Started by Spotify, Unwrapped has become one of tech companies’ favorite marketing campaigns in recent years; LinkedIn, Duolingo, and even Vietnam’s own Zalo are amongst some revelers of this trend in recent years. Last year, gay dating app Grindr continued the tradition with their own annual insights, and Vietnam managed to claim a spot in the roundup.

In late December, the black-and-yellow hookup app released their internal data chronicling how their 13 million monthly users have engaged with the app in 2023, including some fascinating statistics into the queer community worldwide. Did you know that Italy has the most enjoyers of feet? Or that Bangladesh tops the chart in number of bears, and we’re not talking about the ursine version here.

Apart from the quirkier categories, Grindr Unwrapped 2023 offers a glimpse into the sexual identities of gay men around the world. Interestingly, Vietnam came 3rd in the Top 5 countries with the highest percentage of bottoms, behind South Korea and Japan and just ahead of Denmark and Finland. Yay? It’s also important to note that this wasn’t the first year we’ve made the ranking: Vietnam was honored for the first time back in 2020.

On the other end of the spectrum, Trinidad & Tobago, Kenya, China, Myanmar and Greece reported the most tops. Highest concentrations of vers can be found in Finland, Austria, Australia, Germany and Hungary. Reflecting the rise of sides in recent years, the report also includes a category for the butt-averse amongst us, with Singapore, the Philippines, China, Kenya, and New Zealand rounding out the Top 5.

While this report might be a lot of fun to peruse, we must recognize that the data only reflects the sexual dynamics of 13 millions queer men globally, and even then, not all Grindr users include these labels in their profiles. “And remember, Grindr Unwrapped is not meant as a comprehensive or scientific report on global queer sex & dating behaviors,” the app writes in their Unwrapped announcement blog post.

Some whimsical stats from the report. Images via Grindr.

As a nation, Vietnam’s LGBT rights advancements have been slow in the past years, but at least the climate hasn’t regressed. Some positive highlights have shown the government’s changing attitudes towards queer rights.

In 2022, Vietnam’s Ministry of Health made global headlines after it issued a nationwide memo to medical professionals to treat LGBT patients with respect and make sure they are not discriminated against. The directive stressed that being LGBTQ+ “is entirely not an illness” so it “cannot be ‘cured’ nor need[s] to be ‘cured’ and cannot be converted in any way.”

The Vietnamese government is also in the process of bringing forth the Law on Gender Reassignment, which is projected to take effect in 2026, according to a draft version. The draft law stipulates that each Vietnamese national may undertake gender reassignment once in their lifetime and will have their new gender lawfully recognized by the state.

[Photo: Participants celebrate Hanoi Pride in 2022.]

Minecraft is now a modern classic world-building game allowing players to construct elaborate buildings using isometric cubes. Thanks to this endless stream of materials, one can theoretically build anything in the game world if they have enough patience and attention to details.

A group of Vietnamese Minecrafters called Team Fuho have embarked on the Happy Vietnam project, which seeks to reconstruct a number of famous local landmarks in the game — including but not limited to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Temple of Literature, Vietnam National Assembly, Noi Bai International Airport. After three years hard at work, the team has finished 2,000 buildings of varying sizes, a figure that “even [Team Fuho] can’t believe we could achieve,” as shared by member Hoàng Đạt.

Ba Đình Square.

At the start, Team Fuho only comprised one member and founder Hoàng Đạt. He then opened a server to welcome more players to participate in his project. Their labor of love quickly transcended the initial goal of just building for fun, so they agreed to form Team Fuho to join forces in building bigger projects. From just five members, the collective now features 16 bricklayers.

According to Đạt, the story behind the name is quite simple: it’s a phonetic approximation of the Vietnamese work “phụ hồ,” meaning construction workers. “If ‘phụ hồ’ build housed in the real world, ‘Fuho’ constructs things in the virtual world,” Đạt explained.

Presidential Palace.

National Assembly.

In the beginning, Team Fuho only planned to create new houses and cities in game, but after a while, the members aspired to be a part of something more meaningful: “How about recreating the most special things about Vietnam? This is also a great way to promote the nation’s image. So, we disassembled the custom builds and restarted once again with Happy Vietnam.”

Most of the time, Team Fuho follows four main phases with every new project: first, find out as much as possible about the geographical location, area, and real-life look of the landmark. Second, they build a crude foundation according to a ratio so that it scales as accurately as possible. Then, they begin putting together the basic structure and the raw form of architectural features. Lastly, it comes time for decoration and landscaping.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.

Temple of Literature.

Depending on the scope of the project and what kind of reference materials they can find, each recreation can take from a few hours to a few months to complete. Veteran builders take the lead on more complex parts of the structure, while others help out with supporting features and decoration.

Minecraft places a maximum limit of 255 in height or 320 blocks, depending on the game version. Therefore, for major projects, the team has to scale down the building. The Landmark building, for example, was recreated at 1:4 size with a reduced number of stories and height of each story. “Nonetheless, we try our best to retain the exterior and interior as much as possible,” he said.

“Even then, for some buildings, there are very few photos or the photos are too old, so we struggled in remaking them. In cases where the reference documents are vague, we had to make do with a little bit of imagination,” the team explained.

Ngọc Sơn Temple.

Đoan Môn Gate.

In the universe of “Happy Vietnam,” the Noi Bai International Airport is the most detailed and elaborate structure. The Minecraft version features an international terminal, a domestic terminal, an air traffic control tower, runways, hangars, and more. It took the collective three years to finish building the airport.

At the moment, most buildings are replicas of those in northern Vietnam, but the team is slowly including more architectural icons from the central, northwestern, and southern regions as well. Huế’s Imperial City is an example of something they’re working on right now.

Nội Bài Airport.

HCMC City Hall.

Readers interested in finding out more about Happy Vietnam or joining the team can find more info via this link.

In this digital age, farming, especially in developing countries like Vietnam, has maintained a general perception of being an analog, hands-on practice. 

Farmers are unfairly viewed as simple folk who toil away under the blazing sun with rudimentary tools to ensure that we have food on our plates without even needing to think about where it comes from. But contrary to popular belief, farmers need data and digital tools just as badly as ride-share drivers tasked with picking you up from a far-flung hẻm. 

A variety of crops, including pepper, stand to benefit from improved technology integration. Photo courtesy of International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Tracking fertilizer use and rainfall or identifying potentially dangerous pests are just some of the areas in which digital solutions can help farmers, their customers, and the environment. This is where agtech (agricultural technology) can come in to help. But while this market is valued at about US$20 billion globally, it is in the very early stages in Vietnam.

A segmented sector

According to a 2021 report from the British Chamber of Commerce Vietnam, the country had just 46 agtech companies, even though nearly 30 million people work in the agri-food industry. By following non-digital methods, many farmers overuse pesticides, adding to their production costs while also damaging the land and hurting the quality of their crops. The nation’s agricultural supply chain also lacks transparency, something that could be addressed digitally. 

There are some domestic pioneers in the field, including Demeter, MimosaTek, and Naturally Vietnam, while Viettel has backed an agtech platform called NextFarm that has over 1,000 users in Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Singapore. But the country has few platforms from which agtech practices and applications can be launched. Enter AgTech Vietnam. Created by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) under the World Bank Group, it aims to bring agtech solutions to smallholder farmers in Vietnam. 

