Game Designing

Benny Francis

An Insight Into the Mind of an Esteemed Game Art Mentor – Benny Francis

 

Benny, one of our game art mentors, has nine years of experience in the games industry. He has worked previously in Technicolor, Lakshya Digital where he learnt the international standard of quality in artwork and went onto win the Lakshya Art Competition which gave him international recognition. He has worked as a part of many games such as the popular game, Shadow’s War and games made by big labels such as Dreamworks[NDA], Square Enix games[NDA], Platinum games [NDA].

Later, He worked for Glu Mobile which he describes to be a luxury job for any game artist, but a passion for teaching and bettering the current game development education sector aligned his goals with that of Backstage Pass, and he was welcomed here as a game art mentor.

An interview with him brought to light more of his thoughts and aspirations. So, let’s get started to know more!

“When you started as a young game artist, did you ever imagine you would end up in teaching?”

“I have always been interested in teaching as I used to teach many of the weak students in my class during my student days. As I ventured through the industry, I started seeing the holes in my colleagues’ knowledge base and realized that other than tools and softwares, these colleges aren’t teaching them anything. So, when Mr.Surya, founder of Backstage Pass, approached me and told me how they want their students to have all the basics of game art integrated into their minds before leading up to advanced tools, it resonated with my thought process, so here I am!”

 “What sort of students do you come across?”

“Ah, well I think all students are unique in their needs, but yes they can roughly be divided into two types:

1)    They are self-motivated and know the path they want to pursue. These kinds of students require guidance and supervision such that they excel in whichever way they choose and take all the right steps to further themselves in it.

2)    The second type, they are good at what they do but are a bit lost about what to pursue, so I try to help them find their path through exposure and experimentation.

Either type of student can go to great heights or fail miserably depending on the guidance they receive as they need to be taught first before they can experiment and I hope to be of help in every step of their journey.”

“What are your goals as a mentor?”

 “To make sure that my students become renowned artists because that automatically means their art is of top quality. I want to make sure that all my students, no matter their level of talent and skill, are humble and accepting as overconfidence causes anyone to fail at some point. Mainly, I have seen many game artists with great skill but who do not get what they deserve, and they do not protest as their managerial skills are poor, but I will make sure my students know their worth and what to request for and what not to settle for when they successfully graduate from Backstage Pass as Game Developers!”

” What are the common misconceptions that people have about game art?”

 “The most common ones are :

1)    To take up game art, students require to be good at drawing.

Completely false. Some of my peers, who are top game artists in the country, can’t draw to save their lives!

2)    A 3D artist is better than a 2D artist (OR) 3D art is better than 2D art.

Absolutely inaccurate. 3D art and 2D art are two separate mediums — each unique to their section of work.

These two are the ones I have come across quite a few times, surprisingly. “

” What is your attitude in the classroom? As in.. how are you as a teacher?”

 “I’m strict about certain things, and I think discipline is a quality to be built in students so that they do not need anyone to teach them such in their future employment. I believe in work hard and play hard, so, I make my students work hard but also relax to de-stress their minds.

I don’t believe in giving them deadlines, but I do believe in making them understand the concept well enough that a passion is stirred within them to create art and present it to me. I try to channelize their raw, youthful energy into their craft rather than waste it.”

 “How has the industry evolved?”

 “There are many new opportunities and new mediums that have sprung up in recent times. Freelancing has become a great opportunity for artists. They get paid well, but there is no job security. As an employee, an artist has to consider his boss’s personality because many artists are put under tremendous pressure by management but now, some good companies are valuing their artists and treating them better. Recruitment in a good company is hard to get, but when you are a Backstage Pass student, it gets easy because they are associated with all the prominent game companies in India such Sony India, EA sports and many more.”

 “So, coming to our last question…do you think international standards of quality are hard to reach for your students?”

 “International artists have more resources than us, which helps them shine, but when it comes to talent, we are equally good if not more. Colleges such as Backstage Pass are providing these resources. So combining passionate mentors and resources from Backstage Pass with students’ passion and talent, we can count on presenting first-grade quality.”

