Recently, we have been trying to get in touch with various people who are an important part of the Indian Gaming Community. We were at VGF recently. Have talked to the awesome people at Cezor. And a few days before that we were covering the top 4 things coming out of the Indian gaming scene this year.
Keeping up with the theme, Ayush sat down with Taral Patel CBO & CTO of GameEon, a game development studio which has been in the industry for the past 6 years. Being one of the few self funded studios in India which have survived their first game, GameEon has a lot to offer. We talked about their latest mobile games, their plans for games coming in the future, and what advise they have for anyone looking to join the industry. Excerpts.
Ayush::
So you have been working on a new game? Tell me about it.
Taral::
We have recently launched a new game, that we had been working on for the past 2 months. It’s called Cash or Crash. It’s a simple endless car game and is very easy to play. It has been a very great experience as we have tried out many new things in this project, like language localisation and keeping gameplay as simple as possible.
DOWNLOAD CASH OR CRASH FROM THE PLAY STORE
Ahhaaan. And the inspiration behind this game?
Actually the idea came out from a bit of jealously. One of our colleagues used to play subway surfers during his daily break. So we decided that instead of our people playing other games, why not make similar game with some different idea. Instead of making a guy run, why not make him drive a car! We saw many references and sample games and then we finalized the concept and started working on it!
Inspiration were all the people who were bored playing Temple run and Subway surfers and Chennai express etc.
Inspiration were all the people who were bored playing Temple run and Subway surfers and Chennai express etc.
Cool. So what is GameEon looking at in the year 2016?
2016 is very important year for us, as per our vision and goals set. 6 months from now we will be targeting major platforms other than mobile market, since mobile market is small part of gaming industry worldwide.
OK. What platforms are you thinking of specifically. Will they be exclusive. What is the genre you are thinking on developing on next?
We will be targeting PC and console gaming as its the only domain in gaming industry where the content is very interesting and fun to play. Infact is the only domain where we use brains while playing games. Just kidding. But PC and console is the direction in which we are going.
We haven’t set any such specific genre to work on as of now, but definitely come up with an idea in the coming months.
We haven’t set any such specific genre to work on as of now, but definitely come up with an idea in the coming months.
Anyone in your current team who is already experienced in consoles?
No, none of us is experienced in console market, but yes, we have worked on all the technologies that are used for console markets.
Will you be still producing games on the mobile platform simultaneously?
Yes, definitely we will be working on mobile market, we won’t develop small projects as we are doing them right now, our focus will be big projects like MMO for mobile market. Once we start with Console market, we will be very selective in mobile gaming.
Right. So you people have been in the Gaming industry for the past 5-6 years. Any advice to any young gamer who wants to be a web developer.
A small piece of advice to all the young lads who are planning to join the game development field. If you really have enough passion to pursuing gaming as your career, the coming 2-3 years are perfect time to start. Gaming in India is in its very initial stage, and anyone with a driven attitude and a hunger to learn can make immense leaps.
Skill wise, gaming is composed of wide range of gaming jobs like Programmer, Graphic Designer, Tester, Sound Artist, Animators etc.
So eventually it depends on the type of major you choose to be in. I myself being an engineer, would advice those who are willing to be programmer, to just focus on the logic and algorithm that you will be using to solve different problems, programming language is just a way to write thos solutions in a format, and can be learned at any point in your career.
Skill wise, gaming is composed of wide range of gaming jobs like Programmer, Graphic Designer, Tester, Sound Artist, Animators etc.
So eventually it depends on the type of major you choose to be in. I myself being an engineer, would advice those who are willing to be programmer, to just focus on the logic and algorithm that you will be using to solve different problems, programming language is just a way to write thos solutions in a format, and can be learned at any point in your career.
Any courses you would recommend?Any courses you would recommend?
As per the current trends and keeping in mind ease of development, Unity 3D, Unreal Engine and Construct 2D are major technologies that should be an upcoming dev’s top priority.
Internet is the best teacher available out there. For eg. many YouTube channels focuses on teaching game development.
To start with I would recommend all the naive ones to start with basic programming with languages like C, C++, C# or Java
For the people who know programming, I would recommend them to work on logic development by solving as many puzzles and stuffs possible.
Internet is the best teacher available out there. For eg. many YouTube channels focuses on teaching game development.
To start with I would recommend all the naive ones to start with basic programming with languages like C, C++, C# or Java
For the people who know programming, I would recommend them to work on logic development by solving as many puzzles and stuffs possible.
Right. So official stuff aside. Personally what is your favorite game among the various games that GameEon has produced.
Personally my favorite is the recent football game we developed during ISL season. One because I like football. And two because I like football.
Right so there you have it, Taral Patel from GameEon. Any questions you think we missed out on. Any questions you would like to ask Taral. Let us know all this and more in the comments below.