India’s Kalp Studio is working on Raahi, a story‑driven auto rickshaw adventure set in 1990s Goa. The title is being developed primarily for PC and console, with Steam wishlist access already live, and has been showcased at England’s Norwich Games Festival 2025 and India’s Gamingcon Bharat 2025.
Raahi places players in the role of Sandy, a rickshaw driver navigating the fictional coastal town of Majili. The core loop centres on picking up passengers, driving them through town, dropping them off, and gradually uncovering Majili’s everyday culture. Conversations unfold during rides, relationships develop with recurring passengers, and the town becomes familiar through repeated routes and routines. Progression systems, upgrades and local activities add variety, while auto racing and a love story provide narrative direction. A range of minigames from fishing and baking Goan pav to making fenny or joining drum circles further broaden the experience.
With a founding team of three which includes creative director and game designer Akshat Sinha, marketing and operations lead Mannat Jain, and technology and engineering lead Rishab Raj, Kalp operates as a small, distributed studio supported by artists and technical collaborators. The team places emphasis on original IP, narrative systems, and culturally rooted design.
“Balancing driving mechanics, narrative systems and exploration required us to define a strong vertical slice early and prioritise player feel over feature volume,” explained Sinha. “Scaling narrative content without losing quality was another challenge, which we addressed through repeatable passenger and relationship systems.”
He noted that independent game development in India is steadily evolving, with growing talent and interest in original IP. At the same time, he emphasised the importance of initiatives such as the Krafton India Project and the PlayStation Hero India Project, which provide funding, mentorship and platform visibility for diverse formats.
Kalp Studio’s immediate focus is to take Raahi into beta, refine gameplay and prepare console ports. In parallel, the studio is developing ClaaS (Cultural Localisation as a Service), a localisation and text management tool for games supporting over 114 languages.
In the longer term, Kalp intends to grow Raahi into a multi‑platform property and continue building original worlds that combine gameplay with storytelling.