Play Video Games

Do Parents Show More Empathy Towards Kids Playing Video Games

 

The increase in smartphone user base has increased video game penetration among all ages in India and abroad. The other devices used to play games are consoles, computers, and tablets.

The permissible screen-time has been a major point of discussion across the parent community, and there is no broad consensus on it.

Meanwhile, the gaming community has been actively promoting playing more video games. In the year 2010, Jane McGonigal, game designer and author of the book “Reality is Broken – Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World” presented a TED talk on this topic.

 

In her presentation, she talks about making games that can solve real-world problems and she encourages kids and adults to play more games.

Though, there are arguments that reject video games as they are considered addictive, violent, individualistic, aggressive, competitive, engrossing and mainly alien to us as teachers and parents. There are quite a few studies and research that support the cause of gaming and argue that it benefits children in various ways.

Therefore, parents have started empathising with their children and allowing them to play video games on consoles, personal computers, mobiles, tablets and so on.

Some of the reasons that have caused this change in the parents’ perceptions are:

Powerful Learning Tools

The video games improve child’s hand-eye coordination, develops fine-motor skills, improves problem-solving skills, logical reasoning, and build computer literacy.

Games help the child to get exposed to technology, programming and design very early in their lives. There are a lot of children who can program well and have built apps and games on their own.

Social Interaction and Bonding

Games help to nurture and build a relationship with the teenage children. They serve as an excellent tool for bonding with the family and children. Playing with the kids will help parents communicate well with them.

The social-impact games that reward players who complete a task like cleaning the garbage in the locality, making new friends, helping neighbours are gaining popularity. The children playing these games can develop empathy towards others in their day-to-day lives. Researchers have proved that games can make the world a better place.

High-Quality and Realistic Content

Games have evolved into engaging video games. They have depth, rich narrative and are engaging the audience. The ever-improving technology also provides players with better graphics that give a more “realistic” virtual playing experience.

Sunrise Sector

The gaming industry is the fastest growing market with lots of opportunities for game developers, game artists and game designers.

The companies look for skills like communication, grit, teamwork, leadership, follower-ship and perseverance while hiring. Some of the firms recruit video game players who are performing well in leader-boards of the top games in the market today.

The parents are encouraging their children to take up hobbies like gaming, and they know that nurturing these hobbies will help their children take it up as their profession.

There is a growing community of players, and game players, players, and parents who understand the uses of playing video games and empathise with their kids more than before.

However, the parents should be cautious and monitor the kids who play video games. They can do this by keeping the computers, consoles, smartphones, and tablets in the common areas of their house. They can not only restrict the screen time but also limit access to smartphones, tablets by using parental controls as all the games are not suitable for children of all ages.

Backstage Pass- Mentor Based Training

Why are We Excited About Mentor-Based Training.

 

At Backstage Pass, we follow mentor-based training.

Do you want to know why we are excited about it?

What is Mentor-Based Training?

A mentor is an expert who guides and supports a studentin developing skills and maximising the student’s potential.

At Backstage Pass, experienced mentors from the industry guide our students. The mentors come from different fields of game-making such as game art, game design, game publishing, and so on.

Also, the mentors are either entrepreneurs themselves or aresenior professionals from leading game development companies in India and abroad. Therefore, the mentoring quality is of the highest order.

Backstage Pass counts several entrepreneurs among its mentors. Click the links to know their stories and their contributions in the gaming world.

Rahul Sehgal, Jay Dev, Asar Dhandala, and Sushil George.

For the gaming industry, mentor-based training is better than lecturingas it enhances the student learning and provides a solid base for their careers.

The advantages of the mentor-based training are many:

Growth Opportunity

Mentor-based training encourages the students to develop an entrepreneurial spirit in any task that they are involved. Therefore, the students own the task and become more independent in thinking and action. They are more engaged in their task and in their own development.

The mentors create a student-centric curriculum that makes learning interactive, fun, and more involved (read experiential) than the standard college curriculum found in degree colleges. The students get an opportunity to think and grow. The mentors validate, support and encourage the students.

