What happens when you meet new friends or like minded people on a social media platform? Well, for Agarthian Games founder Saksham Dwivedi, he ended up creating a game! The 16-year-old Jhansi based Dwivedi, along with his camaraderie (whom he had met on social media platform), is planning to launch first person horror game VOSK, whose dates are yet to be announced.
The inception of the idea to create games and build an efficient team happened when Dwivedi joined a Telegram group called Indie Game Developers and Investors. He was always interested in teamwork and had a dream of collaborating with talents from diverse backgrounds for a project which became true when he asked everyone to unite and work together on a project. Piyush Assudani and Shubham, who were in the group, joined him.
Acquiring the right kind of people with mutual interest is very important to build a team and to create a game. According to Dwivedi, “Shubham has an expertise in keeping the team united and positive and Assudani‘s knowledge and experience in different things and maturity, gave us a hope that we can make it. The three of us shared mutual interest, belief and dream.”
The game VOSK provides a horror-thrilling environment in the mountain state of Himachal Pradesh. The player walks the steps of a paranormal investigator Dr. Shrey Bakshi. The storyline of the game is written by Dwivedi and Shubham.
“The player needs to experience “Sir Karl’s Story” and solve the mysteries of Sir Karl as Dr. Shrey Bakshi, who after his years of research gets into his bungalow. Was that his biggest mistake? How can he save himself unlike the previous paranormal investigators who never made it back? Colonel Karlson Augusthus was a military colonel serving the British Army in 1872, when one day, he and his family disappeared. What made them disappear? Sir Karl’s family had five people including himself- Marie Augusthus, Jonathan Augusthus, Susan Augusthus, an unnamed infant, ” added Dwivedi.
In the single-player mode, in order to defeat Sir Karl and escape, the player has to solve mysteries.
The game is being developed in Unity and the team has also used Blender, VS Code, Figma. It is currently targeted for Android, but in near future, they aim to bring it on multiple platforms. New maps will be added after some updates and Shubham from the team is designing the map
Here is the teaser of the game:
Initially the name of the studio was decided as Phantom Games and later was changed into Agarthian Games. Dwivedi shared that one of the struggles he faced during the game development was when the majority of their teammates left the project. Although this caused a bit of a setback, the bond between Dwivedi, Shubham and Assudani became stronger like brothers. Dwivedi is the game developer handling the programming, designing, development and direction, 18 year old Shubham is the game designer, writer, developer, gamer whereas the 21 year old Assudani is 3D artist who is experienced in startups with magical team management skills. 
“After some time we met Ayush Lohar – a 16 year old, who wanted to enter in game development and had learnt 3D modeling. He helped us in every field, be it in making cinematics for teasers or helping in modeling. 23 year old Shivam, an indie musician, also decided to make SFX and theme music for our game,” Dwivedi added.
The game is in the development phase, as they are planning to provide a better horror experience, because of which designing is taking a lot of time. Side by side the team also wants to optimise the game in such a way so that 2GB RAM phone users could get a bugless experience with 40+FPS.
The storyline and the theme of VOSK is quite optimistic and fresh as far as the Indian gaming industry is concerned. Only time will tell whether it actually has the potential to hit the mark or not.
Wishing the young team good luck!
