Super Monkey Fun: Developer Interview With Kunal Joshi

With Virtual Reality starting to come to its own, it’s great to see Indian game developers releasing some exciting VR games. At the forefront is Super Monkey Fun, who has already released multiple titles with VR support, the latest of which, called Silent Home, was a big hit with over 50K downloads.

We caught up with the talented studio, comprising primarily of the Kunal and Jayati, and they tell us their thoughts on gaming and game development.

Gaming Central: Tell us a bit about yourself 🙂

Super Monkey Fun: “Super Monkey Fun” is the brainchild of two young minds Kunal Joshi & Jayati Khulbe.  Super Monkey Fun was founded in 2013. 

Kunal, is a computer science graduate. Kunal has a sound technical knowledge in the gaming space that helps in building great products like Silent Home.

Kunal’s passion is mobile games, he eats breathe and sleeps with games in mind. Not only virtually, he loves playing indoor and outdoor games as well. In his free time, Kunal plays snooker and swim to stay fit.

Jayati, being a graduate with proficiency in English, assists the company in sourcing of works relating to game development and works with the team to make the game perfectly feasible for all markets & age groups. Jayati’s all time favourite mobile game is ‘Dead Trigger’ and if not working Jayati is hardly found without her phone trying to kill zombies. 

With Kunal’s technical knowledge and Jayati’s creative streak, together the two have perfected the art of creating mobile games.

GC: When did you get started with playing games (and what was the first game that you remember)?

Kunal Joshi: When I was around 12-14, I used to play ‘Road fighter’ a lot. Then I started playing games like ‘Tekken’ and ‘Counter Strike’. Counter Strike was definitely a motivation for me to enter into gaming field and laid the foundation of starting “SuperMonkeyFun” with a focus on games.

GC: How did you get started with developing games?

KJ: Having an interest in gaming since the start, I used to work for a startup before starting SuperMonkeyFun. It was like a stroke of luck that both me and Jayati Khulbe happen to share the same area of work. I had a technical background required for game development and Jayati Khulbe had the perfect proficiency required to market our products. The thought that once started with best planning over a couple of drinks is now a reality.

GC: If you weren’t a game developer you would be a…?

KJ: I was good in sports. I participated in zonal level tournaments for volleyball. In college I used to play table tennis a lot. So I think I would be a sports person definitely.

GC: What game are you working on right now? Can you tell us a bit more about the game?

KJ: Right now we are working on couple of VR projects. Silent Home is the first game that came out of Super Monkey Fun in the horror and puzzle category. This game has crossed 50k downloads within a span of 1 month with around 200 reviews and 4.0 star ratings.

Silent Home game comes in ‘Horror’ Category where user has to find a book and couple of torn pages from an abandoned house. Series of events will happen in between. At the end he needs to perform exorcism in order to exit the house.

GC: On how many games have you worked on so far?

KJ: Apart from our foundation story, what makes us stand out is the fact that within a short span (Super Monkey Fun founded in 2013), we have been able to bag deals with some of the biggest names of the industry. Not only do we build games for publishers, we are continuously working towards building our own portfolio of VR games.

We believe in becoming the AAA VR studio of India. Right now we have almost 12 titles in Play store and are coming up with couple of more soon.

GC: Which game development tools are you using?

KJ: We use UNITY 3D(free version) to develop our games. We are using licensed Autodesk MAX for modelling and animation part.

GC: What are the challenges faced while working with VR? What are the differences between developing a VR game and a regular game?

KJ: In Virtual Reality, the tasks difficulties are double at each step. The camera used in Virtual Reality game are stereoscopic i.e. the camera has two lenses. Because of this, each object that is placed in front of the camera is seen as double not in case with a regular game. This not only decreases the allowed limit for smooth gameplay (10,000 polygons), it also increases the draw-calls, which affects the smooth working of the game.

Having a highly proficient team on board which helps. We do lot of research and brainstorming before we initiate any new project. We spend lot of time on pre-production discussion to tackle all these issues.

GC: Any other recommendations for software?

KJ: Bit Bucket should be used for managing the code.

GC: What is your favorite platform to develop for? How do you choose which platform to make games on?

KJ: If I talk about VR, right now we are targeting Google Cardboard. It’s a mass product. Soon we will be targeting Oculus devices as well like Gear VR and Oculus rift.

GC: What are the specs of your PC/Mac?

KJ: We generally used high end machines which help in reducing the rendering time. Details of which are given below:

Processor – i5, 4670K

RAM – 8GB HyperX

Motherboard – Gigabyte Z series

SMPS – Coolermaster, 750 Watt

GC: What are the gaming engines you can use for developing games?