Influence

The mentor has a positive impact on the students. Mentor’s success and proximity motivate the students to learn as much unconsciously as they do consciously. Apart from sharing their knowledge and industry best practices, thementors also educate the students on what went wrong when the mentors themselves were budding in their profession and how they learnt from their mistakes.

They let the students explore and learn practically. They pass on their experience and wisdom to the students.Mentorswith a track record of making incredible games are revered by students.

Networking

The mentor-based training program strengthens and deepens the relationship between the students and the mentors. Consequently, the students learn soft skills like public speaking and interpersonal, problem-solving, and self-advocacy skills.

The mentors have a well-developed contact sphere within the gaming industry. Often, mentors help the students using their contact sphere.

The student-mentor relationship continues well after the students graduate and both continue to benefit.

Careers

A mentor-based training programme provides an opportunity for the students to build contacts with alumni and the professionals from the gaming industry. They will get jobs in companies that hire through referral networks.

The mentor-based approach makes the students aware of what to expect when they graduate and get placed in a job. Every company has a mentor based training programme, and they will easily be able to blend in.

Industry Recognition

The gaming industry conducts many workshops and seminars (learning and practice sessions) for our students. Many companies volunteer staff to teach our students as it helps them recruiting the right talent and keep the talent pool relevant to the changing demands of the industry. The added benefit is a rich and industry-relevant curriculum.

 

Every Backstage Pass mentoring relationship has a clear and structured goal of student success, professional development, and all mentoring activities are related to that goal.

A Seminar on Scientific Visualisation – By Sathish Kottravel, a Doctoral Researcher at Linköpings University, Sweden

 

A picture speaks a thousand words.Therefore, the world prefers that acomplex ideais conveyed through an image.

Scientists deal with huge amounts of data when dealing with physical phenomena such as the weather, space, human brain activity, and molecules. They visualise the data using various techniques of image generation. Since these images are based on data, they are accurate. Also, they are more comprehensible than the raw data. Scientists use the images to explore the data better.

According to Wikipedia, scientific visualisation is used to graphically illustrate scientific data to enable scientists to understand, illustrate, and derive insights from the data. Scientific visualisation is a subset of computer graphics which in turn is a branch of computer science.

Seminar

We invited Sathish Kottravel, a doctoral researcher at the Linköpings University of Sweden to Backstage Pass, to conduct a seminar on Scientific Visualisation and its significance in game development.

We bring you an excerpt of his interview and a peek into the seminar.

About Sathish

Sathish Kottravel is a doctoral student at Linköpings University in Sweden. He specialises in Scientific Visualisation. He has published research papers in Scientific Visualisation.

His rendezvous with computer graphics started when he started working, after a bachelor’s in computer engineering, as a simulation software developer. After 6 years of work, he joined the master’s programme in Advanced Computer Graphics from Linköpings University in Sweden. After the master’s programme, he joined the university’ research force as a Research Engineer and went on to become a doctoral researcherspecialising in scientific visualisation.

Scientific Visualisation – The Seminar

Sathish started the seminar withimages of scientific visualisation and introduced the concept to us. The very techniques used for scientific visualisation also power the 3D graphics engines of game design tools. This is the common thread between scientific visualisation and game development.

Further, he spoke about the application of molecular and volume visualisation to 3D graphics and games.To elaborate,he explained how thecommon techniques such as raycasting and the depth of a field are used in making games.

The use of aesthetics in scientific visualisation was also a dominant theme of the seminar. He described the common features that aesthetics and game art and design share.

The session was interactive,and Sathish answered many questions that students had.He enthralled the audience with images and graphs showing the effective and right application of scientific visualisation.

Interview with Sathish Kottravel

Sathish, thanks for visiting us at Backstage Pass and spending 3 days of your vacation here with us. Please tell us something about your research interest?

“Thanks for having me here. I loved the interaction with the students. I specialise in the field of scientific visualisation. This is a unique field of study where mathematics, programming and aesthetics overlap. This field is also quite interdisciplinary, meaning the knowledge that you gained can be applied in many areas such as game development, special effects, graphics application developer, research, and so on.”

Can you tell us about your research in this field?