Vietnam’s agricultural sector is dominated by smallholder farmers, with the General Statistics Office estimating in 2020 that there are about 10 million such farmers in the country. A smallholder has a small parcel of land, sometimes smaller than 0.5 hectares, and operates on a small scale.

Farmers in Bãi Giữa, Hanoi tend to their crops. Photo by Linh Phạm.

"When I came to Vietnam four years ago, we had this issue with multiple clients who were saying that they wanted to deploy digital solutions to smallholders in their supply chains, but it wasn’t working," said Marta Bogdanic, Senior Operations Officer at IFC. "Farmers would provide information for a little while, but then it would stop, as farmers haven’t observed any direct benefit."

Bogdanic and her team had clients working in the rice, pepper, and coffee industries, so they started looking at these sectors, particularly in the Mekong Delta and the Central Highlands, and realized which part of the food production chain needed to be addressed: the farmers. “We went out and conducted a diagnostic study, basically just asking farmers what they needed,” she said. “Because why would somebody use something if it doesn’t have any value for them?” 

"Clients had been trying a top-down approach of telling farmers that if they shared enough information after implementing desired production practices, they could, for example, be certified and then receive premium payments for their crop.  “But these premium payments were often all over the place, depending on the company, depending on the relationship with farmers,” Bogdanic said. “Some farmers would get less in payments, others would get more, and it wasn’t very organized.”

While engaging directly with farmers to assess their needs, AgTech Vietnam also brought three agtech companies on board for a three-month pilot acceleration program in which the tech firms would show Vietnamese farmers what their products could do. ListenField, SpiceUp, and Plantix provide mobile-based farm management and advisory services aimed at, among other goals, improving yield quality and quickly detecting crop pests or diseases.

Farmers are introduced to a mobile-based farm management tool. Photo courtesy of International Finance Corporation (IFC).

“We listened to feedback from farmers on what they wanted, and we worked with agri tech startups and a tech developer to develop farming advisory applications to help the farmers,” Bogdanic explained. “Basically, they get notifications that are location-, weather-, and crop cycle-specific to what they need to do. Coffee and pepper are perennial crops, so you know when the flowering starts, and you can evaluate the next steps at the right time. You draw data from an IBM weather service and look at things that are happening in the field, and this enables the provision of these notifications to farmers.”  

Of course, convincing people to use a new app and change their process isn’t always easy. Especially when it comes to changing business practices, people need to know that something new will create additional value for them.

The rice problem

Rice farmers, who tend to be older than the pepper and coffee farmers that Bogdanic worked with, were particularly resistant to the introduction of digital apps. But the sector, worth US$3 billion in exports, is hugely important financially and thus, despite the challenges, deserving of attention. The information that farmers can upload, such as the amount of water or fertilizer they were using, has to be linked to a greater network. Being able to share data related to their crops with the companies they sell to allows for easier certification audits for organic status and other systems.

Another major challenge is the structure of Vietnam’s rice market, an even bigger problem than the reluctance among rice farmers to go digital. “The rice supply chain is very fragmented, and there are too many people involved,” Bogdanic said. ““There is a middleman at every step, so a farmer doesn’t sell directly to the end buyer; they sell to somebody who collects and then sells that in bulk to a person with a barge, and then someone aggregates a few barges, and so on.”” 

As a result, it’s difficult for the end buyer — whether a company or an individual — to know exactly where their rice came from and how it was grown. This lack of verifiable information can have significant impacts on domestic and foreign markets.

Moreover, of the three crops, rice presents by far the greatest potential for improved environmental outcomes, particularly because of how it is cultivated. Though methane doesn’t remain in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, it is a much more potent greenhouse gas, and one created by the most basic way of growing rice: in flooded fields. “Rice emits the most methane of any sub-sector in agriculture, and it’s responsible for about 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in this industry in Vietnam,” Bogdanic explained.

Working on the rice field in Sóc Trăng Province. Photo by Alberto Prieto. 

“The Vietnamese government took on this obligation to be net-zero by 2050, and they want to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030,” Bogdanic said. “It would be a very nice story if one outcome of this application is for farmers to change their practices based on data to alternate wetting and drying instead of using flooded fields.” 

As of now, about 1,800 farmers are using the IFC-backed application, mostly in the coffee and pepper sub-sectors. Millions of people work as farmers in Vietnam, meaning this is a very small start, but Bogdanic believes there is great potential for her work and agtech in general when it comes to farmers and the land they use.

“I am a firm believer in farmers getting paid for the quality of the products that they deliver, rather than just emissions reduction,” she said. “But this is all tied up together if you want people to produce in a more sustainable manner.”

In neighborhood communities, deaf children are often bullied by their hearing friends, according to my classmate Nguyễn Tài Minh.

Minh learned about this when visiting Xã Đàn Inter-Level School, a school for deaf children between ages six and thirteen. His family often traveled there to visit a friend that had since moved away. The trips allowed Minh to get to know the stories of the students and learn about their lives. He shared with me his desire to create something to help them. In our collaboration, Minh contributed passion and connections with experts while I offered the programming skills I have developed from school classes and independent study. We came up with an idea for an application that could translate Vietnamese sign language into text using AI technology. Minh thought of naming it SIGNTEGRATE, a portmanteau of “sign” and “integrate.”

We began by collecting footage of deaf students at Xã Đàn signing basic sentence structures. Minh contacted and organized professional interpreters, teachers, and students at the school to generate self-recorded videos of simple sign language phrases such as "hi," "nice to meet you." Meanwhile, I worked on the technical details by essentially training our computer model to recognize each hand gesture.

By the end of our work, we had collected more than 250 videos. I scoured GitHub, Stack Overflow, and YouTube for technological tools we could use to track 3D landmarks on the body — elbows, wrists, shoulders — and record their time and space information to train the model to speculate the meaning of each action in real-time. The end product was a primitive model that could translate 10 commonly used sentences with up to 75% accuracy.

Phạm Ninh Giang (left) and Nguyễn Tài Minh (right) with participants and representatives at the National Startup Conference.

After developing the model successfully, we submitted it to the high school division of the National Startup Conference. Our ideas were presented in front of a board of judges and we ultimately received a silver medal. But something gnawed at me.

I developed the application without interacting with a single deaf person. I had naively accepted my friend’s invitation to collaborate because I merely wanted to improve my coding skills. I had not helped the deaf community directly. How could I when I didn’t even know them?

For weeks after, I cringed at the thought of SIGNTEGRATE because I felt like I hadn’t fully committed to the topic. But it did force me to confront my lack of empathy for Vietnam’s deaf and disabled population. Without the project, I might never have thought about them.

Deaf people face a plethora of issues in Vietnam. Their access to education is restricted because Vietnamese sign language instruction typically ends at the elementary level and is rarely offered in secondary education. Their access to daily information through television is also limited. Though the government ordered TV stations to provide captions or live sign language interpreters for TV programs, only a very limited number of news programs have done so.

Moreover, deaf people have a tough time with administrative formalities. For example, it once took a deaf woman 6 attempts to register the birth of her baby with local officials; the registration was only successful after she hired a sign language translator. But not every deaf person has access to translating services. There are approximately only 30 professional sign language translators in all of Vietnam and not only are translators hard to come by, but their service could cost up to VND200.000 per hour, well beyond the means of many in need.

Unfortunately, in Vietnam the hardships surrounding deaf people extend to people living with disability in general. The infrastructure in Vietnamese cities does not support them well. For example, cars and motorbikes are often parked on sidewalks which force people in wheelchairs to travel on the road with other high-speed vehicles. The public bus system is largely inaccessible for the mobility-impaired, and although private corporations like VinBus do offer wheelchair ramps, they’re only available in limited numbers in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Disabled people also face difficulties finding jobs: according to a 2021 article, people with disabilities are employed at half the rate of the population at large.

