Developing Raji: An Ancient Epic & Crossing the Finish Line | Game Dev Unchained Episode 233

[Music] what's up everybody welcome to another episode of game dev unchained the number one game development podcast about game development and the lifestyle thereof i am your host and always will be brandon fam and joining me not just one not two but three special guests from the raji team i'm gonna do my best here ian trudy and avichow how you doing guys all right so sorry for the techno difficulties but this is gonna get rolling and now we're gonna pass by really fast awesome so i actually uh had like an indirect introduction to you guys i i was at gdc when um when that was still going on a couple years ago and i saw you guys game at the at the booths uh a while back

and it was instantly one of those that really stuck out and i think we can get into it a bit uh so this kind of goes into a little bit of indian ancient history uh from what i can tell right and um what's very unique at least from my first uh impression of it was that it's unique like there's it's not it's not about aliens it's not about uh uh zombies right uh it was very rich in content and something that of course uh with indian ancient history there's a lot of it uh to discover so let's just start from there like was that more of you guys want to represent uh your country and more knowing that rich history that there is a game here that not that's not being told and as part of like the game development scene is building over there that this was the perfect time for you guys to come out with raji i mean here the the fact that we were

from we had transitioned from gamers to game developers ourselves and we had grown up knowing that there doesn't exist a game offer dreams you know where you play as an indian character and you you know going around in an indian environment i think that was the first kind of thought that and knowing that we were we had the skills to pull it off i mean this is going back in 2014 when he and shruthi and me we met and this was at the design college and we knew like we are surrounded by talented folks this we know people who can pull this off and you know if it were able to become a team things didn't materialize for the next two years and you know almost two and a half years later is when we all got together and the idea was that to put india on the map on the gamedev map and it can only be done with a high quality game and

that was a mission and so many people have reached out uh to us you know uh just now like a few minutes ago one of the biggest rappers in indian scene uh has uh just reached out us on instagram saying it was his dream to make something like this and we've done it for him and we've got a lot of messages like that and so it's humbling to see that you know the full circle is complete with rajiv of what it started with and what people are you know perceiving it as yeah i mean we're talking about billions of people and thousands of years of history in indian culture that um it's now just starting to be represented in the uh game development sector right um i can only imagine the game

development is still growing over there and very much like at least i'm i'm vietnamese right from the asian history it's not really that accepted as a career just yet i mean sort of right it's very new but when i try to tell my parents as i'm making games it's like why i mean what about other things don't you want to make a living so it's it's still very new and i cannot only imagine over there it's it's somewhat like that or is it like more accepted now or it is a thing among college students i think people are uh it is very young the gaming industry here there's only like a handful of studios doing games for pc and consoles but the market uh you know the industry has grown i think there's now 300 plus studios here in india and uh but but is it being perceived as a actual profession that parents or you know the elderly are

aware of that is yeah that's not there yet even we have a lot of trouble explaining our own jobs back home people think i'm an animator and i have no idea how do i explain them what a game design what does it do even to my own friends actually yeah forget the other generations even to the people who studied with me in school it's not easy to explain them but for the change has to start and we can say raji you know i'll just give you a short story we connected with a 2d animator i think one week ago and he told us that rajiv was the first game his mom and dad sat together with him and watched the entire thing and that has never happened in his entire life and of course he was got told not to play too much or you know do something else or do something better but rajiv was the first game to do so

and very recently you know the prime minister of india also came in support that we should be making games on indian folklore so it's just it's a start yes just starting but of course these things take years and even decades and generations to you know go into the mindset of people that it's an actual industry and something that your kid can pursue and i think ian and shruti have seen this throughout college they were game trainers and they had parent-teacher meetings with the you know the students experience but i guess with artists it's a lot more uh like in india there's a lot more game artists and artists who are working on animated series and movies so i think that's a lot more accepted uh in india there's lot more people who are aware about it like being an animator or an artist

or character artists environment artists who can work on all these stuff that goes into games and movies but yes to explain probably a designer and a programmer is something still not in picture yet but definitely artists is something even parents are slowly opening up to because there's so many studios in india that outsource and it's a profession like people look on to and they do do a lot of courses for 3d softwares and stuff so yeah that's a lot more accepted and people do understand that much at least but i just wanted to say that when i started out in the industry 20 years ago um it was um dad said to me you know what do you do um and you know you've got no idea and i i think the best way that i could describe it to him i said listen i'm a virtual painter and decorator

as soon as i said that it went oh okay i'll get you i understand yeah um my mum um i had to go back and get my visa sorted out a couple years ago and um and because i was doing characters um i sat down and you know obviously took my workout with me and um and then she just literally just looked over my shoulder and just looked at what i was doing and and then then i i broke it down for her and showed her how everything works and and so on in very very laymen terms and um and then it clicked the line i could see the light bulb just click on them yeah with her um and then she said you know the hours that you dedicate to your craft is is amazing you know you know you you've all got very good work ethics and and you know your commenders on that but it's in many regards it's like he's only until like our generations now that um you know something my sister

