The pervasive spell of VR games has beguiled people of all ages. While other industries have felt strained, pandemic seems to have given a fillip to the gaming sector given the rising number of gamers, and VR games are no exception. Immersive experiences provided by VR have often captured the imagination of people all across the world. Speedy Gun Savage is one such India-based game that is touted to do just that.
We spoke to Gamitronics CEO Rajat Ojha who has spent 25 years in the gaming industry, evangelising and developing VR content in a bid to notch up the immersive quotient. From covid’s impact on gaming industry to how the idea of Speedy Gun Savage germinated in his mind, Ojha bared it all in a candid chat with AnimationXpress.
Here are some excerpts :-
1) We witness some stunning visuals and catch glimpses of the game in the trailer and it looks promising! Could you tell us about what the game is going to be about?
Speedy Gun Savage (SGS) is the first person cover and shoot VR game where you play the role of intergalactic bounty hunter, Wolf who’s accompanied by his droid friend, 3V4N (Evan). Speedy Gun Savage currently has three different planets where Wolf goes to and each planet has multiple levels and enemies and each planet ends with a boss fight.
2) Why did you name it Speedy Gun Savage?
Initially we built it for arcades where our contents are in plenty and the key feature what we implemented since then is the speed. When we prototyped this game, we wanted it to be more like Wolfenstein 3D in speedrun mode which was not a feature in the game but my brother and I derived it to challenge each other. When we decided on the character and the rest of the setting, it was sort of a mix of steampunk and cowboy so the first two words that came to my mind were Speedy Gonzales which is part of Looney Tunes and we just twisted it to Speedy Gun Savage.
3) How many artists worked on this game from your studio?
Total 16 artists worked on this game and the total team was 48 people.
4) What spurred you on to create this game?
I’m a big fan of Doom/Wolf and Star Wars (so much so that my entire office is Star Wars themed). So you can say that I always wanted to do a ground up VR game inspired by these two. Initially we built the game on mobile also but never released it. As told before, my brother and I used to play Wolf in speedrun so that was the beginning of the idea.
5) Speaking of immersive experiences, has the market for VR games grown during the pandemic?
Absolutely. The best thing happened was the release of Quest 2 which is a pretty satisfactory headset at a very affordable price. Another thing was the release of Half Life: Alyx which pushed many to buy VR for the first time and get into the game. Both things happened just during the pandemic and the market surged significantly. When people were looking for more avenues to kill time during the pandemic, VR also played an important part and 71 per cent people spent more time in VR than before pandemic. Oculus sold 5M units of Quest 2 and HL: Alyx sold over 2M copies. These are staggering numbers and show the promise of the platform.
6) When can we expect this game to be released?
The game is available on Steam Early Access but only on Oculus and Vive right now. The game will have a full release in July on both of these platforms and also on Valve Index and Playstation VR. Initial plan was to go full in June but the sudden outbreak of COVID pushed the full release date to July. The game will soon be on Oculus Quest Store and Viveport as well.