Used wheelchairs abandoned at a health institute. Photo by Alberto Prieto.

In Vietnam, although there are many charities and organizations dedicated to helping the disabled community, their main objective often stops at providing goods and services, without fighting for rights and laws that would promote inclusive designs that would have wide-reaching impacts. Social policies regarding disabilities and the indifference people show to the issue is a “chicken-or-egg” problem.

If policies created reasonable accommodations for disabled people, they would have more opportunities to take part in society’s functions and that integration would help more people become aware of their struggles. For example, if public transportation were designed to accommodate disabilities, then many with mobility issues might find it easier to join the workforce.

These realizations have helped motivate my desire to consider how future products and software I develop should take the needs of deaf and disabled people into consideration. Extending their utility to include members of those communities will be an important part of the process.

My hope is to inspire and challenge other young designers, artists, engineers, architects, inventors, advocates, and programmers like myself to consider sensory and mobility impairment in their creations and plans. Doing so could help everyone. Text messaging was originally designed for deaf persons and the ergonomic screwdriver was devised for people with arthritis, but they grew to benefit everyone. If we understand that such an outlook might help everyone, including our disabled brothers and sisters, then we can better embody the often-touted dictum: “Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.”

Phạm Ninh Giang is currently a Grade 11 student at Hanoi-Amsterdam High School. His project SIGNTEGRATE, in collaboration with classmate Nguyễn Tài Minh, won second prize at a national startup idea competition for students held earlier this year.

The ability to roam and frolic around is essential for our canine and feline companions' well-being, but too often, it can become a privilege for cats and dogs living with disability and immobility from neglect and abuse.

But with a helping hand from Forever Wheelchair, a social enterprise based in District 9 that makes custom wheelchairs for handicapped animals, many of them are being given a new "leash" on life to go on more adventures.

Oscar Fernando Ruiz Bonilla, from Colombia, is one of the co-founders of Forever Wheelchair.

Forever Wheelchair is run by Oscar Fernando Ruiz Bonilla and his wife Trần Anh Thư, who are currently the parents of a household of rescued cats, dogs, and a monkey with disabilities. 

An animal lover from a young age, Oscar rescued countless dogs and cats in his home country Colombia and provided them with shelters that he built himself. However, the idea of helping physically challenged pets did not cross his mind until he started his career in Vietnam and adopted Motor, an adorable pug suffering from a leg impairment. Unhappy with the quality of the wheelchairs on the market at the time, Oscar began tinkering to come up with his very own wheelchair, which went on to be the pioneering design that would help Motor, and many other fur babies, to again freely explore the world.

A feline resident recovering from a limb injury.

Lì, a puppy who was paralyzed in an accident that crushed its hind leg and punctured its flesh. On Lì's right side is Motor. These are some of the dogs and cats that are being treated and residing at Forever Wheelchair's shelter.

Taking the measurements of the animal is the first and most crucial step in the wheelchair-making process, according to Bonilla. If an owner is unable to send their pets to FW's workshop in Bình Chánh District, he will have to thoroughly guide them on how to take the measurements of the pet precisely from a distance, due to the fact that “the making process of a right wheelchair can only begin with a correct set of readings,” he said.

Moving onto the second stage, Bonilla and his crew will proceed to select the appropriate frame size based on the measurements received from the owner. The frames crafted at Forever Wheelchair vary in size, the smallest being an XS that would fit a teacup poodle, and the largest being an XXXL that could house an Alaskan Malamute. Once the correct frame has been selected, the crew will collect matching springs, screws, and plastic hinges to begin the assembly process.

Setting up Lì's wheelchair.

It is common for owners to improvise wheelchairs for their handicapped pets, but these makeshift devices often utilize wires and ropes to secure the animals. This inadvertently puts pressure on the lower abdomen, which causes further discomfort for them during physical activities.

FW offers a solution by installing springs between the joints of the wheelchair, a simple but effective change to the design that allows four-legged users to move with ease and balance regardless of the type of terrain.

It is this intricate metal frame that attracts customers from outside of Vietnam to seek out FV's products, even though shipping costs can outweigh the manufacturing costs, says Bovilla.

The wheelchair’s design is also optimized for the animal's age and activeness. For the little ones that are younger and more energetic, the wheel axle is propped backward to provide more pillar support and allow them to lie down and stand up easily. In contrast, for the older ones, the wheel axle will be propped inward and situated at the hip level to reduce the weight load exerted on their shoulders.

The surface of the wheelchair's pads contains tiny holes that help with ventilation and prevent skin agitation.

The edges of the screw heads are rounded off to reduce friction and prevent scratches in case of a collision.

FW's journey hasn't been without derailments, as Oscar and Thư can't count the number of times they had to "evacuate" the family due to complaints about noise from neighbors.

"Our puppies are very excited to see new people, and when one barks, the others 'harmonize' as if they're in a choir. Moving around so often has been tough for them because they constantly have to adapt to a completely new environment." The couple is thus planning their own "sanctuary" where animals with a disability have a bigger playground to recover from injuries and acclimate to their pair of "legs." Vietnam also lacks facilities that do research on and provide care for pets with disabilities, so the founder is left on his own to study the animals' anatomy and 3D printing technique to enhance the appearance and function of the wheelchairs.

Left: Oscar designs the wheelchair’s components using 3D software. Right: A wheelchair coupling created with a 3D printer.

Despite being more specialized in making wheelchairs for dogs and cats, FW also extends support to other members of the fauna kingdom such as birds and monkeys; they even received requests from a farm in Đà Lạt to make prosthetics for their llamas. "But we are still in the process of figuring out how to make our wheelchairs and prosthetics on a bigger scale [...] and it's probably going to take some time." 

Without a safe haven yet, therapeutic activities such as walking have to take place in the common spaces of the residential area.

One can now come across Forever Wheelchair's posters when taking their fur babies in for checkups, as their wheelchair is a veterinarian-approved device across Vietnam. "Many overseas customers also prefer our products because the animals we live with have different types of disabilities, and we are able to observe and fine-tune our devices for all these distinct needs."

This is monumental for a grassroots initiative such as FW, since almost no one knew about it during its early stages, and Bonilla and Thư even resorted to using their pocket money to support the animals when times were tough. "At that time, we did not expect that one day, all the sacrifice and support that we have been giving for the past three years would be coming back to us from the community," Oscar gleefully shared.

Profits from wheelchair sales are used to help other unfortunate cases. Through FW's charity program, 10% of the revenue from each wheelchair is donated to affiliated shelters such as Hanoi Pet Adoption and Paws For Compassion which are also doing their part to take care of animals in need. And while it might seem like a small amount, the donations have more than filled many fur-covered bellies with hearty meals. Owners who cannot afford a wheelchair will also be assisted by FW through fund-raising on the organization's social media channels.

Thanks to Forever Wheelchair's products, dogs and cats with disabilities can now comfortably and confidently move with their own “legs,” thereby becoming more “cooperative” during the later therapy process. And for Bonilla and Thư, seeing their babies' tails flicking freely while frolicking around with their wheelchairs is undoubtedly the best reward at the end of the day.

