Posted by thedoodabides on May 20th, 2016

Last month I was down with my studio at Pocket Gamer Connects Bangalore – a mobile games conference – for two days, and though there were a bunch of organizational issues and a focus primarily on the business-end of things (as opposed to the games themselves - it took me 15 minutes after reaching the venue to find the games showcase, which was tucked away in a corner!) I still came away content, knowing that there is good work being done in the country, and by good people.

PGC Bangalore’s I Love Indie Indie showcase

A bit of background on PGC Bangalore



PGC Bangalore is one of only two large, yearly events that bring Indian game developers together - the other being the NASSCOM Game Developer Conference. Last year PGC served as an important link between developers and the press (both local and international), and though this year had a much smaller showing, especially from the international press, it was still important for those developers who did manage to get covered.

Pranav, our programmer, re-watching our game’s teaser



We (The Roots Collective) were there to catch up with our fellow devs, and see what people thought of what we’re currently working on.

The Very Big Indie Pitch



One of the conference’s other big draws for developers was the Very Big Indie Pitch, during which the top 20 games chosen from GameHack (the digital submissions to the Very Big Indie Pitch) competed in a speed-dating style pitching session to a panel comprised of publishers, games press and other developers. They were also provided stalls in the event’s Indie Showcase. From these, six games were selected as finalists, and they presented their games to the entire conference, competing for the Grand Prize. Along with the Grand Prize, a few other awards were handed out in the form of a substantial amount of cash and coverage across Steel Media’s networks (Pocket Gamer, PocketGamer.biz, AppSpy and more). There was also a People’s Choice award that all 20 showcased games were competing for. Pocket Gamer covered the finalists, along with a bunch of other games - sadly, I didn’t get the chance to play all of them.

Note: Most games in this piece are still in development, and as such, screenshots are not necessarily representative of the final products

The first day of the conference was completely made for me by two games – Jhulo, made by solo developer Seema Datar, and Monarchy, by Big Boot Games - both of which made it as finalists of the Very Big Indie Pitch.

Jhulo Seema, presenting Jhulo as a Very Big Indie Pitch finalist





Seema, who used to work at Yahoo, started developing games about a year ago while she was at home with her young son. Her first game, a math game named Zeroed Out, was pretty complex, and a bit too difficult for her 8-year-old daughter, so she set out to make something that was easy to understand, and which didn’t really need to be explained. Her daughter made the perfect tester, and Seema told me her happiest moment as a dev was when her daughter picked Jhulo to play over other, more successful games. If my attempts at solving Jhulo’s puzzles are any indicator, Seema must have a pretty brilliant daughter - I found myself stumped by puzzles just few levels in, and I could feel parts of my brain that I haven’t used in years slowly struggling back into action.

As Seema explained while she was presenting Jhulo as a finalist of the Very Big Indie Pitch, she took inspiration from pendulums and their arcs. They are usually seen as a function of the radius though, and she found this to be messy and limiting, especially as the complexity of levels increased – her ah-ha! Moment was when she asked, “Why not just get rid of the string and use the arc itself?”



Jhulo, as seen on Kongregate





I also assumed that Jhulo’s art style and use of circles and curves was a purposeful statement on womanhood and fertility - which I thought was pretty cool! Sadly, she had to explain for the fiftieth time that day - with much embarrassment - that this was not, in fact, the case.

Monarchy Monarchy, 4-player mode





Monarchy was something that I had an eye on even before the conference - it popped up onto my radar, and I was beyond excited at the prospect of playing a gorgeous-looking (digital) board game made by an Indian developer - I’ve been going through a big board game phase over the last few months. I don’t think Aarti and Nairith, who make up Big Boot Games, were prepared for how pumped I was.

