First Nintendo DS game developed by Indians

By siliconindia   |   Monday, 28 December 2009, 18:58 IST   |    3 Comments
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First Nintendo DS game developed by Indians
Pune: A team at Ubisoft Pune has created the first officially Nintendo DS licensed title to be developed by an Indian team. The game called 100 All Time Favorites provides 100 board games, and card games like Solitaire, Poker, Mancala (an African game), Backgammon, Chess, Chinese Checkers, and Draughts. "It took six months of preparation and training, and then eight months of production work for us to make this DS game," says Jithin Rao, Producer at Ubisoft in Pune to Digit. Some of these games have to be unlocked by solving puzzles and standard game modes. "There are two versions to Draughts, one is American and one is a Polish. The Polish version is played internationally, we chose to use the Polish version, when working on the American version." says Jitesh Panchal, Lead Game Designer for the game at Ubisoft. "We came up with about 15-30 of our own original games, those games you reuse the assets when you play the classic. Mixing the rules and graphics of various games and bringing them together. This was to be all limited in a 32MB cartridge." Making one game to include 100 games is not easy and the team had to work hard to achieve it in time. "We had to make sure that all the board and card games were covered, so that even a kid and an old man would like it. We had to learn all the rules of each game." they said. But it was easier for the team as they have had experience in making mobile games. Most of the team members worked at the Gameloft Pune studio which was later acquired by Ubisoft in May 2008. The company has around 160 employees currently. "It was a very novel experience, we got a lot of help from our headquarters. Three programmers went in for training as well to Quebec. We had a couple of expatriates, who came in from other Ubisoft studios to help us streamline the processes, and give guidelines. We initially had a team of programmers and testers, and now we have artists, game designers who have joined the studio. Since January, we have had a staff increase of 35 percent," says Aurelie Busollo, HR manager at the Ubisoft office. Around 40 people from Ubisoft India were involved in the project - four artists, four designers, 18 programmers, and a 10 member testing team from Pune. The Pune office has also worked on Cell-Factor Psychokinetic Wars on the Xbox live and the Play Station, games on the DS on the Imagine series, and Just Dance on the Wii. "The creativity of Ubisoft Group goes into creating new IPs on consoles, deliver high quality games, and build multiple experiences around these new IPs. Here in Pune, we are trying to go in two directions to consolidate ourselves in the online and handheld space. The handheld is a great way to explore new platforms, such as the iPhone. At Ubisoft, we have been on the DS market from the beginning. Handhelds also provide a new opportunity to explore cross-platform gaming experiences," David Blanchard, Studio Head at Ubisoft Pune. "We are also currently looking at social networking gaming, and we want to move to MMO-oriented gaming as well. These will be for a global market. If we go this way, they will be accessible in India too. We don't have a game for just the Indian market, but it can be something to look into, and we will think about it," Blanchard further added.

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