"Our hope is very simple, which is to ask everyone to contribute without criticism, contribute with true enthusiasm. Please sympathize with the hardship that organizations who are providing shelters for abandoned and handicapped animals have to cope with, they are the true unsung heroes of the community," the couple shared.

Bonilla and Thư. 

The recent renaissance in Vietnam's game-making market has been strongly driven by independent studios delivering highly acclaimed and anticipated productions.

Among these is Hoa, a Ghibli-like platformer that scored several jury awards for its ethereal visuals and soundtrack; while another high-profile title, Tai Ương (The Scourge), has been on every horror fan's watch list since its eerie trailer came out.

Following in these projects' footsteps, an aspiring graphic designer based in Saigon has devised a mystical game concept called Vệ Thần (The Guardian). Enlisting characters from Vietnamese fables and fairy tales — including Sơn Tinh, Thánh Gióng and Chử Đồng Tử — the game offers a refreshing take on the country's mythical world through its unique character designs and elements typical of the adventure RPG genre.

Trần Xuân Lộc, the mind behind Vệ Thần, is not a game designer by trade, but a visual and graphic artist. He previously authored the viral illustration series "Yêu-Ma-Quỷ-Quái" to introduce some of the most elusive beasts and ghouls of Vietnamese folklore. Lộc explained that it has always been the plan for him to make another fantasy-infused, locally inspired work.

But ideas for the game concept didn't arise until extraordinary circumstances forced him and the rest of society to temporarily "log out" of the real world. With more time to spare, Lộc could explore interests he had never had a chance to try out before. Thus, his social distancing days were filled with adventures, albeit in the digital world of Steam staples like Hollow Knight, Hades and Blasphemous.

“I was just completely mesmerized. Exploring different worlds, solving mysteries, and battling evils…are experiences beyond enchanting. They took me back to the days of my childhood, the era of Megaman X4 and Super Mario World,” Lộc said. As his pre-emptive creative plan and a newfound love for gaming loomed, he began to wonder: "What would an adventure game with a Vietnamese mythology theme be like?" This 'aha' moment, according to the artist, was what gave Vệ Thần its initial push.

The main character of the game is Vệ Thần (The Guardian), the armor of a fallen soldier brought back to life by a supernatural spirit. Apart from the protagonist, there are also other NPC guardians of different sizes, shapes and designs featured in the game. However, all designs are based on the creatures that appeared on prehistoric bronze drums of Vietnam, such as birds, crocodiles and deer.

Players will follow The Guardian on their journey through otherworldly realms, where they will meet allies and foes in the reimagined mythical characters. Through Vệ Thần's demo trailer, we can see nods to Vietnamese culture that have been woven into the game, not only through its NPCs but also through miscellaneous items and scenes. One will be delighted to catch Guardians traversing through Rừng Trăm Đốt, receiving side quests from the Land Genie, and buying supplies from cô Tấm as an entrepreneur.

Although the project currently remains just a visual conceptualization, Lộc said he was already preparing a long-term plan to make Vệ Thần a real game with the help of crowd-funding and actual game-makers. However, he believes that the final product will be vastly different in terms of concept and style, “with a lot of changes and upgrades!”

Until the game is realized, let's immerse ourselves in the world of Vệ Thần through these magical snippets.

One of the key scenes in the game in Rừng Trăm Đốt, or the forest of hundred-knot bamboo.

The protagonist will have to befriend and get help from these special NPCs to complete their quest.

A journey map.

Characters powers and role are tied to their original stories in Vietnam's folklore.

Items such as Túi Ba Gang and Golden Starfruit are also taken from popular fairy tales.

[Images via Trần Xuân Lộc's Behance page]

The dreamy platformer snagged trophies for Best Art Direction, Best Music/Sound Design, and People’s Voice Best Art Direction at the awards honoring the "Best of the Internet."

Hoa, a game produced by Vietnam's PM Studios and Skrollcat Studio, has been captivating gamers around the world since its release in August 2021 and was recently honored with three prestigious Webby Awards. 

The game's ethereal, hand-painted scenery and soothing live-recorded score have inspired comparisons to Studio Ghibli films and earned praise from players in search of a peaceful gaming experience. The subtle storytelling and light exploration-based puzzles are just the icing on top.

Webby's criteria for Best Art Direction are simply: "A game whose visual style and language is distinctly unique and elevates the overall game experience." Voters agreed with the views of the judges and made Hoa the winner of the People's Voice category as well. The description of Best Music/Sound Design is similarly broad, taking into account "outstanding audio, including score, original song, soundtrack, and sound design."

The Hoa score by its composer Johannes aka Akmigone via his YouTube channel.

After the award winners were announced, the team behind Hoa posted a straightforward, heartfelt message on their Facebook Page: "Sending our love to everyone who voted and shared, press and friends who helped spread the word. We wouldn't be here without you."

From apps to websites to podcasts, since 1997, the Webby Awards have been honoring all things internet including video games. The award is given by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences through a judging body made up of over 2,000 industry experts and innovators.

Read Saigoneer's review of Hoa here.

Hoa is available on PC, MacOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Visit the game's Steam page for more details.

If you spent your 2021 lockdown escaping into the wondrous, whimsical world of Hoa, the locally developed video game, now is your chance to show your support for the creators.

Hoa has been nominated for the Best Art Direction and Best Music/Sound Design category under Games-Features in the 26^th annual Webby Awards People's Voice, in which people can vote on "the best of the Internet." With voting open until April 21, Hoa is up against Wayfinder, Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition, Lost in Random, and No Longer Home.

Released in August 2021 on multiple platforms, Hoa is among a few existing video games conceptualized and produced by a Vietnamese team. It's a side-scrolling platform game in which players take the role of Hoa, a young fairy, on a journey to return home. With gorgeous art and a soothing soundtrack, Hoa is breath of fresh air for those seeking a relaxing gaming experience. Read Saigoneer's review of Hoa here.

The Webby Awards are presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences through a judging body made up of over 2,000 industry experts and innovators. 

The eight current Webby categories are: Websites and Mobile Sites, Video, Advertising, Media & PR, Social, Apps and Software, Games, Podcasts, and Virtual & Remote. Each category has two winners, one chosen by the general public under the People's Voice awards, and one chosen by the judging body. 

As is tradition, each winner is allowed to share a five-word acceptance speech during the awards show, which is considered the "Internet's highest honor." 

Hoa fans can vote for the game here (Best Art Direction) and here (Best Music). Nearly 800,00 votes have already been tallied across the Webby categories. The winners will be announced during the Webby Awards on May 16.

Mentions of ve chai might evoke images of uncles and aunties pushing around their cart or perched on bicycles, ferrying a host of plastic bags and scrap metal, and occasionally calling out: “Đồng nát sắt vụn bán nào…” This familiar scene, no matter how nostalgic, might change soon.

In December last year, when VECA — Vietnam’s first application linking informal recyclers and Saigoneers — announced their relaunch after a drawn-out pause due to lockdown, I was eager to try the novel service. Prior to this, during the app’s trial period only in Phú Nhuận District in April 2021, my interaction with VECA was merely me placing a selling order and being informed that it was canceled, all because of the pandemic. When Saigon was battered by a massive wave of COVID-19 cases leading to a strict lockdown, the technological startup had to power down for five months.

To my surprise, the relaunch came with an expansion in the app’s operating zone to 10 metropolitan districts of Saigon (now 12), including the neighborhood where the Saigoneer office is. A made-in-Vietnam app by Vietnamese, one that’s not a localized version of a foreign tech giant, and one that’s seeking to tackle a crucial process in our recycling capacity — of course I was excited by it and had a lot of expectations.