you know she's got a young boy and he's what 12 13 years old so he loves fortnite and stuff like that and he's got our game recently and uh he's playing and he's loving it you know he said you know i didn't pay him to say that but he said he's loving it um and um you know it is just one of these things it is generational it is generational and it's also people in in india uh or sorry families it's um you know they i think they the expectation is similar to england the expectation is that you're following the footsteps of so-and-so so you're going to be a lawyer engineer doctor etc but when you say something of the arts that's when people are a little bit um worrisome i suppose because you know they don't know too much yeah the role of a starving artist i think is very true and um the game development scene of anything is very competitive right so i come from the game of development as well

and i i did see like an evolution i've only been in industry for for 12 13 years but even in those 12 13 years at the beginning it was very much like how you guys describe your job to people who were curious you know i start very basic he's like i'm a 3d artist i say and then if they ask more he's like oh i work in the game industry if they ask more he's like i make the world so they ask more the environment so there was like you got a piecemeal to people i i made the first mistake of just like explaining everything and you just see their eyes kind of roll back in their head yeah yeah yeah it just goes over and again the same thing is what avicell was talking about they just assume everyone's an animation because they can most people see the tv and things are on the tv it's like you you're on tv you do tv stuff it's like no i do games so i think um iphones the age of fortnite has helped greatly the last few years for people to kind of respect game

development as a thing because now they see it everywhere and they now kind of know like at least gamers make money right and then and then fall down to the game developers so it was nice to kind of see that evolution uh kind of going through but what i'm also very interested in what you guys are doing is that you're ushering in a whole new voice into the game development scene i think there's the western then the eastern like far eastern game development scene and some european cropping up um but i think asian games are uh still underrepresented and a lot of it is just like what we're saying it's just we're seeing colleges starting to offer uh game development as a course or as a degree now and uh accessibility has gotten a lot easier with tools an army of 10 developers have the same tools as an army of 300 plus developers uh that's only happened recently to kind

of lower the bar with everybody um you guys were kind of mentioning you guys were instructors and teachers over there too uh i mean what what changes have you guys seen in that evolution in the last five ten years in terms of quality of students in terms of students of interest i mean where where are these students finding it are they just scouring the internet for you guys how are these accessibility happening over there in india there's very few you know decent schools that offer such courses um and you know we were involved with the interview process all the way through to you know when they're passing out um you know and we've got particular standards that we employed um you know we rewrote the curriculum um because it wasn't up to present standards or you know today's uh skill uh skill sets at that at that particular time

um and you know it's funny because i recall remember some of the students when they turn around and said to our standards are too high and we just turn around so this is industry standard yeah you know this is if you can't hack this then you know you're gonna have to really sit down and practice or all you know really question why are you here you know what do you want to do um you know and so you know we had that sort of the swiss other students um you know he had you know some good ones that really wanted to just knuckle down and get on with it and um what i would like to add is like when i was uh so after i did my degree i did a small course in animation and 3d art so basically the softwares so that's when people around like artists who especially coming out the thought process the way

things were approached were very different like it was more like stuff that's given to me i'm just gonna do that like and move on like it's more of what's this is my reference image this is how i'm gonna approach it and that's what my end result is going to be like very uh yeah exactly like approach was like this this is my way and i'm not going to think otherwise or try i'm not going to deviate but when we were teaching in that college like more it was more of a broad thinking like how this will help in the game and thinking about the broader bigger picture and not just like how your job is related with design team and how it affects the game and all the other stuff the technical stuff that needs to be thought about is also like a lot of artists like now you have branches you have tech artists you have artists that specialize in certain then

there are generalists so these things were not prevalent before but now people are like artists especially when we were teaching the students were a lot more like aware yeah they were doing their research online they were part of communities they were talking to people artists around the world they were following artists on art station they were a lot more aware of what the standard is and they wanted to like reach a certain standard and had a aspiration to be in certain companies or do start their own game or like anything like so that's what was different i think from what when like just the industry started or how artists were made in like yeah because it's like you know remember with the students as well we were literally get these off and open them up a little bit like this and but yeah but a lot of them weren't like that from styling

from the staff because right now like internet it's got so much source there are so many online courses all artists uh even share their uh approach to how they uh do their projects so like there's so much material out there like anyone who has the passion for it can definitely learn and grasp just quickly one of the one of the wonderful wonderful things that i uh i've got the students to do and uh you know i mean sure and i you know we're like 30 odd years between us experience probably more now and um i said to the students i said i might have a lot of experience but i don't know everything and i said by the end of the academic year i want you to show me something i don't know that's opening up for some i told you personal professor oh my god but that is the best part i think a lot of the um what you're talking about you