” I do research in thevisualisation of scientific data. Currently,I specialize in molecular visualisation. Here, my primary goal is to explore material structures and proteins at theatomic level in high-detail. Also, my research implicitly includes volume visualisation at low-detail representation.

My team of researchers work in close collaboration with physicists to help them understand the scientific process through any desired visualisation techniques. Some of my research publications are published here.

How is this related to computer graphics and gaming?

“The volume visualisation techniques such as volume rendering is often used in 3D graphics. For example, realistic rendering of fire. In molecular visualisation, we use techniques such as ambient occlusion to create the effect of soft shadows to improve the depth perception. The depth of field is also another technique inspired by digital photography thatfocuseson one plane. All these techniques are quite common in 3D games that borrow ideas from computer graphics.”

What are the new technologies that are being used in Scientific Visualisation?

“The new technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and haptics are used for scientific visualisation.”

What Activities Did You Conduct for the Backstage Pass Students?

“On Day 1, I conducted a seminar to give an overview of scientific visualisation and its significance in the field of 3D graphics. On day 2, I organised a workshop.  The aim of the workshop is to introduce shader programming tasks to implement special effects filters. We framed the tasks into basic, intermediate and advanced levels and day 3 was open for discussions and Q&A.

How was Your Experience Interacting with the Students of Backstage Pass?

“During the seminar, the students were very enthusiastic about the techniques that I presented in the seminar and had many questions. They asked about GPU optimization and raytracing.

During the workshop on Day 2, the student’s feedback was excellent. Also, I observed that the students are good at programming. They could solve all the tasks that we assigned to them. They showed interest in extending the basic ideas discussed on Day 1.

This shows that the institute has awell-structured syllabus and active environment for learning game development. I am certain that the students are industry ready.”

What is Your Advice toBackstage Pass Students?

“Backstage Pass has an excellent infrastructure that is easily accessible to students. The college has strong ties with the gaming industry, and these industry collaborations put themmiles ahead as the ties increase the students’ industry interaction multi-fold. To stand out in the crowd, students must make use of this resourceful environment as much as possible.”

 

Thank you, Sathish, once again, for sharing knowledge and giving a glimpse of scientific visualisation in gaming.

Five Reasons to be Excited About Backstage Pass Gaming Forum

 

The aim of Backstage Pass Gaming Forum is to build a network of students, mentors, and alumni of BSP. The students look for answers to questions, need feedback on solutions, and a sense of connectedness. The discussion forum is born to address these needs.

Backstage Pass Gaming Forum’ Benefits

Backstage Pass Gaming Forum intends to create a community to support passionate gamers. Some of the first order benefits are here:

Networking

The forum serves as a networking platform for all things gaming for Backstage Pass students. The students can interact with their peers and alumni of Backstage Pass on a variety of topics that interest them.

Knowledge Sharing

The Backstage Pass Gaming Forum is intended to act as a knowledge base. The discussions and answers to questions can bring out knowledge which otherwise remains personal. The students get exposure to mentors and alumni who have developed and marketed games and built indie game companies. The seniors and alumni share knowledge and best practices that will help the junior students excel.

Problem Solving

The students of Backstage Pass can post their specific queries and seek answers from alumni who have industry experience. This will help them manoeuvre difficult situations such as game architecture and design challenges.

Job Board

Backstage Pass Gaming Forum serves as a job board where the alumni, faculty, and Backstage Pass students can post job openings and internship opportunities. In this forum, students and alumni network and improve their career prospects by manifold.

Participation Rights

The students, faculty, and alumni of Backstage Pass alone can participate, network and contribute to the community.

We look forward to the Backstage Pass Gaming Forum evolving into a thriving destination like Facebook in due course.

 

Here is an info-graphic talking about the features of Backstage Pass Forum.

Five Reasons to be Excited About Backstage Pass Gaming Forum

 

backstagepass

The First Game Developed by Backstage Pass Students at Level2

 

Level2 is the Backstage Pass incubator that provides mentoring, infrastructure, marketing, and publishing support exclusively to Backstage Pass students who want to make games and establish indie game companies.

There is a lot of activity with the students at Level2 working on their first game.

