Mobile gaming today in India has reached a stage where it can be called the next technological boom just like the dot com and the IT industry witnessed respectively over phases. The number of smartphones today in the country can justify the fact that everyone today is connected to the world of the internet and the things around it. This also has given rise to new set of gamers in the country which never existed before. The moms, dads and even the grandmoms, who dreaded the word video games, have become consumers of this new frenzy.
This new wave of gamers has given hope to one of the emerging industries in the country – Video games – which recently has seen an upward trend with a lot of people developing games independently or forming a start-up to make games.
One such one man studio/start-up is Xigma Games; formed by Himanshu Manwani, An iCAT graduate who did his engineering and is now making games for a living.
Q. When did the thought of developing games come to you? What’s the story behind Xigma Games?
My first experience with the world of games was when I was 6 years old. My parents bought me my first console, a Nintendo. From that moment on I always wondered as to how games work. But that thought never resulted in an action and I never actually thought of making games until my final year of engineering.
Since I play all sorts of games across platform, be it on Nintendo, PC, mobile or console; I was keen to learn the skill to develop games. I started developing my first game in my final year of engineering but when I went ahead with it I couldn’t do it (or understand where to start) at that time because I had no idea how games are made. Popular platform to make games at the time was XNA, but when I tried my hands on it, it didn’t quite work out for me; so, I thought of mastering it. After finishing my engineering I went to Bangalore to pursue my game development course from iCAT, which helped me land up at RZ2 Games. I worked there for three and a half years and recently quit to start my own studio Xigma Games in December. I wanted to make games that I as a consumer would love to play. Being a one man studio it has been difficult but somehow I am managing it all.
Also, winning the Big Indie Pitch at PGConnects Bangalore was like a dream come true. I was not expecting all this to happen to me so soon, as I had just quit my job late last year and I thought it would take me a year or two to establish and release a few games before gaining traction for myself.
Q. Share some details about the first game ‘Super Nano Jumpers’?
Super Nano Jumpers is a retro semi-auto runner. Semi-auto runners are the games where one can stop the character with a tap on the screen in the middle of the game unlike the auto runners where one does not have control over the character’s motion. The way to progress in the game is by clearing different stages with differentiating difficulty levels. The game has different worlds one can explore as well.
I am planning to release the game with two worlds and update it at intervals; so the game has more to explore and the engagement is continuous. Currently, I am developing more levels for the game and planning to keep it as a free to play with the first two worlds as playable, but I still have to figure out whether to make the rest of the worlds free or payable.
The game features different characters with one of the character’s special ability being, to be able to squeeze in size, another one runs fast and there is one more that can jump higher. These characters can help one cross the levels with much ease than the normal character which is on offer. To unlock these characters one has to pay via virtual currency. For monetisation, if the user can’t complete certain level, he can pay virtual currency and then he can unlock the next level.
For the music of the game, I’ll use the open source library which has amazing sounds to choose from and currently what I have with me suits the game well and I would not want to tweak anything at this stage.
As a gamer, many games from past and present have been an inspiration which have been instrumental to make Super Nano Jumpers what it is today. From the old days I’d say Super Mario and from the current ones Super Meat Boy and VVVVVV.
Q. What was the thought behind the difficulty in the gameplay?
That is very important, especially for a platformer game like mine. A very thin line needs to be maintained to encourage a player to keep coming back to the game, while being rewarded for completing a task well. One of the best examples to implement this in its core mechanics is Super Meat Boy. The players have enjoyed the difficulty and have continued to engage with it albeit the complexity. So that was always on my mind, I wanted users to feel the same thing while playing my game as well. I got a positive response to the difficulty in my game and so, I’ll maintain that in the game.
