Rolocule Games wants to make fun games, according to them

Quote
"Rolocule's mission is to entertain universally, by blending technology with art and creating most enjoyable experience for everyone and strongly believes that art and technology often creates magic"

Founded by the EA return game programmer Rohit Gupta & his longtime friend & business partner Anuj Tandon, in Pune sometime last year. Super Badminton is their 2nd game for the I-Phone & I-Pad the 1st being "Touch Squash World Championship 2009".

Not many people will know that badminton has roots in our very own Pune & Super Badminton is the first badminton game for the I-Phone & I-Pad. Thus it is apt that a Pune based game company should make this game.

In their Short stint as game developers, Rolocule have managed to get a host of people interested & playing their games, all over the world literally.Also they happen to produce great racquets sports games which are listed amongst the best of best & the top five.

Touch Squash was downloded in more than 70 countries, Super Badminton did even better as it was downloaded at 4.99 dollars more than 200 times in 2 days and that was 2 weeks back, all OUTSIDE India.

It also rocketed to the hot games category on Apple Apps listing & covered by a dozen international publications. The reviews have been good to great & the Rolocule team has worked double time to bring out an gameplay upgrade and HD version for the I-Pad.

Rolocule has many games planned out & whats even better is they make games of international standards.

Incidentaly Rohit stint at EA-working on the SIMS games & their strong technological background has made this possible. One of things that we lack in India, particularly in the area of game development is game engine development & game programming.

For both their games, Rolocule team used their proprietary game engine which again allows the company to create the kind of games that has high standards. Most indian companies into game development, either use a 3d engine from Torque or 2d engines from Popcap or YOYO.

The good thing about companies like Rolocule Games is their willingness to take a chance in India to make their kind of games, as we in India dont BUY our games & the non-existense of a supportive ecosystem for game development companies.

'Seamedu Animation & Arts' heartiest wishes to them & a prayer that they continue to make the kind of games which are fun for them to make as much it is fun for us(Gamers) to Play

@Harold

Small town students do well in 3d Animation, gaming & Vfx

                                                                                                                  

There is something about the students from small towns, something special.

The kids from bigger cities have all the advantages & a lot of guidance from their schools, colleges, peers & parents which is not the case with kids from smaller towns.

A colleague recently told me that it is the smaller town students who are the main artists in his animation studio & it will be the same for many years. The well to do & bigger city kids are not that keen on something like animation for some unknown reason. This is very true & across most studios in the country most of them will be from the smaller towns.

This is my own personal experience too.

Over the last 6 months 3 of our students have been working on an I-phone game .These 3 students completed their diploma in 3D animation & specialization with Seamedu Animation & Arts. Immediately after the completion of their course they were selected for internships based upon their performance & their interviews conducted by a game development company at the Seamedu campus.

These 3 students are now working with the game company.

It is a long story told in brief, but these students who come from a Ichalkaranji got started into animation because of their passion for the medium, but as always there are hurdles in ones path. They joined a local institute which got them started but couldn’t do more than that. Then they came to our school in Pune and for a year’s time struggled it out.

The problems were many, lack of exposure to the larger world, language barriers as the medium of learning in animation is English, financial troubles etc. But the six of them who came down to Pune came out shining thru all the challenges.

As they say lady luck favours the brave, today 2 of these six students have done a project in Bangalore which returned back their fees spent on learning & the other three of them have just finished designing a game of international standards.

We have students from all across Maharashtra, but it has been my observation over the last 10 years or so spent in animation that it is not the most talented that matters in animation, but the most persistent of them wins.

The small town students have a definite edge at least when it comes to making a career in the animation medium, as they are not only persistive but also have the raw talent needed to suceed. 

Pravin Kamble, Sandeep Shinde, Suraj Ranbhare now working with Rolocule Games

Footnote

The 3 Seamedu Animation & Arts students Pravin Kamble(Character Rigging Artist), Sandeep Shinde,(Character Modeling) Suraj Ranbhare(Environment & Lighting artist) have finished making a sports game for  Rolocule Games on the I-Phone available on the Apple App store.

'Seamedu Animation & Arts' ties up 'Rolocule Games' as Knowledge partner

Anuj Tandon, Harold Raichur, Rohit Gupta announce the Tie-Up

                                                                                                                  
Seamedu Animation & Arts the leading Animation, Game Design & VFX training based institute in Pune has been offering game design courses since 2008. With an serious objective of raising the standards of game design & development education Seamedu is going one step further by joining hands with ‘Rolocule Games’ company as their Knowledge partners.