Nairith, Monarchy’s designer, explained how to play, and put up with my never-ending stream of questions as we started a round. While we were consumed by the match, Aarti continuously juggled the constant crowd at their little stall, showing off their two other games, as well as explaining Monarchy from a safe distance - we continued to hog the iPad for the next hour. As the evening drew on and the crowds headed into the venue’s main hall for the announcement of the six finalists, we continued playing - right through the organizers specifically informing us that announcements were going to start, through the announcements themselves and through another organizer showing up and telling Nairith that they had been selected as a finalist and that he should probably go up on stage with everyone else. We finally finished once the announcements had ended, the stage had been disassembled, and preparations for the after-conference party had started.

Both of us had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and it was pretty clear what he really cared about at the conference. This to me was where the heart of the event was – not in the sessions or competitions, but in the people that it happened to have brought together. Incidentally, Monarchy won the Very Big Indie Pitch the following day, and got a pretty substantial amount of money and marketing support. Keep an eye on it - it’ll be out soon.

I’ve got to admit, he did start out going easy on me, but I’d like to think that at least for a while I gave him a run for his money - he eventually beat me, but I blame it on the dice, and not on the fact that he made the thing.

The Light Inside Us Far from where it started - The Light Inside Us in its latest iteration





As I wandered through the Indie Showcase, I was suddenly thrown off when I realized that what I had been staring at in vague recollection for a while was The Light Inside Us in its latest incarnation – I’ve seen the game develop over more than a year and change many times, but this latest build seemed to have kicked things up to a new level of polish. Sid and Abhineet make up the two-man studio Dastan Games, and are some of the loveliest people I’ve ever met. They’ve been to almost every Bangalore Video Games Meetup & Hangout (a games meet-up I co-host once a month) and have done an excellent job of receiving and building off of feedback from both the local community and international forums over the last year to distil and abstract the best bits of their strategy-shooter down to what now feels amazing. I wasn’t surprised to hear that they had been selected in the top 6 of the Very Big Indie Pitch.



War Tanks Mayur and Huzaifa, heads of Hypernova Interactive, showing off War Tanks





It was pretty great to see War Tanks getting recognized as finalists as well – it’s being made by Hypernova Interactive, who are also regulars to the Games Meetup, and their office is all of two doors down from our own studio’s. We’ve been willing guinea pigs for their battleships-inspired one-on-one tank battle, and when we saw the glee in the eyes of people playing it for the first time, we knew exactly what they were feeling.

The other finalists of the Very Big Indie Pitch were games that I really didn’t see myself enjoying – I’m not a fan of word games or football (and am even less of a fan of football games) but both turned out to be pretty great:

One More Pass

One More Pass. Last one. Okay, just one more

One More Pass, a collaboration between SuperSike Games (One More Run) and Yellow Monkey Studios (Huebrix, Socioball) manages to abstract the one part of football that I do find cool – quick, skillful passes. You flick your players horizontally across a field that feels more like a racetrack than a pitch, and keep kicking the ball forward past players of the other team (they’re obstacles, not actual players) until it is intercepted. It allows for a large amount of freedom - you can take your time about it, and pass the ball forward to an empty spot, move a player over to collect it, then line up the next pass – which is what I ended up doing most of the time. It really hits its sweet spot when you avoid doing this though, thinking forward to chain together rapid passes, keeping a streak going without having to reposition and break what is most definitely a hypnotic flow. It may sound like a small thing to get excited over, but there’s a simple elegance to it that I loved.

Wordifly

The simple pleasures in life, like trying to put dirty words into word games





As I said, I’m not a fan of word games - but Wordifly (also available for iOS) didn’t make me feel like I was playing a word game. You control a firefly that subsists on words, which you piece together by flying over randomly distributed letters, and the occasional star that lets you glow for a little longer. It’s relaxed, and the pressure it puts on you is rarely overwhelming, though it does keep you on your toes if you get complacent. Because of the fact that it’s so chilled-out, once you get into the rhythm of making short, quickly-assembled words, you find yourself trying to make longer and tougher connections, and it effectively becomes an exercise in pushing your luck as far as you can in the hope that you’ll be able to nab the letters you’re looking for. It may not be a heart-pounding experience, but it does provide little burst of excitement, and feels like a genuine attempt to do something interesting with word games, allowing you to take your time and play at your own pace. I quite enjoyed the time I spent with it - though I’m a bit peeved that someone knocked me down a notch on the leaderboards.

