The first gaming company in India, Dhruva Interactive (which would eventually work on games in the Forza and Need For Speed series), was only established in 1997, putting our country a good 25 years behind US and UK.
But on the other hand, if you glance at the growth of the industry, it’s staggering. Each subsequent year, the quality of games presented dramatically increases.
A notable example of one that’s actually launched is Asura, a hack-n-slasher set in a world inspired by Indian mythology, developed by the studio Ogre Head. The game has received majorly positive reviews on Steam, and also managed to create a fair bit of buzz. The game has set a milestone for developers across the nation.
Each subsequent year, the quality of games presented dramatically increases.
Following the footsteps of Asura, here are a few other games by Indian developers that have caught our attention.
Mukti
Mukti is “a mystery exploration game”. It begins with player character Arya returning to India to visit her grandfather Vikram Roy, a famed historian, at the Mumbai museum he owns. When she arrives, her grandfather is notably absent and there’s a breaking news story that he and his crew are guilty of murdering an entire tribe on an excavation in West Bengal, making off with the artefacts they were protecting.
Raji: An Ancient Epic
Raji, a young girl, is imbued with elemental powers and chosen by the gods to defend humanity from an onslaught of demonic creatures. Everything, from the environments to the demons themselves, is inspired by Ancient India, and painstakingly hand-painted.
Death of a Detective
Death of a Detective is a point-and-click adventure game with shades of Phoenix Wright, featuring a story told in the classic noir tradition and set in 1940s British India.
Although the above-mentioned games promise a bright future of video games in India, the bigger picture suggests something else. As much as we love our culture and look forward to it as a major setting for video games, we are quite sensitive towards our culture as well. In the past, well-known games like Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Dragon Age: Inquisition had pre-emptively chosen to not release in India, citing ‘cultural sensitivities’ and ‘breach of local laws’. If that isn’t enough, we can’t see our gods in a form that is not acquainted with us. The depiction of Goddess Kali further builds on my point.
As much as we love our culture and look forward to it as a major setting for video games, we are quite sensitive towards our culture as well.
Then, there is the larger concern about the viability of running a gaming enterprise. Says Diptoman Mukherjee from Zombies Indie House and Piranha Games, “Is the market Indian? I don’t think so, we don’t have a good track record of buying games. So the west is the market – where our mythology doesn’t have the advantage of familiarity, so it’s going to be a niche thing unless the game and marketing backing it up are absolutely spectacular.”
Although there are uncountable obstacles presented for Indian games to become mainstream, with more and more developers stepping in the industry, this dream does not seem to be just a pipe dream anymore.
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