know i i used to teach as well on the side um well what's great about that it actually just like any type of teaching in any industry it actually helps you with your fundamentals going through is like oh man i actually have to tell people how to do this one thing that i've forgotten about or really you know self self educated more on and it was a very rewarding experience because you're constantly thinking about game development and the other aspects of game development and not just crunching all the time and um what's uh also rewarding and i'm sure you guys are are seeing this a lot you're seeing a new crop of students that are uh inspiring and motivating you in content and actually i kind of see it as my own type of personal spyware to kind of see all right where am i right now how do i rank am i are these students outgrowing me right now i like do i need to sharpen my skills i mean how good are they right because uh it's just one of those things

it is a younger industry and since every five years or even less now there's newer tools and things we have to constantly adapt to make better and if your finger isn't on the pulse uh you're going to lose track and fall behind really quickly and so being a teacher helps with that uh helps with you evolving as a game developer and i find a lot of a lot of old veterans that are have many years in the industry uh sit under the desk they do their job really well soon get pretty outdated because they don't have the interaction of knowing what's going on outside of their cubicle basically um so uh another topic that i've been kind of bringing up with a lot of developers india especially so this this last this year uh have sucked right which is the easiest way to say you guys you just recently released last

month and i'm sure like the marketing the gdc the e3 all these events that you guys had land up last year got derailed in a big way and uh there was a lot of adaptation that had to to happen uh for you guys to put this game out and make some noise right um so uh let's just first kind of talk about how's the situation over there with india and kovid or uh not not good not does it just completely yeah we just got the highest number of cases on the on the planet oh wow even high even higher than us yesterday i think yeah give us a sec yeah it's 80 000 something in a day in a day jeez yeah so we've been crunching since february like uh i mean we were crunching before also

but like the lockdown started in february yeah and of course the nintendo thing was happening in august so you know the hardcore current started and we were like you know six months seven months eight months it'll be over we'll finish this go on a vacation [Music] and now it's like we worked so hard and we are now just trapped like it has affected our stuff with team as well where things could be easily solved by talking to each other in a room we have to always be on like yeah like um a lot of our team members are not in india but but majority of the team is in pune so

it's it's just was easier at least the core team was in pune and it was yes everyone underwater yeah so at least especially when we were about to launch and where we needed everyone together it was a lot harder for us but i guess we just really because well i mean we saw it coming and so we got the team [Music] we dispersed the team and you know just like take the computers etc um and just prepare uh and go home um because the worst thing that we wanted to happen wasn't for one anyone to be affected with this um and then unfortunately that would have affected um the development schedule um uh i mean obviously health comes first so yeah we had to just like you know make sure that we actually forced uh d-pan and the delay to live together

that's the tech artist and one of the coders and so they went off with the all the dev kits because they needed it and it's as simple as that um and you know we're constantly talking on you know slack and uh discord yeah and later me and uh early programmers we had to i think visit them for almost two weeks every day because uh you know we had to test the game and so some bugs were supposed to be solved locally and you know and things keep coming up when you're near launch of course so we had to do that that was you know not the difficult i mean it doesn't feel difficult but it probably was yeah this uh definitely a lot of challenges with this one i think it tests every type of relationship colleagues uh husband wife

son and father like it was just like it was intense it was like i think we had like a three-year experience fast forward for everything and and just like this i kind of joke around people couples especially are gonna come out pregnant or divorced after this there's one of the two options game development so far you made it but like it was intense it was an intense because um i i was a permanent remotely i worked from home before the epidemic happened but you know we like like most people that work from home we had a routine we go gym we do other things outside of being at home and yeah this was intense for me because suddenly i'm schooling my children because of like the schools were closed all of a sudden and so i had to act like you know i was a teacher before now i'm teaching and zoom calling in these business it's impossible it's

it's even to this point i think you know even though it's gotten a little better it was such a learning curve for even for me who was used at being home so i can't imagine people who were kind of use the office in an escape suddenly finding themselves at home stuck in this like uh reality of theirs right it's a it's a bit much yeah for us like studio is a part of our our apartment our home so we never get away from we're but like you said for for me also it was an escape to go to the gym or at least have some way of escape to go somewhere and we were just like stuck between computers it's horrible it really is i mean it's like you know we've got computers over there linked up ready to go for light baking and i'm just like got the chairs going backwards yeah okay okay someone's pressed something in the level and now the the lighting's broken so oh great yeah