Corridor squatters



Game designer, teacher, and general nice-guy Yadu Rajiv, hacking and slashing his way through Asura

There was a bit of a mess on the afternoon of the first day, with conference attendees and indies being ejected from the indie showcase area, the lights being turned off, and people being directed to one of the talks. After standing around in the darkness in protest for a while, a couple of us decided to squat in the air-conditioned corridor outside the hall (it was that or go to the sweltering courtyard), pull out laptops, and take a look at each other’s games. Expressions of dissent at a mobile games conference by playing pc games – such revolutionaries, right?

Sky Sutra



One of the games set up was Sky Sutra from Yellow Monkey Studios, and though I didn’t get to give it a go, it seemed to have people thoroughly engrossed in its one-on-one sadhu vs ninja platformer action.

Asura - hack n’ slash goodness





There was also Asura, which, if you’re keeping track of Indian game development, is becoming infamous for its perpetual state of being in development. The first time I saw Asura was at the NASSCOM Game Developer Conference back in 2014, but I was already heard of it at the time. One and a half years later, it looks quite similar, but there have been dozens of revisions and changes, some at a pretty fundamental level. Zain, who makes up half of the Ogre Head Studio team, didn’t seem to be in any rush though – he was well aware of their capabilities, limitations, and aspirations for the game, and takes the constant questioning (and the occasional jab) about its eventual release in good humor. Asura is unforgiving, but tight, and has managed to scratch my hack-n-slash itch every time I have played it. Zain unofficially mentioned that they’re looking at releasing this year, so I’ve already set aside some money – just in case it actually does.

Other Indie Showcase games

Movie Studio Tycoon - you’re not making a great game unless you’re looking at at least one potential lawsuit



There were quite a few other great games that I got to take a look at in the Indie Showcase. Movie Studio Tycoon puts you in charge of a movie studio, and it saw my doomed business attempts on a series of low-budget, straight-to-tv movies starring Nick Page.

Stratup - the closest you’re going to get to your fantasy of firing your manager





Stratup, a strategic business simulation developed by ProcessBee, was created as a management tool. Sandeep, who designed it, gave me a run-down on how it worked, and told me how blown away they were by the reaction they had gotten at PGC - they had no idea that so many people would want to play it as a game!

Zenith, an RPG with a healthy sense of humor





I also got to take a look at what my friends at Holy Cow Productions are working on - their latest project is a collaboration with illustrator Jo Litchfield, to build an interactive children’s book for The Bad Dream Brigade. I didn’t get a chance to play the build of Zenith they brought along (which I’ve been waiting for for months!) but that’ll soon be sorted when they launch this September.

Huebe, from Xigma Games





Xigma Games, who won last year’s Very Big Indie Pitch with their Super Meat Boy/VVVVVV-inspired mobile platformer Super Nano Jumpers, were back with a puzzle game, Huebe – and though I wasn’t able to spend much time with their latest build, I did play an earlier one at a previous Games Meetup. Unsurprisingly, I turned out to be pretty garbage at it, after blundering my way through the first few levels.

Pranav, beer, and Mithun (me!)



Hiccups (large and small) aside, I’m still really happy that Pocket Gamer and Reliance made the event happen - after all, in the end it isn’t the talks, panels or competitions that make PGC, or any other conference, worth it – it’s the games and the people making them.

If you’d like to see a bit more of PGC Bangalore, Zain from Ogre Head Studio did a write-up of their experiences that I’d recommend checking out - it’s got waaay more .gifs than this!

Thanks to Pranav for taking most of the photos in this piece!