Let us find out all about the game here. Here are the teasers and an exclusive premier of the game, just for the curious souls like you…..

For the past three months, students at Level2 have been developing a mobile game. It is the first game developed by students at Level2, and it is taking shape under the watchful eyes of their mentor, Asar Dhandala. Asar is a Backstage Pass alumnus, entrepreneur, and has developed many games.

We caught up with Asar to bring you a sneak peek from Level2’s game studio.

The Progress So Far

The game is in the beta stage where we have completed making the game and testing it. After testing and the bug fix stage, we are planning to go for a soft launch.

A Soft Launch

A soft launch is a selective release used to gather early feedback from players. It helps us improve the game.

Team Size and Duration

We have a mix of students. The team consists of five members. They are:

2D Art

Monideep Chakraborty

3D Art

Vamsi Krishna

Programming

Sai Rohit Thota

Vivekanand Prajeev

Venkat Ram Reddy

It took nearly three and a half months to make the game.

The Game Design

While conceptualising the game design, we researched thoroughly to ensure that the concept is new. We wanted it to be simple and easy to make. Early, we felt that it should also be immersive and fun to play. It took us a couple of weeks to finalise the concept, and we started after all the team members understood and agreed upon the concept. Then we began the game design.

Name of the Game

We are yet to name the game. We will let you know soon.

What did They Learn by Being a Part of This Project

This is a first game developed by most of the students at Level2. The project taught them game development from start to finish.

We started from conceptualisation of the game, sketching it on paper, making the 2D and 3D art, adding graphics, programming and blending all to make a full-fledged enjoyable game.

The learning curve was steep for the students. In college, they learn game development, game art, and game design. This project helped them to connect the dots and complete the picture — how to make a full-fledged game and know the monetisation. (Monetising the game means that you add elements that a player can purchase as he progresses through the different levels in the game.)

How did You Mentor the Students

It was a more hands-on experience for the team. It took more time than I thought it would take for getting the students into the groove. But, the end product turned out to be the best in class.

For the team members, this has clearly been a transformational experience from being a student to a game developer.

Backstage Pass is a great place. The support we got from the college helped the students immensely in their journey.

Watch out this space for more updates about the game — the visuals, the trailer, and more…

Backstage Pass Institute

The Making of a Game | Backstage Pass Institute of Gaming and Technology

 

Work like it is a game. This is what die-hard gamers always wanted to do. The journey of two young game developers, Anand Dhavle and Anmol Nikam is no different.

Both Anmol and Anand were students of Backstage Pass. They work in game development companies and make games that they like to play.

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Our conversation began with the usual round of introduction. They spoke about the games they make, with each one filling in where the other left. The camaraderie they shared was ubiquitous. On the whole, it was inspiring to peep into their world and understand game development from their perspective.

 

Team Name: Digital Cartridge

No of team members: Two

Education: Anand studied B.Tech (Gaming) and Anmol studied B.F.A (Game Design). Alumni of Backstage Pass,

Important events: Participated in a game jam competition held at NGDC 2015 (Nasscom Game Development Corporation). They made a prototype of their game.

Games developed: Reverie, Rock It, and Blind Boy Project

Play Reverie by clicking here

They love to play games.

 

The Beginning

“It all started when we made a prototype of a game when participating in a game jam held at NGDC (Nasscom Game Development Conference) 2015 at Pune. We got a lot of positive feedback. And we decided to flesh it out further.”.

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What Was The Game About

“The game was called “Reverie” which means getting lost in thoughts, something similar to daydreaming. It is a gesture-based 2D platformer for the Android platform. You get to draw shapes to create objects, defeat enemies, and solve puzzles to help the little girl to get out of the world she is trapped in”.

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The Making

“It was a great learning experience. We underestimated the effort we need to put in to make a full-fledged game. Initially, we got our friends to play the game and tell us how they felt. Then, we improved the art-style, animation, added new graphics, changed the controls a number of times to get it right. We created unique mechanics which made our game fun to play. Lastly, we released it on platforms like Itch.io. Within five days, our game crossed 2000 downloads. We released the code into the public domain so that anyone can edit and enjoy the game. Here’s the link to the full source code”.

