Video game industry in Southeast Asia has been thriving lately with studios from many countries in the region churning out great games. One of the biggest hits in recent years is Coffee Talk, a critically-acclaimed visual novel made by Toge Productions. Today, however, the Indonesia-based studio suffered a major loss following the death of its main creator, Mohammad Fahmi.

The news was first announced on the developer's personal Twitter account by his sister, and later on was confirmed by the official Twitter account for Coffee Talk.

As of now, no cause of death of the 32-year-old developer has been provided, but according to Toge Productions and a representative of Indonesia Games Association, Fahmi had been suffering from asthma. On Twitter, Toge Productions' founder, Kris Antoni, said that he was still joking with Fahmi the previous night, showing that he was both in shock and grief-stricken by the death of his former employee.

Fahmi started his journey in the video game industry initially as a programmer and designer for Gameloft, before shifting into game journalism as a writer, and later an editor-in-chief of Tech in Asia Indonesia's games department. He then ventured back to the game development scene as a marketing and public relations manager at Toge Productions, during which he pitched the idea of Coffee Talk to the studio head. With its relaxing vibe, great story, and very chill music, Coffee Talk has since become one of the company's most successful games, and there's already a sequel currently in development.

Shortly after Coffee Talk was launched with much success, Fahmi decided to form his own studio called Pikselnesia, and later released a side-scrolling adventure game What Comes After, which tells a heartwarming story of a girl who rides aboard a train to the afterlife. Later this summer, Pikselnesia is set to release Afterlove EP, a mix of slice-of-life narrative adventure, dating sim, and rhythm game that Fahmi was working on prior to his death.

Many fellow members of the region's video game industry paid their respects and expressed their condolences on Twitter. Agate, another big game development studio in Indonesia which has worked on with Fahmi before, called Fahmi "a very inspiring, important, and valuable talent in the Indonesian game ecosystem." Head of PlayStation Studios Malaysia, Hasnul Hadi, said that Fahmi was one of the brightest stars of the region's game development scene.