Drawing on a unique Indian artistic tradition and lighting effects, Nodding Head Games is making a new kind of epic

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“We always have Indian mythology in our heads,” game designer Avichal Singh tells us. “As gamers ourselves we never got to see much of it, and if we did it was stereotyped, cliched, cringey, or not executed well. We knew that isn’t how it is, and there was this thought of sharing the lore, myths, and stories of the subcontinent with the rest of the world. That’s where Raji happened.”

Raji: An Ancient Epic is set in ancient India, where a young girl sets out to rescue her brother from demons – winning the favour of the gods as humanity’s champion in the process. It’s an action-adventure game stuffed with the traditional furniture of the genre – crumbling ruins overrun by climbing plants – but also splashes of primary colour and Hindu imagery. It’s a game enabled by the recent accessibility of engines like Unreal Engine 4, which are making a genre sometimes guilty of colonialism truly global.

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“We went really heavy with the fog, and it took a bit from the performance,” Chaudhary says.
“We went really heavy with the fog, and it took a bit from the performance,” Chaudhary says. - “Performance optimisation is one thing that will keep us busy throughout. For the main game we’re taking steps from the beginning to make sure it stays under that minimum bar. I think that that will be our ongoing challenge.”

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Raji: An Ancient Epic is due for release in 2020. Unreal Engine 4 development is now free.