all right and then we've got to go back and do like another five hours of baking it's like don't touch it yeah you know and this is all happens it's like pandora's box it all opens up and everything just comes around and just goes yeah just before we go to launch something but yeah it's it's been very challenging um and recently we are going back to the gym well not the gym but outdoors doing gym stuff but now again we should reconsider it knowing how many cases yeah you guys are you guys are beating us you guys should stay inside of anything you already beat them like yeah you're a we'll talk next week because i i see it that's i think that's the frustrating part it's just um it's not like the numbers don't align with what i see i go outside my neighborhood and i see people just walking around with no mask on or uh you know there's just at least one in

the state is so politicized um where common decency or common sense with health it's like man you people used to wear masks when they had the flu it's like why is this any different um it's frustrating yeah this is like again it really tests your relationship uh with everybody uh who you trust who you don't trust suddenly i have less friends now when i receive i just happen like that it's like wow okay um but like you guys said you were forced to in this situation and what what i found surprising too i always thought the smaller teams would have a a better adjustment than the bigger teams right like you know the activision all these big companies suddenly have to do it at home it just seems like they have a lot more wheels to turn to make this happen but as i was talking to smaller and smaller teams it's it's difficult too because communication is still the problem um people do prefer

talk uh i what used to take two seconds to turn around in your chair and ask a question exactly it's a whole thing now and um yeah our gameplay team was in one room and now we're like it's a you know like you have to bypass several you have to ask for person one and then he'll check with person two and then you get to know and you know things get lost in transition oh yeah but i think we we've done a pretty good job because we did release the game and if we did manage to do it it was insanity at some point at many points change at all because of the code our schedule did not change yeah we we continued with you know what we had to do and we had to uh hit our milestones all the way along um and you know we've had to adapt yeah and also with the indie world

showcase [Music] yeah so so that was our opportunity of course we cannot let go and we had to do it and i think i remember when the lockdown started and the early couple of months when the world was all you know everyone's crying about it and or doing you know trends or what are they doing in lockdown or someone's getting two weeks off because their company is still figuring out what to do yeah we was just going at it you know we were like this is there's no log this is just crunch but now it's really rooms yeah yeah but now it really feels like end this man we we we went through a lot just let us

go on a beach yes i don't know yeah that's uh i think that's i think that's the first stream for it's been uh since february right since six months i i thought by six months will be uh i mean realistically you know it takes a while to get the vaccine like four years was the last fastest time yeah so uh but i don't know for some reason i thought six months was enough and a lot of people are are really struggling to to kind of fathom that it's actually going to be longer at this point it's very hard to get used to and what's worse over here at least in the united states what's frustrating you seeing all these people not really um following along it seems like it's being extended and and i don't know about you guys but but at least uh at least my family too like you would see family and friends just hang out and you get kind of jealous of it right he's like i wish i could but i'm smarter than that it's like i

don't want it because that's the number one way of it's spreading it was the family gathering but it really it's really tough like it really tests your your patience and everything right now even here like even when the lockdown was strict even with like right now uh the government is still on like opening up a lot of stuff because of i guess going down so but like people just like even when it was more strict they were just out on the roads like talking on their phones just hanging about with friends like like as if nothing happened and it was just so yeah because what what also happens is the shooting and i we um just this is off subject slightly is that we we feed praise dogs um so like we feed around about 150 dogs every other night and um we had to get permission from the police to go out and we did all that

but remember when we go to um blackie and uh rascal and we we've known his little dogs for since the pups but it's a compound next to the police station and we went in there and it was like all these vehicles that have been impounded yeah because people are just going outside and it's like because in the er indian roads a choker you know and everyone's coming at all different angle you know vectors or whatever and um so they're just going out for the novelty to see these roads that are all empty and it's like a ghost town and um and so the police are just like you know nicking them for uh for this and it's like what are you doing wow man yeah that's restrained yeah i i think if anything this is a primer for the zombie apocalypse i mean this is why only like five percent survive because you know 95 is just like high-fiving and eating dinner with their mask it's like it's the it's the it's the

appearance of effort that bothers me the most it's like hey i don't know i'm we're going off typing i'll bring it back but i just want to say this it's just like you would see these uh people taking pictures right with their bastards like hey we're still distancing and then they immediately take it off just to like put their arms around each other and say hey it's been a while right afterwards it's like what are you doing it takes a second dude but this is the craziness that that's happening on top of you guys developing games what's impressive you guys didn't push back the date or anything you guys just drum along i guess i guess more crunching i guess we gotta keep crunching um yeah which is what i find a lot of teams now are struggling the most it's like um because it seems like you guys had some kind of familiarity doing meetings online and stuff the teams who haven't are finding themselves super unproductive like people are just not that good at home like i find most

people aren't even though they dream to work from home they just aren't because of the distractions and you know their favorite shows on i mean it's as simple as that it's just like they find every excuse to not do work yeah not netflix only confused for christ's sake except inside for instance i'm going to put abby and doodoo here because it's like i don't know how people can do it you can do it as well yes it's like you can watch a show on one monitor and keep working and i cannot do that um see i'm very picky with those i pick like okay this is not that great or whatever so it can't go on the second screen that's how i do it white noise yeah yeah what teaches the way of laziness when you know when i was fixing bugs like coalition books which are brain dead bugs you know you just have to shift them and i think you know increase the thickness and just

