Kerala-based horror 3D game, Thekku Island, to launch on February 27

Set connected a mysterious land successful Kerala successful the 1980s, a writer investigating it goes missing. More details astir her lack are revealed arsenic her husband, the protagonist, goes looking for her connected this isle, with challenges emerging 1 aft another. This is the premise of Thekku Island, touted arsenic Kerala’s archetypal fearfulness 3D game, created by Ales Devs Games and RedWills Interactive, acceptable to motorboat connected Steam (a integer organisation level for PC gaming) connected February 27.

The game, of the horror-thriller genre, is the brainchild of Athul George, crippled manager of Thekku Island, and has been successful improvement for astir a twelvemonth now. “Athul and I met done online crippled improvement communities. We got person implicit the games we designed, giving each different feedback. That’s erstwhile helium mentioned Thekku Island, which was past successful its alpha stage. And 1 day, Athul asked maine to get connected committee for this game, to nutrient it connected a larger canvas,” says Aswin Sunilkumar, originative manager of Thekku Island. After finishing 12th class, Athul was engaged successful crippled design, teaching himself the trade done YouTube.

The five-member squad besides includes Aswin PV (marketing head) and Adithyan P S (Game Operations), some Integrated MCA students astatine Saintgits College of Engineering (Autonomous), Kottayam and classmates of the originative manager Aswin. Adhi Gopakumar, arsenic euphony director, completes the ensemble. Everyone connected the squad is presently 21 oregon 22 years old.

“All of us, calved aft 2000, person been observing antithetic trends successful the gaming industry. We transitioned from Road Rash (a motorcycle racing video game) to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (an action-adventure game) and truthful on. Even erstwhile we played these games backmost then, we contemplated wherefore we had not released specified a crippled from Kerala. That thought brought america together,” says Aswin.

Thekku Island is simply a first-person PC crippled with a playtime of 3 hours, straying distant from the caller mobile phone-oriented games. “We decided amongst ourselves to make the crippled for PC. Both types person their ain difficulties. For PCs, particularly the idiosyncratic gaming acquisition depends connected their customised specifications,” says Aswin.

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges successful producing this crippled was the constricted budget, says the makers. However, the team’s idiosyncratic strengths, specified arsenic Athul’s quality to enactment with 3D models oregon Aswin’s acquisition with video editing, helped.

“We didn’t person to bring successful idiosyncratic from outside. Since astir of america are MCA students, our coding skills were besides enactment to work,” Aswin says.

Another situation the squad faced was uncovering the due references for the crippled design, a tedious task considering the dearth of games successful Malayalam. Aswin comments, “It was a situation to picture Kerala’s topography successful the ‘80s done our visuals. Our references were our surroundings and movies from that era. We were creating the mounting from scratch.”

Malayalam filmmaker Rahul Sadasivan’s deed fearfulness movie Bramayugam inspired the makers. “We were successful awe of however Rahul changeable the movie successful specified a space. The elements of fearfulness successful the movie besides moved us,” says Aswin, who worked arsenic a promo exertion for Tharun Moorthy’s Saudi Vellakkaand edited the behind-the-scenes videos for Mammootty-starrer Turbo and Thudarum headlined by Mohanlal.

Is a sequel connected the cards for Thekku Island? “We are waiting for people’s responses. We are assured astir our work, but we don’t cognize however it volition beryllium accepted and what our marketplace is,” says Aswin.

As for the future, Aswin says, “Placement play is going connected successful our college. But we privation to travel our passion, which is wherefore we are not searching for a occupation oregon internship. We are excited to merchandise the crippled and spot however it pans out. Currently, we are an indie crippled studio; we privation to make into an AAA crippled studio, producing high-budget, major-publisher titles.”