A to-the-point UI and smooth usage

After filling in some information like address, contact number and preferred time, I was able to secure an “appointment” with a seller on a Monday. Available on both the Apple Store and Google Play Store, VECA has a simple interface compared to other service-hailing apps, with a color palette of white, green and blue.

VECA's index page.

In a recent interview with municipal TV channel HTV9, Minh Trang, the app’s co-founder, shared that her team was constantly making UI adjustments during the app’s first-year run because it initially was too complicated and not convenient for users.

In the current version, the key function for Saigoneers is the “book a sale” section. There are complementary sections that list an account’s accrued points and how to exchange them. Sellers can opt to receive their money via their Momo wallet, though the app does not incorporate a chat or phone contact function between buyers and sellers. The index screen is designed in an informational way, listing what kind of recyclable materials it accepts and at how much per kilogram they can be sold for. These include: newspaper, document paper, cartons, solid iron, scrap iron, corrugated iron, plastic bottles, aluminum, aluminum cans and Tetra Paks. Clicking on each category icon will reveal more detailed instructions and definitions.

VECA does not directly buy or sell ve chai, so there is some risk in managing what is sold and bought. It might be beneficial to users if the app included more information and caution on hazardous waste. At the time of writing, Việt Nam Tái Chế (Vietnam Recycle) is among a few services in Vietnam that specialize in handling materials like e-waste, with 10 collection points in Hanoi and Saigon.

Users are not totally in control of the booking time

Entering details to make a booking. 

Seeking to sell household scrap, Saigoneers might be disappointed to find out that the app only allows two options in terms of pickup time: weekdays or weekends, without specific time selections. There’s some obvious room for improvement here as VECA sets out to improve “flexibility and transparency” in the ve chai collection process. Still, it’s also important to add that once connected, collectors and users can arrange a time for pickup directly via other channels of communication.

Depending on the location, time, and amount to be sold, it might take a while to receive confirmation for the transaction. On a Friday, I placed my booking and chose the pickup time to be during the week. After over two days, my booking was confirmed by a collector, whom I only knew by a name. To be frank, as this was my first time selling ve chai online and the app confirmation was vague, I couldn’t help feeling a little unsure.

Tech-based ve chai collection, a new career path?

On the afternoon of the collection date, a young man arrived at our agreed meeting place with a huge basket strapped on the back of his bike. The “ve chai specialist” was 22-year-old Phong. He quickly sorted my scrap papers into categories, weighed them, and wrote down notes on his phone. Phong shared that he had been working for VECA for two months at the time, though I only noticed him thanks to that humongous basket. The app’s associates did not yet have uniforms or any other branding paraphernalia.

The ve chai collector was a young man on a bike, not a traditional vendor as we've known.

I’ve followed VECA’s Facebook fanpage since it first made the news and saw photos of smiling ladies and their carts with the VECA stickers, so I did anticipate seeing this demographic for my first sale. This would also be in line with what the app aims to achieve: helping traditional ve chai sellers collect scraps more efficiently. However, as Phong explained, young collectors like himself are not rare as one would expect. Some are even in for the long haul because of their tech-savviness.

I was immediately impressed with how well-organized he was in weighing, categorizing and storing my recyclable papers. I was paid in cash right away, though via an electronic wallet was also an option. The price is already set on the app’s front page, so the transaction happened quickly and smoothly.

For the entirety of the process, VECA acts as the middleman without charging any fee from the user or collector, though this means that collectors have to purchase their own equipment and figure out where to resell the scrap materials. To Phong, the output is not an immediate concern because he’s already done some research on collection points in the city, in addition to many leads passed down by senior collectors. “I still resold at a loss many times, because at the beginning I wasn’t really good at dealing at consignment yards, so they didn’t weigh correctly,” Phong recalled.

When asked his opinion on the trade’s stability, Phong was happy to share: “I treat this as my full-time job and not just an additional income. Every day I drive around the districts, there are quite a lot of orders. The income is pretty good now [...] Before, I did ride-hailing apps for a while, but it was so competitive I quit.”

After two months on the job, Phong is happy with how his career is going.

Phong also mentioned that the company set aside some subsidies for days when there are too few bookings due to the elements. Moreover, newcomers without any experience in scrap materials can join a short training course on material categorization and appraising. Seeing how dedicated Phong is at his job, I am glad that the app is able to contribute to the employment pool in Saigon, at least among young workers who have no trouble adapting to smart devices. As I did not experience the service from the perspective of collectors, I will not comment on the other side of the equation in this writing.

Be that as it may, I think VECA could be another app that young Saigoneers should introduce to their parents, as handling household ve chai has long been something older adults are familiar with. The app’s expansion to 12 districts even as the city undergoes an economic slump and unheard-of hardships was a considerable feat for its founders. Most recently, VECA’s creators became one of six winners in the Thành Phố Không Rác (City Without Trash) competition organized by Circular Economy Network and WasteAid, receiving EUR10,000.

Compared to other tech-based entities that have significantly shifted the way we travel and consume, VECA still has some big hurdles to overcome, like how to get more collectors and buyers to adopt the technology in their daily work, and, as a more lofty goal, how to encourage waste-sorting among urbanites to make selling ve chai more substantial and efficient. Perhaps, there will be a day when we stop saying "ve chai money," and switch to "VECA money," just like there are now fewer "call a xe ôm" suggestions compared to "call a Grab."

The Tumbler — the Batmobile in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight — has been recreated by 23-year-old artist and architect Nguyễn Đắc Chung and his team at Macro Studios.

According to Zing, the team built the car in 18 months, at a cost of US$25,000. The car is made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), carbon fiber, and steel. Some parts are handcrafted while others were 3D printed for high precision. This Batmobile weighs less than 600 kilograms, seats two and can reach a top speed of 105 km/h. Chung also added four tactical cameras for a nearly 360-degree view, and unlike the original gas-powered prototype, this version is electric — the first electric Batmobile in the world. 

Macro Studios is a Hanoi-based workshop that creates cosplay weapons and costumes. But their products are not just for show. Chung said they always want to take things to the next level and “blow people’s minds,” and this Batmobile, for example, is a “fully operational, tactical vehicle capable of freeway speeds.” 

The Batmobile is available for purchase. And if you live in Ho Chi Minh City, you can see it in person at Van Daryl automotive gallery.

[Photos by Macro Studios via Zing News]

Paging the Fast & Furious screenwriters.

Last November, PC Gamer reported that a shipment of GPUs (graphics processing units) was stolen from a truck on its way from San Francisco to southern California. The graphics cards were being shipped by EVGA, which produces the well-known Nvidia brand of GPUs, with the stolen goods ranging in price from US$330 to US$1,960 per unit. 

At the time, EVGA warned people about purchasing any of the stolen cards if they appeared on the black market, as the company had their serial numbers recorded and any warranty activation could alert the police.

It turns out that the GPUs were destined for a much longer journey post-heist, as the industry site VideoCardz reported this week that some of the cards ended up here in Vietnam, where customers of an unnamed local retailer have reported issues when trying to activate the warranty offered with their new GPU.  

PC Gamer adds that the retailer in question is known for creating cryptocurrency mining rigs, which are in high demand globally, contributing to a computer chip shortage that has been exacerbated by global production and supply chain disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

So if you're in the market for a high-end Nvidia GPU, be aware of what you might be buying.