then play again break it or that's when you watch those things because these are brain dead jobs i mean we're not doing creative jobs then i can really do that but if i'm doing something like you know creating a block out for a new level then i can't do that so for me it's like that yeah i really so ian's the type of thing zombie zombie yeah no i get you man like i think he's the type when he's if he's serving prison he's like concentrating on shoveling dirt like we don't want we don't want to think about it yeah it's like i'll make sure this pile is big and this hole is bigger yeah yeah yeah well i mean it's it's definitely uh alright it sucks it's gonna be another six months sorry the break to you guys it's gonna be a little longer since you guys are number one yeah it's gonna be yeah actually in india it's gonna be definitely more yeah but when you're talking about teams

as well because we've got um our vfx artist was in brazil um we had a composer um in greece and one of the cutscene animators was in melbourne australia so you know we had to juggle all this as well as when you're running the company and making sure everything's done looking you know for um voice over actors um you know the scripts and the narrative scripts has been written in conjunction you know because obviously we came up with a story but then it was like you know we had help with that as well and that was in the uk so there's all these different things there's like several plates that have always been juggled between all three of us simultaneously so it's um there's no mean fee it really isn't and also we've got our own jobs to do as well so yeah i think that's a huge help to kind of be able to have your team spread apart because that's one of the things i feel like

smaller teams are better at because they're so used to having uh key team members spread across the globe and you can't do anything but do online meetings right or zoom or any of that sort to communicate and you're kind of been kind of uh practicing uh for covid i guess i've covered like situations uh for a while now um and yeah it's it's so impressive that you guys stayed on course and just was able to buckle down and focus um and kind of going through with this whole cycle of of um uh changing on the fly you guys your guys is uh you know i'm sure you guys have these events lined up what kind of changes did you have to make for your marketing to get your word out and everything like suddenly there's a lot of virtual conferences and all this stuff to kind of help accommodate but it's very hard i think for smaller teams to not have gdc or these events

um to be face to face and and be able to talk to people at the same time i think uh so this is something yeah you you don't get face to face feedback that's true but i will say because of the pandemic everyone's pretty much at home or was during the steam game festival and i can say that we got a very very good response on the xbox summer gaming demo event and the steam one which happened in march and i think one in june and by response i mean we had a feedback form at the end of it and the number of people who played this was in thousands and so many people took time to actually write down detailed feedback and it of course helps you know shape the game and uh yeah the the part of you know

face to face is missing but somewhere we also know that not everyone will be totally honest face to face but when they're sitting behind the computer maybe they do get the chance to be more open so you know it varies from different of different people but i have i will say the the number of events like e3 is gone we know that and gdc was cancelled i mean postponed and pax is online now yeah these things have been affected but i have to say summer of gaming has done a pretty good job with all these events we were part of the event with escapist magazine i mean a lot of small events popped up ign's summer of gaming and uh we participated in these events and they got us eyes on the project so

you know that worked in a in a favor i would say the online events but i think uh to add to what have you just said would be the biggest thing was the indie world showcase to be actually uh we choose uh like that was the biggest exposure to launch uh at for switch and to be there on that event with other big indie companies and it's just like open eyes who were like super giant yes yes it was quite an exposure for us to be on that event with i think that also brought a lot of eyes and like helped to market and spread the game like yeah yeah do you feel like this this unfortunate climate kind of helped um build up the fundamentals of marketing or where you take away all these let's say

advantages that these big or small companies would have do by doing face-to-face and it kind of equals the level field a bit through just internet interfacing or do you feel like it's it's gotten worse because for everybody uh because everyone's kind of forced to kind of email marketing and then get exposure and stuff well i suppose i suppose you yeah you're all pretty much been taken aback because of the you know the global pandemic but also the same token it's i think it's helped in many regards to to bring the community together um and you know we're getting inundated with uh interview requests and so on which is really nice yeah we're getting some beautiful reviews um and yeah help are we yeah i mean i have to say i agree with iannon on this point

it has helped us i mean right now it's a bit difficult to compare because okay let's say the pandemic was not there let's say e3 was still there e3 is three days of uh you know i mean i was just reading someone not a very sensible comment somewhere on the internet that e3 is dominated by triple a presence and indie games who make it to e3 which has started over a few years is a very uh very few of them but as i was saying even small events right or there were number of events which started i think they was forgetting names there was escapist maxine ign's some more gaming then there was one more and the sum of gaming included demos for xbox also so we wouldn't have had the opportunity to take the demo to xbox whether demo and indie games are