KJ: You can use UNITY for 2D/3D games. If you target only 2D games, you can also use CONSTRUCT 2.

GC: What is the basic structure for developing a game?

KJ: Game development starts from an idea. Once the idea get finalized, designer then start with character sketches. Developer also start working on a gameplay with demo characters or environment. As soon as character gets finalized, designer modelled it and passed it over to animator which then work on rigging and animation part.   

GC: As a game development studio in India, what are the challenges you face?

KJ: At SuperMonkeyFun we work on the latest technology like VR, GearVR. Hopefully we will be soon working on Tango. It is tough to find the right talent and to sustain that talent in the company.

GC: How did you come up with the game’s concept?

KJ: At SuperMonkeyFun we always believe that team work brings out the best result. We involve every member of the team in discussion of a game concept. We discuss the genre and the polish the concept during pre-production work.

GC: How was your game development journey so far?

KJ: SuperMonkeyFun Game development journey has been exceptional so far. We face a new challenge every day whether it is related to game code, how to improve retention rate or any other stuff. We have learnt a lot since our inception.

GC: Gameplay, Narrative, or Graphics? Which is the most important according to you?

KJ: The first thing user notice is art/graphics. So this is definitely important to get the download number. But gameplay is important to keep user engaged. So for me art and gameplay complements each other.

GC: How long have you been working on your latest game?

KJ: We have been working on Silent home for last 3 months. We released the 1st version in November 2015. We got a good response from audience and now we are working on fixing bugs and coming with a new chapter as an update.

GC: How many folks are involved in the making of your game?

KJ: We have a VR team which includes Developer, Designer and Animator. For Silent Home three members from the VR team played a key role.

GC: What is the average budget required in developing a game in India?

KJ: Average budget of a game depends upon many things – game size, quality of the game, animation, graphics etc. so it is tough to say about the cost of a particular game.

GC: What all can go wrong during development? What are the problems you mightface while developing game?

KJ: Co-ordination and proper communication between team members is very important especially between developer and designer. Lot of time should be given to pre-production discussion. This helps a lot in understanding the issues and how to solve the same. 

If the communication is proper, chances are less to face any major issue.

GC: How is the VR scene/industry evolving and developing in India?

KJ: There are many companies in India that have been using Virtual Reality in the field of education, medicine, automobile, and real estate. But we are still to come across a virtual reality game from an independent Indian Game Development Studio.

As per our knowledge, there are some studios here which have been working on VR games but they are mostly client based studios. We are among the few Indian Studios to try our hands in Virtual Reality Gaming. I guess VR is going to be the next big thing after mobile.

GC: What lessons have you learned from developing your game?

KJ: There is no point of creating a game if you can’t retain your customer. With VR we are in touch with our users and are working on updates regularly to give them the best user experience. Our customer retention rate for “Silent Home” is very good.

GC: Where do you think the games industry will be in the next 5- 10 years?

KJ: Mobile Games industry is in a boom. It is difficult to find a person without smartphone and a smartphone without a game. App store and GPlay are playing a key role.

Apple’s cumulative App Store revenue for 2014 was $10 Billion

GPlay made $7 billion in 2014 mostly from mobile games. I see

Global VR Gaming will be worth $30 billion by end of 2020 according to IDG.

Global Mobiles Game market is expected to be more than $50 billion by 2020.

GC: What games did you enjoy playing this year?

KJ: This year I played ‘Panda Pop’ and ‘1010’ a lot.

GC: What is your favorite game at the moment and what makes it special?

KJ: Right now I am playing Panda Pop. It’s clean design and animations makes it special.

GC: Any advice for budding gamers and developers?

KJ: If and when you are bent upon achieving something nothing can stop you from doing that. The only thing required from you is hard work & perseverance. There will be times when you hit a dead end and the future might seem bleak but keep doing what you do best, in the best way possible & nothing can stop you from shining.

Be passionate about the game. Don’t join any company just for work. If you are passionate and know stuff, sky is the limit.

Gaming Central: Thank you Kunal and everyone at Super Monkey Fun for taking the time to talk to us today, and also for making awesome games. We’re really excited to see more from you folks, specially seeing how VR is really turning out to be the next big thing in gaming.

Also, guys be sure to check out Super Monkey Fun on their Website, Facebook Page and more of their game on the Google Play Store!

For more news, reviews and interviews, keep checking back at Gaming Central.