With this partnership the Seamedu Game Design course will get enhanced to international standards & for the very First time in India a high end course like “Game Programming with OPENGL” will be offered to the students with C/C++ skills & eager to learn game engine design & programming in India. Seamedu is introducing two, yearlong full time courses starting in mid August, namely Game design & Game Programming in OPENGL.

In December 2009 Mr. Rohit Gupta & Mr. Anuj Tandon the Founders of Rolocule Games visited Seamedu Animation & Arts in search of 3d artists to work on their latest sports game. They selected 3 students to work on their project, which now stands completed & their game ready to be published on Apple Apps store.

As an institute involved in new age careers Seamedu Animation & Arts has always been at the forefront in Pune to create awareness among parents and youngsters in order to bring about a change in their mindset for Animation , Gaming & Vfx.”We hope to keep on raising this bar so that Game development companies in India can receive highly trained talents.

Mr. Rohit Gupta (Founder, CEO and programming fanatic Rolocule Games) says “The matter of fact is that Indian gaming industry is not even remotely close to international gaming industry either in terms of the growth or the quality of games developed. The differentiators is the education. There is a lot of talent in India but no direction when it comes to game development. We, at Rolocule Games, feel that it is our moral responsibility to take the Indian gaming industry on the world map, and with our strong technical know-how and experience in the industry, wish to make an actual "meaningful" contribution in the growth of this industry. The right education will define the future. We are excited about this partnership with Seamedu Animation & Arts."

About Rolocule:
Founded in 2010, Rolocule Games is a game development studio located in Pune, India. Rolocule develops and publishes interactive entertainment software for current and next generation platforms.

Rolocule’s Achievments : They have already published their first sports Squash Game with Apple Apps last year. Providing a glimpse in its sales numbers Rolocule announced that close to 200,000 people worldwide have downloaded Touch Squash and it has been downloaded in over 70 countries worldwide.

With this tie-up both Seamedu Animation & Arts and Rolocule Games hope to bring the critical knowhow for the students of Pune & India to receive training in Game design & development.

For those interested in knowing more about the courses in “Diploma in Game Design” & “Diploma in Game Programming in OPENGL” can call - 1800-209-1929 (Toll free)

or kindly log on to:

www.idanimations.com     www.seamedu.com
www.rolocule.com 

Good times are here for the Pune & India's Game education

Board Game(2nd Prototype) by Seamedu Game Design batch

Game design takes time, the reasons being that every game has to go thru multiple stages of ideation,  game design which is not about the graphics(that comes later) but the game play and how to make the game concept a playable one. Then comes the UE or User Experience & graphics of the game, where cards, tokens & other elements of the games are created . Finally comes the testing-it is here that the game actually gets made & to be broken again & then remade.

Not wanting to make it sound complex, but that's how it is & this post is a take on the latest stage of the board game that our first game design batch created.

'Egyptian Myth'(you can read more about the 1st prototype of 'Egyptian Myth' on Animation Xpress here) started out as a concept which over the last 8 months has changed to come to a stage( also called prototype) that not only it can be played well, it can also gone thru so many test that we can think of approaching a publisher to license the game.

The 2nd prototype of the 'Egyptian Myth' is done after close to 3months of iterations, it has been tested more than 40 times by players from the age of 7 to the age of 50. All have liked it, enjoyed the concept & the game play, have given valuable suggestions & have ensured that we can be proud of our achievement.

Attached are the pictures of the latest prototype

Board Game Design (1st batch- Diploma in Game Design)

Board Game Design(1st batch- Diploma in Game Design)

Board Game Design (1st batch -Diploma in Game Design)

Egyptian Myth Game Being played & Tested at Seamedu-Id

Egyptian Myth Game Being played & Tested at Seamedu-Id

Egyptian Myth Game Being played & Tested at Seamedu-Id

The game is in the final stages where the Graphics, User Expereince & fine tuning of the game is being conducted. The graphic design of the game is being changed to it final look as this post is being written.

One think that  Seamedu Animation & Arts and the Game Batch are very lucky that  close to 6 industry experts with huge game design experience who have play tested 'Egyptian Myth' .Their expertise and huge amount of inputs made sure that we & the game have become better game analysts & designers.

Once that is done we intend to see it take it further, so next stop will be trying to find someone who can publish this game.

It might be a school project but it definitely is for all those who have played board games & dont mind another concept.