featured on the main home page of you know the the store page which you know you get your own section and that wouldn't have happened you know in an event people i mean we've gone with id xbox to like all around the globe basically i don't know six seven even events with them but you know uh there i feel uh people not as many as people could play the game because the attention is taken by the next triple a game which is coming out and it has a huge queue of 100 people waiting to play it but with summer of gaming i mean just using xbox demo you know we got featured all the demos got featured there was some 60 demos and then people you know it has a ripple effect people play it people are leaving ratings some people are compiling their best

five demos oh we were on rock paper shotgun uh top five demos i think and just because of that article you know more people found out about the game so all those things adam i mean i hate to say this but the pandemic does did help uh you know change the way the industry was a couple of years ago or last year you can say and maybe it's it's showing us a path that virtual events is the way forward it's even less expensive for people yeah it can be a pain to organize them maybe but uh it's saving space maybe it's creating less pollution and it's definitely the eyeballs are there if that is due to covet you could say people are at home gamers are at home you have more time to be distracted

there's plenty of games and there was to be distracted about so i think that has worked in advantage of indie game devs and i you know somewhere i also think 2020 is when a lot of games have been launched i mean we'll get to know by the end of the year i'm sure it beats the last year by a good margin so you know the visibility i think you must have read that steam reached i think 24 million concurrent users i hope that i'm not wrong with that but it broke its own record and this was in april or march i think right when the lockdown was imposed in u.s so that had never that couldn't have happened like if we were living in a normal year so somewhere those things have helped but of course now it's time like covet needs to go away yeah six months is enough

yeah very wanting you know we can keep wishing it i was just reading a message from someone on uh who's a design professor about how long word was he he described literally world war two uh how many days it has been since kovitz started and in world war two terms like germany is not even invaded france is not even invaded you say ussr is still with germany the d-day is uh four years ahead and the invasion you know he's just saying that uh he and you know he was saying it to complain about people who were not very masks he was like shut up and wear your ass because your great grandfathers would be ashamed of it well things have a child for for cheering us up with that statistic it's definitely it's very real right

it's it's uh in the last six months the the numbers are crazy very dramatic um might be the only time we kind of hopefully the only time that everyone has have gone through this in their lifetime first and last and um and then kind of talking about the the long-term effects of this um you know we're starting to see and you're kind of getting into it a bit where uh you know a lot of people are at home now at first it was mobile games a lot of freemium games but we're we're we're basically converting a lot of non-gamers into gamers in this period right oh yeah and naturally they're gonna evolve their tastes you know when they stop playing roblox uh to something that looks better like raji right uh yeah they're you know the evolution of the gamer uh it's already taking place a lot of fortnight you know last year we saw fortnite a lot of people or

a lot of kids especially are converting to different games so i mean the industry as a whole is is benefiting um and uh what i am curious about is on the game developer side so like i still don't know what this effect looks like it sounds like very much like you guys everyone although there are advantages at working from home everyone's kind of rushing for a change of pace like i i i have no choice i work from home so it's like i can leave my house and go back in and that's me back to my pre-pandemic days right but for you guys you know if you guys had an office before everyone's kind of rushing back in the office a little to work to kind of take a break from home i i would imagine or at least i would also see on the other side a lot of developers who don't see the uh the advantages too much of being five days in the

office anymore i think there's going to be some kind of hybrid discussion with most workplaces to be like hey we were doing this for two years why are we here right now why can't i take fridays and mondays off or something so i i think that is that's going to be something like that yeah there's a triple a developer i forgot forgetting who but i read that they have declared work from home for entire 2021 yeah a lot of places i don't know who it is but yeah it's it's something i mean we uh we can just look at spanish flu it lasted for three years and almost four years so well happy you've been very so i'm counting on getting in a car

and going to a local beach in maharashtra where we are staying at least that can be done right right i'm just saying be a little optimistic for the world that i'm saying well i i agree with obvi man like um even with the vaccine being rushed out right now like everyone like it's passing through all these regular guidelines i usually do the test things would you want to be the first one who takes this i mean that's how the zombie apocalypse happened in many movies before right it's just like taking this untested drug that everyone takes at once um so it's it even if there is a vaccine that they're rushing by the end of the year yeah i mean game developers gamers say what we probably won't be any good anyway if they're rushing it through

exactly like uh it's gonna come with a disclaimer i know exactly and i i think um i think that's the reality we just have to at the very most we can maybe extend our bubble a bit for the next year but uh it's not gonna be i think 2022 or thereafter where if you're not used to this by now start getting used to it uh is the best way because we're not at the end and for game developers i think for a lot of people especially my family outside of this house zone because i got this household check no one leaves right um everybody is uh i think holding on to hope too much where i think that's how you know people like avi don't break because they he's already putting his feet up for the next four years but it's the people who think like next month is is gonna you know everything's gonna be all good and chill