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What Was Your Motivation For Making This Game

“We wanted to present our ideas and make a game that we wanted to play. And we hoped that others will enjoy playing as well”.

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How Did You Choose To Work With Each Other

Anand said, “ Choosing the team member is very important. I would look for team players who can complement”. Anmol added, “Each team member should contribute and fill gaps in the process. Their ideas should be in sync though. We should play the same type of games and be aware of the type of game play that our target audience enjoy.”

 

What Did You Learn While Making The Game

They both echoed that a lot of patience, hard work and perseverance is required to complete a game like any other creative pursuit.

 

What Is Your Motivation to Play Games

“I enjoy playing games as we can break free from the routine and it relieves stress. I also like to play games as it is interactive and we can see our actions changing the outcome,” says Anand. “Playing games promotes skill building for sure. Also, it disconnects us from reality”, adds Anmol.

 

What is Your Advice For a Person Who Wants to Try Their Hand at Gaming

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“If you are sceptical about starting just like we were, start small and participate in a lot of small projects and game jam competitions. Being hands on will build your confidence and you will learn a lot in the process.”

“Learn to program, use a game engine, play a lot of games, start small, find a partner who can support you, enter competitions like game jam, and do projects.”, they said.

 

Here Are Some Valuable Thoughts to Ponder Over

“Try to make something different and be proficient in different art-styles, animations, graphics, controls. More than anything else, enjoy the entire process”.

US polls bring rich dividends to city game developers

US polls bring rich dividends to city game developers

 

The ‘Avion Flight Simulator’ downloaded more than 7.5 million times

When people across the globe were backing either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump late last year, two game developers from the city bet their luck on the U.S. presidential elections.

Finally when the elections were declared, Asar Dhandala and Satish Chandra were richer by a few lakhs. The duo behind the mobile game, ‘Avion Flight Simulator’ introduced an update during the elections which doubled their revenues.

“We wanted to take advantage of the elections and introduced Air Force One flight, the official carrier of the U.S. President to the existing fleet,” said Mr. Dhandala.

“Users had to purchase the flight for $ 3 if they wanted to fly it using simulator. A lot of people paid for the additional feature and our revenues doubled during the U.S. elections,” he added.

The game has been downloaded more than 7.5 million times on Android, IOS and Windows operating systems since its launch in mid-2015. The game also helped the team generate revenues of around Rs. 50 lakh.

The game is a big hit in other countries than in India.

According to the developers, the game has the maximum downloads from USA, Russia, Brazil and Germany followed by India in the fifth position.

It was a chance meeting of the two gamers from Backstage Pass Institute of Gaming and Technology which gave birth to the idea of working on a simulator game.

“Though our target was three months, we developed the game within two months. We almost worked for 18 hours a day.

We analysed the top games and went through the reviews. We wanted to develop a product which was the best among the flight simulator games.

We are glad that our game is in the second position in this category of mobile games,” said Mr. Dhandala.

In 2017, the youngsters want to come up with a better version of the game which includes refined engines and improved graphics.

A Chart Topping Mobile Game from Hamara Hyderabad

 

Backstage Pass Students Did It Again

50,00,000 downloads and counting…

Yes, that’s the number of downloads of the Avion Flight Simulator ™ game on the Google Play Store and counting.

Students of Backstage Pass Institute of Gaming & Technology, Satish Chandra and Asar Dhandala, are the creators of the Avionics Flight Simulator ™, 2015 game. Currently, the game is the 3rd most popular game in the world among similar games on Google Play.

Asar completed his B.F.A and Satish was a student of the PG Diploma in Game Design programme. Satish was a Systems Engineer at Infosys before he dropped out to pursue gaming while Asar turned an entrepreneur in his student days with Seven Summits.

Here is the making of the game, in their own words.

The Genesis

“While working on some project, we discovered that both of us have a penchant for aircraft. That got us both excited. We both started getting along very well and started talking more and more about the concept”.

“I already tried to make a flight simulator game and failed once. So, when I met Satish, I thought we could together build the game. Besides, he had already built two flight sim games through TeaPOT games with a million downloads each”, says Asar.

