built from there as I began meeting more people in the industry, making contacts, and discovering that this would be a big part of my life.

YM: Are there other Mexican games or studios you admire?

AU: There are great Mexican games and studios out there. I have a special place in my heart for Nine Years of Shadow and Greek; they were particularly influential, and I continue to be very impressed. 1921 was also a super ambitious project, so beautiful and with so much to say. It’s the sort of game, I think, that, as developers in Mexico, we should really aspire to create. But yeah, that was a huge, extremely involved project.

YM: How long did PancitoMerge take to develop?

AU: The game took about a year to develop. It was really collaborative, unlike a traditional development cycle, which is typical in these sorts of smaller games.

YM: Will the game come to mobile phones?

AU: As far as porting the game to mobile platforms like iOS and Android, it’s something that will likely happen in the future. But the game looks and plays best on the Nintendo Switch, so we wanted to make sure this version had enough time to breathe and get out there.

YM: How do you see the game industry evolving in Mexico?

AU: I am very enthusiastic. There are lots of great resources, studios, and games. The industry keeps growing because development tools are easier now, platforms are much more open, and development kits are much less expensive. But it’s important to remember that Mexico has developed games since the 1970s.

YM: What challenges do Mexican developers still face?

AU: One thing is that we really need something like the Game Awards, publishers, and established ecosystems. There are no government incentives like those for film. It’s actually the opposite: sometimes they hit us with taxes we could never have expected. And this is odd, because Mexico is a very big country when it comes to video games.

Another issue is that so many game developers from here in Mexico end up going to the US to work. But that sort of brain drain is the case in so many tech-related industries.

The press here pays little attention. PancitoMerge was really an exception here. But it did not really get international coverage.

YM: Any final thoughts on the game’s success?

AU: We are really proud of PancitoMerge. More than half of our sales came from players in Mexico, and that is really satisfying. I really hope that Mexican and international gamers will continue to support us and other Mexican studios.

About Fáyer

Antonio Uribe, widely known as Fáyer, is a Computer Engineering graduate from UNAM. He co-founded HyperBeard, one of Mexico’s largest mobile game developers and publishers, where he spent over five years as a developer and Director. In this role, he contributed to the studio’s growth and success in the mobile gaming space. Currently, he works as a consultant for tech and video game companies, drawing on his extensive expertise in development, gamification, game design, production, narrative design, and more.

Beyond his consulting work, Antonio is an active advocate for the video game industry. He represents Mexico on the Videogame LATAM Federation, serves as Country Lead for Latinx in Gaming, and co-founded Game Summit MX, a key event for Mexican game developers. He is also the founder of the game development club “Club Picocho.”