uh those are the people that break uh and i'm seeing it people are so frustrated right now because they think next month already i already made a plan that because of raj there's so much backtracking and backlog of movies games oh yeah so i've already made up man like you know this is now is the time to pass it exactly development is over most of it so i'm you know i'm actually trying to watch a movie per day basically designed his entire vacation yeah like he's thinking as a designer okay this is what's gonna be next yeah staycation so the designers have to know the system to beat it right so we know that this is not gonna get over for three four years yeah it's true yeah the thing is though brandon this is no different for us because we've been in this doing this for four years two years

three and a half years you know almost four years in january yeah yeah also you know four walls monitor at prison had a fight at lease it's been like one year since the last break i think more than one year those were for us they were never actual breaks because there's a milestone and then there's the financial stress and it it just feels a one big massive crunch you know and it's just it intensity keeps increasing towards the end of the line but i'm i'm happy that at least we even go it happened or whatever happened we

got it done somehow and we we got it done good and now to the next one which is october 15th for pc xbox and ps4 yes we should be good yeah the the thrill of any development has always been about the ups and downs um because those are the biggest risks and rewards i mean those are the only things that are worth doing um you don't want to stay at a like a steady pace uh it's a lousy win life yeah even if you try yeah game development doesn't work that way yeah uh so we're about the in the hour mark and i uh i want to thank you guys for for coming on and chatting with with me i mean this is what i live for now just talking to people that isn't my wife or kids it's just anybody else please so it was a nice change of face to talk to adults um and uh and i want to ask you guys

one last question before we kind of send sending you guys off so a lot of listeners uh out there uh viewers out there you know are curious are in the crux of indian development during this crazy time um if you guys have any word advice will go around the table to best stay the course stay motivated i mean obvi is just pretty much saying queue up all those shows that you never wanted to watch for the next four years anything to kind of help developers right now figure this out it can be through marketing it can be through game development or anything um because we're if any everybody have a wait wait yeah i have a very nice tip for all the game developers okay go to your steam library and look at your backlog all the game all the games you bought and never played they're looking staring at your soul right now yeah all that all that shame stacked up can

now be your salvation all that money that you spent that you never played uh should be helpful no you're right man all there's a lot of things i think internally that people have to have to look for right now to kind of pass the time yeah but you know i say that but the balance is destroyed like even for us right you know for me like to watch a movie like i know if someone recommends me and tells me this movie is like amazing and this and that i have to find you know my time and space i don't want to do it before a meeting or i don't want to do it right after you know like there's something there's some work to do yeah i want to set like there's nothing to do and i can enjoy this movie but that's like never happened so that's a good thing explain you're so busy now yeah yeah so i am looking forward to that

moment which is i think in december you know i'm i'm thinking that first and then i can actually do that but if you have to give your advice what would it be stop again going said so the advice for the game developers to how to deal with covet is that so you have lost the question oh just any advice to game developers listeners out there how to keep on game developing how to best healthy practices things that you guys found that helped you ship the game to your original date that's amazing i think you're one of 10 people honestly that have stayed the course and and somehow pandemic just uses like swatting flies uh didn't bother you guys and that's a hard one it would be like at a time like this where the community grows more stronger like for me at least is i find motivation when i see

uh i look at the work of other artists and i'm seeing that they're also making through it like it's you either talk to fellow artists or actually watch out for the companies that you look up to and how they are getting through it and like even i know it's difficult time for everyone we're all humans here but it's just to have that touch and to know like to get that little ray of hope and motivation from others that if that little push can always help through doing your work through the day and just giving extra push i guess that's for me yeah for me oh god i don't know how to comprehend that um it's because we've just been going at this for three and a half years or well actually we we actually started a project in 2018 and october 2018.

um so it's been an absolute onslaught um from them until now um [Music] i don't know it's just passion just just just go for it um it's like you know you've got your own story to tell tell it tell it how you want to and don't apologize yeah pretend there's no nothing there's no pandemic there's nothing there's no more two statistics to look at start going out don't do that yeah yeah working out is important eat healthy don't trash it like a raccoon like i did and yeah if you have pets take care of them spend time with them and keep keep your place clean healthy hygienic all that you know

yeah it just helps you with that extra like two things that just puts you a little bit at ease and takes you a little bit away from your daily job and that table that you have to sit and yeah like you whether it's reading a book or watch something that takes your mind off or just like we said like for for us it's our dogs it just takes us a little bit releases that tension and just gives us a little bit of happiness and lets us get on with our job so yeah yeah that's a huge huge component and i totally agree with you guys especially now i think if anything it's it's a time to focus on ourselves individually um well i mean like wear masks and stuff but like i think right now if anything uh it really focuses on uh

