The juggernaut that is the video game industry generated $91 billion dollars in 2016, according to reports from SuperData Research, a market researcher. The industry has formed communities worldwide and brought together people from different countries with a shared interested in video games. With eSports and eSports professionals being paid extremely well, the world is moving on to the next level of gaming, but India is still a blip on the radar.
However, not all is lost, as India's nascent gaming scene is growing every year, and we even have multiple game studios across the country dedicated to bringing to us the best games. We speak to once such company called Ogre Head Studio, and they're based right here, out of Hyderabad!
The company, founded by Zainuddeen Fahadh and Neeraj Kumar, recently released an Ausra, a roguelike game with procedurally generated maps and a unique skill tree, which is incredibly fun to play. We speak with Zain about the journey so far, discuss video games and more.
"Neeraj and I met while working for another video game studio, and we both agreed that the style of work wasn't right and that we should quit and start our own venture to give gamers a fantastic game to play," says Zain on his journey so far, "so in 2014, we quit our jobs and set up shop in Hyderabad. Neeraj is the code guy, and I'm the art, design and business guy" he smiles.
Ogre Head Studio was founded on April 18th, 2014, and Asura, their first project, was released three years later on April 14th. The game features an Asura out for vengeance and features Hindi dialogues and the game is rooted in Indian myths, with its designs and beautiful levels.
Ogre Head Studios might just be two people but they are quite thankful for people who helped them along in the journey, "The studio is just us currently, that is Neeraj and me, but we had a tonne of help from Jay Doshi, Samar Malik and Santosh Kumar, who were with us on a contractual basis and handled Animation, Marketing & Cinematic Art and Rigging, respectively," says Zain, "We are also quite thankful or Orange Byte Studios for the music in our game, they are fantastic."
Seasoned gamers will easily spot the influences that went into building Asura, from games like Dark Souls to the original Rogue, after which the genre has been named. Combining with this, RPG elements, procedurally generated maps and a fantastic loot system with tonnes of weapons make Asura a game worth coming back to over and over again, just to see what weapons you can get, or to take revenge on that particularly annoying enemy that has been taking you down.
"Indian mythology is rich, varied and can be a great source of inspiration for video games," says Zain, "it's just that people need to tap into this vast amount of source material and bring it to life. Putting a mythological story as it is in a video game is not fun, but if you take inspirations from it, you have the potential of making some really good games."
On being asked where does he see Ogre Head in 5 years, Zain promptly replied, "A place for talented people to make fantastic games."
We concluded our interview by asking Zain his advice for students of today looking to get into game development, "What matters is really simple. The question you should be asking yourself is 'Do I love playing video games?' If the answer is yes, then that's 99% of the problem solved. Do it just for the love of it, by being as sincere and honest as you can, and as kind as you can, and in time, it will pay off" he smiles.
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