[Top image via BR Atsit]

Vietnam’s internet is inconsistent, but very affordable when compared with regional peers, according to experts at the recent Vietnam Internet Day 2021 conference.

Held a few weeks ago, the conference was co-organized by telecom firms and the Vietnam Telecommunications Authority under the Ministry of Information and Communications. Experts presented many important data points reflecting local internet access and how it performs compared to other nations.

Hoàng Đức Dũng, a representative from Viettel Networks, shared that, in the last five years, Vietnam’s submarine cables have ruptured on average 10 times annually. Each break takes around a month to fix, though on some occasions, when one connection is fixed, another is damaged.

Dũng added that Vietnam currently has only seven undersea cables handling international traffic, one of the lowest numbers in the region, compared to Thailand (10), Malaysia (22), and Singapore (30). This handful of global connections means that there are fewer options to fall back on when one goes out of service.

Speed-wise, internet services in Vietnam also leave much to be desired. Data from Ookla shows that the country’s download speed is just over 84MB per second, ranking No. 58 of 181 countries. For mobile internet, the figure is 78.34MB per second.

According to Nguyễn Phong Nhã, deputy head of the telecom authority, the majority of broadband subscriptions in Vietnam (47.17%) is in the 30–50MB per second range. The 50–100MB per second stratum accounts for 35.21%, and 16.86% of subscriptions have speeds of over 100MB per second. A small percentage of users have speeds slower than 30MB per second.

Most Vietnamese phone owners have switched to 4G (89.42%), while 10.05% still use 3G. 5G amounts to less than 1% of users.

A major advantage of the internet in Vietnam, however, is its low price. According to a report published last November, the country ranks at No. 6 among the world’s nations with cheapest internet costs, as users only pay on average US$10.70 a month. Most of the top ten are in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

M-Service, the owner of Vietnam's leading payment app MoMo, raised US$200 million during a Series-E funding round led by Japanese bank Mizuho, resulting in a US$2 billion valuation.

M-Service achieved unicorn status when Mizuho acquired a 7.5% stake for US$170 million in the company with further investment coming from Ward Ferry Management and existing shareholders Goodwater Capital LLC and Kora Management. The company had raised an additional estimated US$100 million at the start of the year and the same amount in 2019, but has no plans to go public in the near future.

The money will be used to expand the reach of the financial services it currently offers to its 31 million users; invest in Vietnamese companies that can strengthen the MoMo ecosystem such as the recently acquired AI startup Pique and increase its presence in smaller cities and rural areas. M-Service was founded in 2007 and was initially focused on simple payment facilitation for mobile devices but has since expanded to a wide range of digital financial services. 

“The investment shows their confidence and belief in our mission – to improve the life of the Vietnamese people and merchants through technology, by giving them access to superior, simpler, and affordable financial solutions and daily services,” said Nguyễn Mạnh Tường, executive vice-chairman and co-CEO of MoMo.

Mizuho's investment is expected to help facilitate collaboration between M-Service and Vietcombank, which Mizuho also has a 15% stake in. "We are seeking to broaden our retail financial business footprint with particular focus on the ASEAN region, digital transformation, and financial inclusion. We will collaborate with MoMo with the aim of facilitating its future growth and increasing financial inclusion in Vietnam,” said Daisuke Horiuchi, managing executive officer at Mizuho’s retail business company."

MoMo was first founded in 2007 as an e-payment application. Based in Ho Chi Minh City, the app has now expanded its operation to numerous services and commercial platform. It reportedly controls over 50% of the electronic wallet market in Vietnam.

[Photo via MoMo]

The funding pushes the company close to unicorn status.

Tech in Asia reports that Tiki, the Vietnamese e-commerce giant, recently raised US$258 million in a round of series E funding, bringing the company's valuation to almost US$1 billion. 

The investment was led by AIA, the insurance corporation, in addition to Taiwan Mobile, Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, STIC Investments and Yuanta Fund. According to the news source, AIA accounted for US$60 million of the investment. This follows the July announcement that Tiki and AIA Vietnam had signed a 10-year partnership, in which the insurance firm will be the e-commerce group's exclusive insurance partner. 

Thanks to that agreement, from next month, customers in Vietnam will be able to buy AIA insurance through Tiki and manage their accounts and claims through the tech platform. 

Taiwan Mobile is a previous investor in Tiki, having pumped US$20 million into the company earlier this year. Despite Tiki's impressive value, it lags behind Shopee and Lazada, two regional e-commerce behemoths, in both monthly web traffic and app rankings. 

The news outlet quotes a public statement from Son Tran, Tiki's founder, as saying "we want to become a place where Vietnamese people can find every product or service that they need." 

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Tiki is considering an IPO in the United States through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) next year. 

Created as a female-focused alternative to Tinder and Bumble, the dating app Fika recently got financial backing from international investors.

According to a press release, Fika recently secured US$1.6 million during a seed funding round led by Swedish investment firm VNV Global and including a number of angel investors and other tech entrepreneurs.

Fika is a Swedish word denoting a break for snacks like coffee and cakes and to socialize with others. The choice of name is inspired by the country of origin of the app’s creators, Denise Sandquist and Oscar Xing Luo, both Swedes of Asian descent. Sandquist, Fika’s CEO, was born in Vietnam but was adopted by a Swedish couple; she returned to Vietnam recently to look for her birth mother and has been living in the country since.

Fika was first developed by the duo in June 2020 as a platform that empowers users and emphasizes meaningful connections instead of casual relationships. Vietnam is the current focus of Fika, whose team consists mainly of local youths.

After more than a year on the market, Fika has gained over 600,000 downloads so far, according to the press release. About 40% of users are female.

According to Fika, the new funding will be used to “further expand the Fika team, further develop the app’s AI capabilities and increase the brand’s exposure in Vietnam.” An Asia expansion is also on the horizon before the app considers moving to the international arena.

The mobile application market in Vietnam has seen impressive growth in the past few years as internet penetration and smartphone ownership rates rise. A number of homegrown apps have also received funding support, such as the education app Elsa, blockchain game Axie Infinity, and recruitment app JobHopin.

One app to rule them all.

PC-Covid, a new app announced by authorities on September 30 and immediately available through Google Play and the App Store, will replace the dozen-or-so apps with various functions related to the pandemic. The Information Technology Application Authority under the Ministry of Information and Communications has stated that PC-Covid will have nine features, including the ability store users' personal information, facilitate health declarations, hold vaccination and testing information, and hazard mapping.

The QR-code-enabled green card function will be amongst PC-Covid's most important features. It will allow users who have had two vaccinations or proof of recovery from the virus to simply and easily show and scan their status and thus take part in a variety of occupational and recreational activities as part of the easing of social distancing rules. 

The new app is in response to the confusion people increasingly endured because of the plethora of apps with different uses, including Bluezone, NCOVI, VNEID, and the electronic health book. Reviews were mixed for the ease of use for many of these apps and people were uncertain which to download and why.

Personal information from the Bluezone app can be automatically updated to PC-Covid, while the other apps will no longer be updated and eventually removed from device stores. Until all relevant data is updated on PC-Covid, Saigon authorities have announced that citizens can temporarily use the apps Y Tế HCM (from the municipal health department) and VNEID (from the Ministry of Public Security) to move around the city.

Users have reportedly experienced difficulties with PC-Covid on the day of its rolling out, including an inability to download it or use the scan function, in addition to it not synchronizing with the Bluezone app. Authorities said they are working on updating and refining the app and attributed some of the issues to the number of people trying to simultaneously access it.