well what i find out is i understand now why celebrities have their house all pimped out right or like the things that matters is within reach like everything else is a distraction so i understand i get it now it's like now that you can't leave their house can you operate and function and you should i think as a person you should be able to be okay with yourself and be like that prisoner and be productive right you can either be that productive one who or one that goes crazy within the four walls and ceiling um actually that brings to this fact that i i love like plants a lot but with the lock down with my

yeah the place looks good i was going to add to what you said about productivity sometimes uh it's okay for people to just have their day off you know uh because there was a lot of this talk going when the lockdown started that some people are doing crazy stuff and they took courses which is great you know but not everyone is the same and not everyone can cope up with how this is going so not everyone needs to be productive writing a book 100 i thought everybody's writing a book suddenly everyone's an author yeah it's a thing exactly yeah you know you know people

need to breathe like just breathe focus on one thing that's the thing yeah with the mask yeah yeah we're a mess but one last thing before i send off just a tag on what you're saying it's very true now that i'm looking as my key you know my kid has like not just someone that bothers me but like wow you know i'm doing something for the this the people around me right you kind of have to like take a break and realize like what is the point of life at some time outside of work right and i think the pandemic actually taught you that because you can't just do your work 24 7. it's like this is the rare opportunity that you can really spend time with your family to this extent right you're forced to kind of figure all that stuff that you buried or like you can just delay from just getting a coffee a cup of coffee outside right these are all things that uh you have to face uh problems with people

in with yourself yeah with everything you've got saying there is looking at me with side lands 24 7 stop being a perfectionist stop doing this blah blah blah i have time off do whatever and boy it's funny when i'll be saying have time off and whatever because it's like we've been going at this for so long without weekends and so you know it's our first project and we want to make a great impression we want to give the best quality um all the way through the design everything um and so you know we sacrifice so much and it's like um you know the thought of taking a day off um it never crosses well some minds like mine um and then when i do take a day off i feel guilty yeah ian's games launched now i know

yeah i would agree with you maybe before 18th august but the game launched on 18th august okay yeah bobby's been watching a full movie during this interview so we're not even the focus for him right now so we'll learn from lobby yeah we're not even a full monitor we're just a small window right now for him you just cut off your internet one day maybe then you will be forced even further into darkness you'll be you'll be attending plants and you know now you'll be there i think so i tried that one they didn't work do it yourself [Music]

well i want to thank you guys uh for your time uh this is actually the part of the podcast where i kind of hand the mic over to you guys to share to give a shout out to our listeners and viewers out there whatever you want to share i haven't a slight idea but i'm going to hand the mic to your team and uh you guys can go around the table and talk about whatever you guys want to talk about we did talk about so many things right yeah where can they find the game let's start with that oh okay okay thank you thank you so uh the games launched on nintendo switch and it's on the e-shop and you guys can just go search raji an ancient epic and you should see it and uh for everyone who's thinking what about pc ps4x works the game's launching on

october 15th and you guys can follow us on social media on twitter facebook you will or instagram or edit raji the game and you you will find us or go to our website rajitthegame.com you're brilliant you are you're like a little billboard yeah you've been rehearsing that and i'm here he's on whenever he wants to yeah well i want to thank you guys for your time like um uh before i i send you out you guys wanted to say something first ian and trudy i just want to say thank you to all the fans um and everyone that's been especially you know with the kickstarter um because that was in 2017 yeah and then we got to cancel that and but we've been keeping everyone updated as well um and we've just been getting so much love uh from everyone and for everyone saying not to give up uh keep going um family

the family been brilliant you know again the dream you know uh the what if it will be in the back end of your mind you know back in your mind for the rest of your life if you don't do this so yeah it's just the fans um and the people like um epic that do the grants um we couldn't have been where we are without them because in you know 2018 we we got a grant there that helps out immensely um and nvidia um for their support and there's someone else that i'm forgetting who am i forgetting i would just like to say that i hope whoever is going to play the game on october 15th or on switch i hope they enjoy the game like we've really put our heart and soul into it it's a story that's really close to our heart and we hope everyone else

as well enjoys the game and it's a special story because it's it also showcases hindu and balinese mythology something that's not dealt into so that's hope people uh sees and finds interest in the story and the things that we are trying to say through the game so i just really hope that everybody loves it yeah yeah we've poured everything into it um yeah we just want to say thank you well i want to thank you guys on behalf of everybody that's listening to come on and share your story and knowledge uh especially the game in between like alien invasions and world war ii and zombies it's very refreshing and it gives me a lot of um excitement to see these type of games like raji coming out because there's a whole part of other history besides western uh that needs to be told and and i for one am very looking forward to

the pc version i'm a pc player and uh can't wait to play it guys thank you again for coming on thank you yeah thank you for having us brandon i think this was a good good one yeah okay thank you thank you all right guys uh have a good i one go back you