Atman Software, an independent Indian game developer recently unveiled io for the PC and the Mac, a 3D side-scroller game with contemporary graphics and game-play technology. io is priced at $13 and is available for sale online now, as a digital download at the Atman Software website (www.atmansoftware.com).

io‘s gameplay is a throwback to the classic arcade games but packaged under contemporary graphics and gameplay technology. A short game with multiple weapons, night and thermal vision cameras and various robotic bots to dismember, io is not something that you will be beating soon.

Atman software is an independent game developer based in Bangalore India, founded by Thomas Kuriakose, who also serves as the sole developer at Atman Software. Atman Software is currently self-funded and is looking to expand.

Thomas has been secretively working on the project since the last six years. In an exclusive interview for AnimationXpress.com, Thomas Kuriakose speaks to Asmita Bharrati regarding his initiative, launch and plans…

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Please share about io.
io is powered by Atman software‘s proprietary game engine that supports true 3D rendering with real-time lighting and shadows, programmable shaders, skeletal animation, particle effects, collision detection and artificial intelligence. io is available for Windows and as a Universal Binary for the Mac. A playable demo is available on the Atman Software website.

Why is it called independent effort?
io represents one man‘s effort in developing a computer game with contemporary technology, in India. Except for io‘s soundtrack, everything else including the 3D engine, characters, models, animations, textures and artificial intelligence was completely developed in-house at Atman Software. For all it‘s worth, io is a marvelous achievement for Atman Software.

How did you get into gaming?
I am not as much a gamer as I am a game developer. As a kid, I loved computer games and computers. By the time I was 12, I knew I wanted to write computer games, not for the rest of my life or anything but to be able to simply do that.

Why did you plan to do it single-handedly?
I never planned to do it single-handedly either. After developing my previous game called "The Rubik's Cube" I wanted to go into commercial game development, and I had planned to hire affordable and bankable talent. And I did hire quite a few over the years, but working with them was getting difficult, so I decided to do it myself.

Image of the Game 'io'

Please give an insight into your career background.
After graduating with B.Sc Computer Science (second class) in 1999, I started Atman Software. I took up various jobs from medical transcription, to Citiphone customer support to customer sales representative to keep Atman alive. Finally I quit taking up jobs in 2004 to finish io. I am also self taught in the field of programming and computer game development.

How was the production process of the games?
While working on io, I was constantly adding new technology to the mix. And the development process was mostly chaotic since I had never written a game of io’s stature before. Now that I have successfully completed io, this is how I would go about making my next game.

Design the entire game on paper, which would include the gameplay, plot, visuals, characters, audio and all such things that you would like to see in the game. Take as much time as you want with this. If it doesn’t sound fun at this stage, chances are it won’t be fun when it’s done.

Once it’s done on paper, put together the technology and tools that would turn the game-in-theory to a polished final product.

Now comes gameplay testing. Once the technology and tools exist, go ahead and create the maps, props, characters etc. At this stage nothing is textured or detailed or made to look beautiful, this is merely play-testing how fun the game is.

Once you identify what is fun and what is not in your tests and are satisfied with the results, you can now work on your models in detail and start texturing them and making things look beautiful.

What are the technologies used?
With io, I have used OpenGL for rendering, Cg for shaders, OpenAL for audio, DirectInput for input on Windows and Carbon on the Mac. The content creation tools I have used include 3DStudio Max and Photoshop. The programming tools used would be MSVC++, Glowcode, gDebugger and XCode.

What is the style of animation in the games?
In io, all animations were hand-animated as opposed to motion captured animation.

What is the plan for distribution and marketing?
There really is no plan for marketing. I would love to hear from a distributor though. If a distributor is interested in io, they can contact me and we can work out something.

What are the revenue targets?
Revenue targets..what’s that? But seriously, I do understand that money is important; but I am young and I would like to focus my energies on getting better at making games and creating a good product.

How much has been invested in the whole process?
Keeping in mind a game like io, I would say the monetary investment has been quite a lot for a single person and peanuts for a standard game development company.

What are your future plans?
Make more games. Grow bigger in terms of being an industry player. Hire some of the best talent in the country. But basically make great games.

Concluding note…
I would like to thank my mom, family and friends for all the support and understanding over the years.

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