As of the time of writing the app is only available in Vietnamese and English, and no plans for other languages have been announced.

As the months-long lockdown drags on — though with some light at the end of the tunnel — and with in-person programs being canceled or put on indefinite hiatus, demand for virtual entertainment has naturally skyrocketed. All over the internet, inventive formats are blooming, giving everyone from amateur to seasoned content creators opportunities to showcase their creativity. But even with all the eyebrow-raising options on the menu, some still manage to catch us off-guard.

As perplexing as it is, people are now into watching other people drive trucks. In a simulation. In fact, many of these so-called truck driving sessions have attracted tens of thousands — and even millions — of views on online platforms, namely Facebook. We can’t help but wonder: How has this evidently charmed streamers and viewers alike? Will it be another short-lived fad, or a sustainable form of content?

Slow and Steady

One driving simulator that enjoys overwhelming popularity is Euro Truck Simulator 2 (ETS2). Released by SCS Software in 2012, the game asks players to assume the role of drivers of heavy-duty vehicles like trucks and coaches to make journeys around the world. There is no overarching storyline, nor challenges that require advanced strategies. Drivers just simply choose the means of transport and the roads they want to roam.

Bình Triệu Bridge in Ho Chi Minh City in Euro Truck Simulator 2. Screenshot via Nguyễn Quí Gamer's YouTube channel.

ETS2 is the latest installment in the truck simulator franchise, and it comes with extensive map and graphics upgrades. After installing a Vietnamese map mod, the garages, stations, landscapes, buildings and roads in the game are altered to simulate the traffic network of Vietnam.

Players are given the option to experience driving in any of the country’s 63 provinces, while viewers may be bewildered to see yellow-uniformed traffic officers dashing out from the side roads, just like their real-life counterparts. Gameplay is also made more interesting by the occasional road accident, jam-packed mountain pass, and racing boys swerving in front of one’s windshield.

In addition to customizing the world map, players can also choose their favorite tracks to cruise to. Popular setlists often include classic Vietnamese genres such as bolero or Vinahouse.

Unlike racing games, this driving simulator not only requires players to possess good reflexes, but also patience. Trucking along narrow, cramped paths, drivers have to focus on the steering wheel while simultaneously engaging with the audience during a livestream, which can last anywhere up to four hours.

In addition to narrating the game, to keep the attention of viewers, streamers keep their sessions lively by giving updates on their personal lives, holding trivia shows, and even doing improv comedy, all while driving. All of these interactions have made ETS2 streaming much more entertaining than that of similar games.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 isn't fast and furious, it's slow and steady. Screenshot via Hoàng Nam Gamer's Facebook page.

Hoàng Nam, a 26-year-old streamer, has found quite a bit of success from his digital driving gig. For every show, he receives thousands of likes, comments and views on his fan page, which has more than 200,000 followers, the majority of which are men who drive as a hobby or a profession.

"When the pandemic and the lockdown started, I got stuck at home and had nothing to do, so I began playing Euro Truck Simulator 2 for fun. But after that, I felt like I wanted to do something that I could look back on, so I tried live streaming. The first few sessions only had a few viewers, but soon, the number of people watching me drive increased. ETS2 wasn’t really popular at the time, so I had to tinker with it myself because no one taught me. It was difficult at first, but every storm passes," Nam says.

Apart from Hoàng Nam, Hoàng Sâu is one of the hottest names in the driving simulation trend in Vietnam. It's not hyperbole to say that his life has changed thanks to this game. Watching his livestreams, viewers can feel as if they are a chauffeur sitting right behind the driver, listening to personal stories that are both intimate and humorous. He also always features two special “guests” — a graphic cat and duckling duo.

Pet companions. Screenshot via Hoàng Sầu's Facebook page.

Can a Game Beat Real Life?

While it’s undeniable that ETS2 has its own wacky sense of charm, the mainstay of the game has always been the open-world escape that viewers long for during the pandemic. And as people have more free time now than ever, there’s more opportunity to reach them, according to Hoàng Nam. The fact that so many are homesick while stuck in the city also contributed to the popularity of the game. “People get the feeling of being on a bus and traveling around or returning to their hometown,” he says.

Female streamers are also hitting the road. Photo via Minn Ú's Facebook page.

Thanks to ETS2, many streamers have been shot into the limelight, each flaunting a unique point to impress fans and gain their support. Minn Ú, for instance, is a streamer with an affectionate Huế accent who dresses in a variety of costumes: sometimes a historical figure, sometimes a captain, and sometimes all dolled-up. There’s also Hà Bẹp, another female streamer, or Nguyễn Cường, who even bought an actual bus to game in.

During a livestream, the more "stars" a streamer receives from the audience, the more their income increases. Of course, this being the internet, not all of the attention is positive, as streamers inevitably receive rude and insulting comments from viewers. But Hoàng Nam is unfazed by the negativity, saying that he focuses on the wheel and those who support him.

Although rumored to "make bank," being a driver/streamer is not a job for everybody. According to Hoàng Nam, there are only about 100 ETS2 streamers in Vietnam. He thinks that in order to make it in this game, literally and figuratively, a streamer has to be well-invested, funny, knowledgeable about routes and obstacles and, if possible, easy on the eyes. “It’s not just driving skills. You need experience and expertise about the vehicles and the road to entertain your fans,” he shared.

Can these simulators keep up the heat once lockdown ends and people can drive on their own? No one really knows for sure, but Hoàng Nam is optimistic that he can retain loyal fans by exploring every nook and cranny of ETS2. Currently, he has no intention of trying another game, and hopes that he can push the mileage a bit more on his modded truck.

There is an exquisite but hard-to-name feeling that engulfs me every time I finish watching a particularly outstanding movie. It’s a lingering mixture of awe, fulfillment, wistfulness, anguish, contemplation, and everything in between. But most pronounced of all, it’s a sadness over the realization that a piece of art has concluded, and I can never experience it for the first time again.

As I sit at my desk at 2am on a Saturday night watching the end credits of Hoa slowly fade in and out, that amorphous sentiment once again resurfaces. Hoa is not a long game; I managed to get to the end with the total playtime of under five hours over a few sittings — even after I struggled with some of its puzzles and stubborn obstacles — but it’s undeniably an engaging experience that will remain etched in my mind for a while.

Hoa is the love labor of a small Vietnamese studio called Skrollcat and started as a part-time project while its creators were all working or studying full-time. At the start, Game Director Cao Sơn Tùng didn’t come in with a concrete idea but a fondness for old side-scrolling games. "When I started the project, my only thought [was] to try and make a side-scroller that looks stunning," he writes in an essay for 80lv. "I’ve always been a fan of side-scrolling games with beautiful visual[s] like Trine, Limbo, Rayman…and I wanted to make one like those."

Hoa is available in Vietnamese too!

The result was a lush adventure game chronicling the journey of the titular protagonist, a petite fairy from a forest-dwelling tribe after she wakes up on a leaf boat and has to find her way home. Right from the get-go, players are treated to an intricately illustrated background and therapeutic music score, both inspired by the works of Studio Ghibli. The game’s creators are not shy about their adoration for the Japanese animation collective, and it’s evident that they have taken the time and effort to emulate that Ghibli-esque attention to detail and hand-painted vividness to great success.