“Initially we were coding like 6 hours a day. On one of those days, we met in the coffee shop to discuss the progress. I came to know that I had to travel to San Francisco for Casual Connect USA, 2015 and we joked that we should finish before I leave for the conference”.

“Later we got serious about the jokes. We thought, why not?”,  adds Satish, quietly.

“That’s when the real game started. From 6 to 7 hours of coding a day, we jumped to 20 hours of coding a day”.

The Method

Satish chips in. “Since we both liked flight simulators, we knew what to build. We took the most played simulator games at that point and analyzed each of them in our own way. Essentially, we were building our kind of flight simulator. Like kids who fancy a helicopter full of candy. We were no different”.

The Madness

“Marketing? That’s the craziest thing in hindsight. There wasn’t any:zero marketing. No user acquisition. No spreading the word around the world. We just joined the Play Store and the Microsoft Store. All that we did was every mobile near us had the game running on it. Friends, family, neighbours, just about anyone known to us”. Both laugh heartily.

The Aha Moment

“The zero-day. That was a great moment. The zero-day retention was 30%. And that’s a winner. We knew it. After that, there is no looking back. The game took its own course. It has been totally organic”. A hush descends on the conversation, characteristic of experiencing something before the experience.

What Happened

Asar breaks the silence, “I guess all the right elements were there. While we designed the game together, we stuck to our areas of expertise. Satish was programming and I took care of 2D Art and visualisation. Satish is a very professional coder. Trust me, it is extremely important to have the right team in place”.

The Stage

“Besides meeting each other, at Backstage Pass we learned how to get into the game industry. This is a very important turn in our journey as entrepreneurs. And I went on to publishing my first commercial game. And, so did Asar”, adds Satish.

Recounts Asar, “Backstage Pass helped me with partly financing some of my trips to conferences, gave me the freedom to work on my games and they spread the word of Avion”.

What’s Next

“We are working on the next version of Avion and we are also planning to come up with a new game by mid-2017”.

Advice

“It’s perfectly OK if you are looking for a secure job. But to be an entrepreneur, you should fail fast, and fail early”, pat comes the suggestion from Satish.

“You got to build many games before you have a winner. I made as many as 14 games. So just make. Make as many as you can”.

About Backstage Pass

Backstage Pass Institute of Game Development offers various courses in game design, game art and game development. Backstage Pass has collaborated with JNAFAU, Hyderabad to offer bachelor’s and P.G. Diploma courses. Backstage Pass alumni include entrepreneurs, employees of start-ups and MNCs, and students of acclaimed universities across the globe.

For more information, please email to: info@backstagepass.co.in or call: 040-800 800 2794/800 800 2795.

Glu Mobile Workshop

Backstage Pass Students Attend an Exclusive Workshop at Glu™ Mobile, Hyderabad.

 

Glu Mobile, Hyderabad, organized an exclusive workshop on level design for the students of Backstage Pass.

Techopedia defines level design as:

“…a game development discipline that involves the creation of video game levels, locales, missions or stages. This is done using some sort of level editor – software used in game development to construct digital environments. Level editors may also be included in released games to allow players to get creative and make their own levels and scenarios. Level design is both a technical and artistic process.

Level design is also known as environment design or game mapping.”

At the end of the three-hour workshop, Glu organized a level design contest for the students and 2 teams were declared the winners.

The senior students of the group also had an opportunity to apply for an internship at Glu Mobile.

The students’ response was amazing. They had 3 awesome things to say about their interaction.

The students were swept off their feet from the way Glu Mobile office was appointed. Casual, trendy, meticulous and a sense of exuberance, all blending into an overarching sense of freedom to think, create, and just be.

Even more appealing were the friendly workshop coordinators and the staff who interacted with the students. When asked if they would like to work for Glu on graduating, there was a thundering and unanimous ‘aye”.

The students also felt that the way level design was explained was awesome. And given a chance, they would like to appear for more workshops and want to learn character design and artificial intelligence (AI).

Thanks to the Glu Mobile team who got the students excited beyond words.