In Conversation with Abhi from Visai Games
Listen on Apple Podcast | Listen on Spotify | Listen on PocketCasts | Listen on Amazon Music | RSS Feed Thank you all for tuning into our first ever podcast. This is our attempt at archiving the history of game development of Indian creators, through their own stories and voice. We hope you find it interesting and engaging. If you have any thoughts and suggestions, please come by our discord and have a chat! On this episode, we talk to Abhi from Visai games, who is creating an amazing narrative cooking game where you play as an Indian immigrant mom, who immigrates to Canada with her family in the 1980s. People in the podcast Abhi - https://twitter.com/brownmoney__ Shagun Shah - https://twitter.com/ShagunShah Yadu Rajiv - https://twitter.com/yadurajiv Notes from the podcast Venba - http://venbagame.com/ Unity - https://unity.com/ Yarn Spinner - https://yarnspinner.dev/ Night in the Woods - http://www.nightinthewoods.com/ Idli - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idli Puttu - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puttu Biriyani - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biryani Cooking Mama - http://www.cookingmama.com/ Cook, Serve, Delicious - https://www.cookservedelicious.com Overcooked - http://www.ghosttowngames.com/ Porotta - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parotta Tirukkuṟaḷ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirukku%E1%B9%9Fa%E1%B8%B7 Lungi - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungi Full Transcript Yadu Rajiv 0:07 Hello, and thank you for tuning in to the game dev dot in podcast. In this episode Yadu and Shagun catch up with Abhi from Visai games, to talk about his roots and the secret spice behind his up and coming narrative cooking game, Venba. My first question was basically going to ask you what your last name was, but that should be fine, because I couldn't find your name anywhere so, but it doesn't matter. Abhi 0:36 Maybe I know we just started recording, but maybe you can cut this part out. But yeah. The reason I hide it is I had people reach out to me through channels that I didn't expect them to reach out. And I'm just that just struck me a little, like, you know, I'm very private that way. So, people reaching out to me like, like, Instagram, Twitter is fine. But if they're finding my LinkedIn, I feel like you know what I mean? Yadu Rajiv 1:05 That is what I was trying to find. Abhi 1:11 I don't mind sharing it with you. But like, if it's random people that are messaging again. So that started happening. So is that okay, I need to hide my last name and stuff like that. I'm glad it works. So.. Yadu Rajiv 1:22 Yeah, yeah. So it was kind of difficult. So I mean, basically, just kind of get an idea of what what like, like, maybe we can just get into it. So how did you get into games? How did this happen? Abhi 1:38 Yeah, um, yeah. So I my parents brought home, the knock off console back home when I was in Chennai, it was called The Terminator, the black with the blue buttons, I'm sure all of you know, I played the crap out of that system. I think it was like 10 games for 999 there was like 999 games, but it was the same 10 game games over and over, so I played the crap out of that but much to my parents disapproval. And then Ever since then, like there was no stopping, like my dad he worked at a bank, But we wanted to get into [unclear], like he brought home a computer [unclear] that way. So I, I naturally installed video games like lion, King, Aladdin, and all those things that some guy gave it to me at a book fair. So I was very much interested in video games that way. What was a, I think the turning point for me was I played Pokemon. But I played it at an emulator. Not like in the physical device, I didn't even know it was meant to be played on a physical device. I played it on a computer, so but you can't catch all 151 unless you trade with other people on the physical device. So I only got like 135, and no idea how to get the rest, there was no internet. And then, and then, my parents announced to me that they're moving to Canada, and it was I think, 11 we finally finished moving when I was 12. And then I come here, and it's an Xbox 360 ps3, it's a whole new world, you know, Yadu Rajiv 3:28 Skipped a couple of generations there. Abhi 3:30 Exactly, as a way, Pokemon was meant to be played on like, not a computer. So learning all that, and I, you know, I've made a bunch of games with my friends houses and things like that. I was I always wanted to do it. This is the point that I'm trying to get across. And then around grade 12, which is when you decide like, you know what you're going into sort of thing. I chose computer science, because my reasoning is that my parents are, my family is not going to buy game design as a career path. So I thought, you know, I learned the, the approved method. And I will I will get into games as a programmer. And that way you can get my foot in, and that way like you, my