Do no harm, kill nothing

A plethora of platform games of decades past have become classics that define eras, including names like Mario, Rayman, Sonic, Mega Man, Metroid etc. Hoa harks back to the olden days when a successful jump could inspire utter glee and speed run records dictated classroom hierarchies. Nonetheless, the game sets itself apart from vintage greats with a steadfast belief in non-violence and healing. Unlike its predecessors, there aren’t any tangible villains to be fought in Hoa. There isn’t an HP bar, extra-life mushrooms, offensive spells to learn, or timed rush. Each main stage culminates with meeting a “boss,” but they aren’t the malevolent kind and will bestow a new “power” after task completion.

A story of estrangement and return.

The lack of enmity is a deliberate design decision embraced by its makers. “The overall idea is that we don’t want anyone dying,” Tùng told the LA Times. “We want the game to be not very challenging for people to play, but at the same time we don’t want it to be boring.”

The benevolent tone of the game, he shares, had a lot to do with the vision and influence of his co-creator, Art Director Lê Sơn Trà. “At that time, we were at university, and there were a lot of snails crawling on the pathway. A lot of people would not pay attention or step on them. Trà saw the snails on the pathway and picked them up one by one and put them in the grass,” he recalled.

On her journey, Hoa will befriend many creatures who will assist her to find the way home.

When concepts like enemies and hostile bosses are taken out of the equation, Hoa shifts its focus to the cornerstone of the genre to create challenges: the platforms themselves. In the luxuriant landscape of Hoa, these come in the form of giant daisies, ivy leaves, swinging bluebells, skittish ladybugs, nonchalant fish, and even a spectacularly gargantuan spider web. Conquering these seemingly simple hurdles is not a cakewalk, often requiring precise timing and sometimes a combination of double jumps, swings and hovering. I’ve developed a distaste for bluebells and ladybugs after being stuck for hours at these daunting puzzles.

Man vs. nature

The game’s Ghibli connection doesn’t stop at its vibrant visual style and musical score, but also in its overarching theme. The conflict between machinery and the environment is evident across the levels and gets progressively more conspicuous as the story unfolds. Hoa means “flower” in Vietnamese. The name holds a personal connection to Tùng and his hometown Hanoi. To us players, it’s an implicit demonstration of allegiance, affirming where the game stands.

How do you know that a Vietnamese team made this game? Lotus.

Humans are never present in the game, though their impact is felt indirectly through the existence of crude, but admittedly quite adorable, spring robots. From the beginning to the end, Hoa doesn’t overtly express any form of social commentary though its feelings toward man-made entities are clear in the way the game portrays nature and human artifacts. Much of the game is spent in the forest, among treetops or even deep in lotus ponds, while one level takes place in an old mine. If the forest, both at night and during the day, and the underwater world are filled with life, the mine is depicted with a dreary brown palette. It’s rusty, murky, claustrophobic and filled with derelict debris.

A soothing oasis in the age of anxiety

There's beauty in every corner of the game to marvel at.

When reality gets demoralizing, we feel compelled to seek escape. For some, it’s a few hours spent pulling weeds and trimming branches in the garden, an unplugged afternoon with a book, or a nap to the tunes of lo-fi. In the gaming world, these stressful two years have precipitated the success of a new phenomenon that I call comfortcore games. A calming environment, gorgeous art and score, and non-competitive gameplay are the hallmarks of these virtual relaxants. Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Adorable Home, Cozy Grove, and now Hoa have shone like a beacon in the raging storm, anchoring us in place amidst turbulent times.

The creators of Hoa know how to leave a stellar first impression. The story begins as players, as Hoa the fairy, arrive at a meadow on a leaf boat. I am immediately charmed by the picturesque background, drenched in incandescent sunlight thanks to smartly applied post-processing effects. The intro music starts with a few delicate piano notes, picks up alongside every footstep, and sometimes roars with majesty when the strings and flutes kick in.

The forest is filled with life.

The environment shows mindful meticulousness in the way each layer is hand-painted. The forest hums with spirits; flowers sway as you walk by; here and there, animated dragonflies zip past the screen right in front of your eyes. More than once, I’ve just kept the game on the screen while I clean my room or read, as the ambient sounds and soothing soundtrack are pleasant enough to enjoy on their own.

Nonetheless, Hoa still has some minor flaws and room for improvement, though they don’t keep me from enjoying its superb visuals. The Vietnamese script might need some polishing, as characters have both English and Vietnamese names and sentences are at times quite clunky. Enabling custom key bindings and save states could be quality-of-life changes that reduce frustration while playing — I’m looking at you, bluebells and ladybugs. After all, this is the kind of game you play to wind down, not wind up.

A luminous scene in the underground level.

I decided to sit through the end-game credits of Hoa because I just wanted to extend the experience for at least a little while more, and was delighted to see that there are dozens of Vietnamese names across major production departments, instead of just as third-party contractors in background illustration or animation. And for once, we’re not the setting for a gruesome DLC of a war-themed first-person shooting game. As one of the few full-fledged Vietnamese-made games in contemporary history, Hoa has a clear vision and well-executed art direction. It’s not grand or life-changing but offers just enough to deliver a joyful experience — just like a tiny flower.

Hoa is available on PC, MacOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Visit the game's Steam page for more details.

Despite it not being seen as a legally approved means of payment in Vietnam, ownership of blockchain-based currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are soaring here. 

A recent report revealed that cryptocurrency use jumped a massive 881% around the world in the last year, and Vietnam is one of several nations driving the trend.

Earlier this year it was found that Vietnam has the second-highest rate of general cryptocurrency use of 74 surveyed countries. Overall, 21% of Vietnamese respondents said that they used or owned a form of cryptocurrency in 2020, which is only behind Nigeria, at 32%.

While cryptocurrencies are often seen as ways to make quick money or as a form of investment as well as a potential future means to purchase goods in lieu of a physical currency tied to any specific country, they have proven powerful for making remittance payments and for personal savings. “In emerging markets, many turn to cryptocurrency to preserve their savings in the face of currency devaluation, send and receive remittances,” the Chainalysis report explains. 

Cryptocurrency operates in somewhat of a gray area in Vietnam. It is officially illegal to use it to buy or sell any goods or services, but its use for investing or saving is less clearly defined. 

Meanwhile, entrepreneurial locals have found other ways to harness blockchain technology. Recently, a company that makes an app with available characters with blockchain secured US$7.5 million in funding while a 14-year-old artist sold a piece as a non-fungible token (NFT), a digital version of a work, for US$23,000.

[Top image via BTC Manager]

But you'll have to wait to use it.

Tech In Asia reports that Gojek, the Indonesian tech behemoth, will roll out car ride-hailing services in Vietnam soon. At first, this option will only be available for frontline healthcare workers in Saigon.

The service will be called GoGar, and will launch with 50 cars to move healthcare workers between five hospitals and medical centers in the city, in conjunction with the municipal departments of transportation and health.

The first users will get free access to GoCar Protect, the platform's premium level, which features enhanced safety and hygiene rules.

Every GoCar driver will be required to follow pandemic prevention rules, and also take a PCR COVID-19 test before accepting their first passenger, and once each week after that.

"We have made all the necessary preparations to launch GoCar this year," Gojek Vietnam general manager Duc Phung told the news source. "When the situation is safer - and restrictions are eased - we will of course extend the GoCar offering to the wider public."

Under Saigon's current Directive 16 regulations, all ride-hailing services have been suspended.

GoCar joins GoRide, GoSend and GoFood under Gojek's umbrella in Vietnam.

[Top photo via Tech In Asia.]