But there is one huge difference, all the games we typically play in India are the games made by international game designers and publishers

that's about to change, dont you think so.

Game Meet 2010- Workshop on Game Design & Fun in Games

Seamedu-Id Animation & Arts

Game Meet 2010

24th May

Session- Workshop on Game Design & Fun in Games

Conducted by Mr Atul Manohar(MDes-IIT ), Mr Shantanu Kulkarni ( MDes-IISc) & Mr Mayuresh Shirolkar  ( Architect & Dramatist )

The session was more than one could have expected  & it was righly so considering that some of the best brains with loads of expereince in multiple spheres were present to take the game design aspirants thru a whole new expereince.

Every participant was able to participate & some of them came from Persistent systems, Tech Mahindra, Symantec & the likes.It would be hard to describe the more than 5 hours of fun in this blog, but you can definitely get a fair bit of the expereince with the videos shot of the entire session.

You will have to be pateint as this is only the 1st video followed by 14 more, but have no doubts you will get more than you wanted. Not only there three experts are masters of their craft, they are great FUB makers and all the participants were ready to extend the entire session to complete the session.

For those who would like a first hand report from those who were thate can read it Game Design & Fun in Games by Ms Swela Sharma a programmer & game player who attended all the sessions .

here are some pics too

Participants discussing their Game Ideas at Game Meet 2010

Atul Manohar ( IIT-MDes)

Mr Shantanu Kulkarni (IISc-MDes)

Mr Mayresh Shirolkar (Architect & Dramatist)

 

 

 

Participants expressing themselves at Game Meet 2010

For those who are looking out for the next event on Gameing in Pune can look forward to GameStorm-organised by MCCIA & the game industy. The event has been postponed to July 2010 this year to accommodate more participants. More news coming regarding GameStorm in June.

Bye

Game Meet 2010- Online Game Development by Bhushan Samant (Playssium Technologies)

Seameudu-Id Animation & Arts
Game Meet 2010

Session -Online Game Development
by- Mr Bhushan Samant- Playssium Technologies (Pune)

This was the third session following the 1st session on Game Design  by Rohit Gupta (Rolocule Games)& 2nd session on  Game Programming, by Girish Dhakephalkar of Shoonya , both of which was covered in the previous blogs.

The session on "Online Game Development" by Bhushan was a session of details. With over 19 years of expereince in multiple domains, which included 6 years in the US, doing research with TJ Watson research centre  of IBM.

All present were able to see the smaller aspects of game development, which most sessions are never able to carry as they are not the most glamourous one. Bushan has a very simple point of view and and with an equal simplicity he was able to talk on the details of without complicating or getting too technical.

A detailed coverage of the session by Ms Shwela Sharma is available here

The details of the next session on Game Design Workshop, to be conducted by Atul Manohar, IIT & Mr Shantanu Kulkarni IISc will be covered in a later post.

till then enjoy

Visit us at www.idanimations.com for more details on Game Design & Development Courses

Game Meet 2010- Session on Game Programming by Girish Dhakephalkar

Girish Dhakephalkar- Shoonya Game Technologies Pvt Ltd

Session- Game Programming
10th April

Girish Dhakephalkar-Shoonya Games

The session on Game Programming was impressive for one big reason----------Most Non-programming students also understood what Girish had to say, because he said it in a very simple fashion.

The reports by the students on the details of the entire session is available to read & download HERE



The videos of the session was too heavy for one single file, so its been cut up & placed on You Tube. All you serious wannabe game programmers can watch it HERE

Pls do go thru all the videos, you will be surprised to find a lot of your concepts about game programming and the role it plays in modern day game making will be cleared.

Q&A with Girish

Some very interesting questions were asked, which reflected a knowledgeable crowd & those really serious to learn game design & development . The Q& A went on for more than an hour.

You can see more pics of the event Here

The penultimate Session & Workshop for Game Meet 2010 is scheduled for the Saturday-24th of April,

It will be conducted by Game UI experts , Mr Atul Manohar, M Des, IIT Mumbai & Mr Shantanu Kulkarni, M Des IISc Banglore.

A case study of an existing game will be conducted hand-on with the audience folowed by a practical demo on the finer aspects of designing the UI ( User Interface)  for a game.

Hope to see you at this session

 NOTE
The details of the session on "Online Game Development" conducted by Mr Bhushan Samant from Plassium Technologies will be added shortly 

Seamedu-Id
Pune