parents are happy too. So that's that that was my thinking in grade 12. And it's eerily that's exactly what happened. So when I graduated, my last year at university, I competed in a video game making competition. I did really well with my team in there. So I got a job at a mobile game studio. And that's where I've been since. Yadu Rajiv 4:42 So So how did Visai happen? Abhi 4:46 So in that specific mobile game studio, I make a an artist named Sam Elkana, he's Indonesian, Him and I have like very similar tastes and opinions about games and things like that. So we always shot around game ideas and like, you know, we should make our game together. I was making this like mythological Indian game for us. I pitched that to him. And then we made a superhero game called balloon man, and like we were making it. And then I had the idea about Venba, which is like, you know, so I remember I even texted him like one day, I was like, Hey, here's a here's a scene from the game. What do you what do you think about this game? And he, he immediately liked it. And he liked something like, that gives me a lot of confidence. So we started moving forward with that. And that's how Visai happened basically. Shagun Shah 5:43 So tell us more about Venba? About the game? What inspired you? Abhi 5:49 Yeah, for sure. Um, so yeah, so as I mentioned, I texted him something, it was like a scene from one level of the game, which happens towards the end. Like, for me, something was bugging me about, you know, the dynamics between parents and their immigrated children. Not especially not, not specifically, I think it's across all cultures. And that's why I think Sam, who's, you know, not from India, was still able to relate to it, because he's also, like me, a first generation immigrant. So I felt that a lot of media that existed around immigration issues, focused on people like me, or the second generation kids, you know, oh, they have it really hard because of the cultural identity crisis and things like that. And that's true to an extent. But I felt like there's not enough focus on the parents, you know, who have a really strong identity already back home, but they choose to give that up to move here. And then, because they're bringing up their kids here, there's a disconnect. And it's just an unfortunate incident, they have different values. And a lot of times I saw that people are regretting even coming here in the first place. So that was really bugging me a lot. And I wrote that into a little conversation. And I sent that to Sam and he said, that same thing is bugging him also. And I really like that. So we decided to me, you know, and I said, like, you know, what do you think about a game that explores this with food as the as the bridge, you know, as the gameplay mechanics and he really like that, so we set the [unclear] that basically how Venba started. Shagun Shah 7:39 That's, that's an absolutely fantastic story. That's so interesting to hear, you know how, yeah, because I think there's no one's quite seen a game like Venba. And it seems very much like, almost like a cultural critique in some ways, or a bit of a cultural narrative. And so lovely to see as well. So So how long have you been working on Venba for? Abhi 8:00 So we started, so we're still only working part time on Venba, which I think a lot of people don't know; Shagun Shah 8:07 Oh no, wow ok. Abhi 8:09 So we, we are both fully employed at our respective day jobs. Like the way it works here is that you know, you apply to different publishers, we get funding, and then you can just build the whole thing right, I still have to support like, my parents and stuff like that. So for me, like quitting my job and pursuing that indie dream, it's not an option. So I've been working on when, only on the, on the weekends, and weekdays after work and things like that. And so as Sam, um, but, you know, we've been making really good progress, I feel. But we started, I think we started like, pre-production, sort of early 2020, like first quarter 2020. And we, I would say, we started like, full on production, like, end of last year or beginning of this year, started. Yadu Rajiv 9:02 How do you feel about all the feedback that you've been getting getting about? Abhi 9:06 Yeah, I, it's completely unexpected, is what I'll say. Because when I pitched this to sam, the attitude that we both had was like, let's make this and it'll be something that we made. Whether or not people play, I honestly thought, like, you know, maybe two or three people will play it. But the reception has been, like, very complete opposite to that. I had, I had no idea that would happen. So, you know, we sort of had to like, Oh, no, this is a thing now. People are expecting things to live. So we have to like, you know, we can't just do anything, you know, we have to meet people's expectations. But I think that's part of the pressure. Shagun Shah 9:51 So, we know it takes a ton just sitting here the various elements of your journey, probably because there's only
