Rash Riders, an endless running and riding game in the Indian scenario, was recently featured on the Google Play Store. Recently, it has even been launched in the Apple App Store. A game in which you get to play as awesome Indian characters and ride dashing motorbikes and sleek scooters in the mad Indian traffic to avoid auto rickshaws, taxis and buses while sliding under trucks to escape policemen – what could appeal to the Indian audience more? From children to grandparents everyone is raving about this game and we had the privilege to have a talk with the developers, Kapuchin Games.
Gaming Central: Tell us a bit about your game, Rash Riders.
Kapuchin Games: Rash Riders brings world-class quality of art and simple swipe-based gameplay to an Indian setting. It is designed to be fun to play for a wide audience – from children all the way to grandparents and to evoke a strong sense of ‘Indian’ character and fun.
GC: Subway Surfers and Rash Riders have similar elements. Was this intentional or were you pleasantly surprised?
KG: The design overlaps are intentional. We love Subway Surfers and felt that it would be great to build on the simplicity of the gameplay that it provides and to meld it with Indian characters and settings. In the future, we plan to expand on that gameplay with more unique features and content to differentiate from Subway Surfers.
GC: How did you come up with the concept of Rash Riders?
KG: We were searching for something uniquely Indian in character and hit upon the idea of riding bikes as something that appeals to a wide section of our society. In addition, we are all familiar with the chaos of Indian roads and we thought it would be a great game concept.
GC: You have Indian elements in your game – does that mean you’re only catering for the Indian audience or do you think this aspect works well in the global market?
KG: This version of the game is targeted primarily at the Indian audience but we will be looking at building an international version of the game in a few months.
GC: What challenges did you face while creating this game and how did you overcome them?
KG: By far the greatest challenges we faced in creating the game were in assembling a high-caliber team and arranging for financing to support the same. It took us many months to bring the full team onboard across art, engineering and product/design. The support of our family and friends has been critical in helping us overcome obstacles both in terms of helping us find the initial funding as well as in terms of getting the team onboard.
GC: What is the USP of the game, Rash Riders?
KG: Super-simple and world-class gameplay with an Indian setting.
GC: What are your favourite games to play?
KG: As a team, we play a wide variety of games. Most recently, many of us have of course been hooked on Clash Royale. Outside of that we have a wide variety of interests in the team – everything from super-casual mobile games like Candy Crush Saga to hardcore console properties like Call of Duty.
GC: Tell us about your development studio, Kapuchin Games.
KG: We are a very young company, founded by a team that first met while working on Facebook-based titles like Empires & Allies, and Castleville, at Zynga. At present, we are about 15 headcount across engineering, art and product/design. The team is a mix of people who come to us from gaming (Zynga, Knowledge Adventure), the animation world (Dreamworks, Technicolor) and enterprise software (Netapp, IBM!)
GC: What inspired you to start developing games?
KG: We all came together because of our common desire to show that we could build world-class games from India, both for the Indian market and for the global market.
GC: What kind of game would you like to develop next?
KG: We are going to stay focused in the near term on super-casual games targeted at the Indian market. Down the line, we would like to move international with the same genres and also to explore PvP-based ideas.
GC: If you were to give some advice to budding developers, what would it be?
KG: The number one piece of advice would be to put all the emphasis on assembling the highest quality team and to focus relentlessly on learning game design. In our country, the gaming industry is still very young and the need of the hour is for us to build a large talent pool of people knowledgeable in game design.
To know more about Kapuchin Games, visit their site.
Download Rash Riders on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
And for more news and reviews, keep checking back at Gaming Central.
