The Made-In-India Battle Royale, Indus is nearing its release as its developing team, SuperGaming wants the community to get the best exposure possible before the title officially rolls out. Meanwhile, InsideSport.IN exclusively caught up with Roby John, CEO of SuperGaming for an Interview, where he touched upon everything about Indus and beyond.
Here are the excerpts from the Interview.
1. What was your inspiration behind the title’s name ‘Indus’?
The inspiration for Indus began with Indo-Futurism. Indo-Futurism began from what we Indians are familiar with — history. Everyone knows of the Indus Valley Civilisation from those two chapters in our history textbooks. It’s relatable and authentic to most. However, we didn’t want to make a game that had you using primitive weapons or have a high fantasy setting. That wouldn’t be as grand. Or fun. We thought about a few ‘What If’ scenarios, one that stood out was — ‘What if instead of going extinct, the Indus Valley Civilisation advanced to the space age? And what if we extrapolated that to an entire planet rather than just a river valley?’ This was our launchpad.
While we had an idea of what Indo-Futurism could be, we weren’t really excited by the idea. Not just yet. That’s where Black Panther’s take on Afro-Futurism came in. The interpretation of Wakanda being the most advanced city complete with themes that combine Africa’s rich heritage with a hopeful future was truly inspirational. While we had some previous story outlines including a mysterious island that would hover above planets in the galaxy and the Olympics, Indo-Futurism stood out. After all, crafting a game that surfaces India’s glorious past with a hopeful future is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
2. The game is currently available for pre-registration on Google Play Store. When can players expect the community playtests?
We just had our third community playtest in Surat — which had a strong representation of India’s hardcore battle royale audience. The feedback was extremely detailed, specific, and probably the most nuanced we had to date. There were some positives like over 90 percent of the community liking our gunplay, characters, and the overall theme of Indo-Futurism. However, there are also a lot of meaningful insights to take back such as refinements to our traversal, sound, and social features. We want to make these changes before announcing our next playtest so stay tuned for that reveal soon.
3. As it’s clear from the name of the title, it will be a Battle Royale mobile game. Will the game support both TPP and FPP modes?
Indus will have both FPP and TPP at launch. Early on in development, we poured a lot more time and effort into polishing the FPP experience. Now, we’re doing the same for TPP. We understand that players want both and we hope to give fans either option
the best possible experience.
4. What are the minimum device requirements to play the game and the file size?
Right now, in our internal testing, it’s working on devices with 4GB RAM or more. We are continuously optimizing it to support more low-end devices. Most smartphones bought from 2020 onwards should be able to run Indus at playable frame rates.
Visual fidelity may vary based on the exact hardware in use as well as user-customized graphics settings. Hopefully, most mainstream Android and iOS devices should be able to run the game with no issues when it’s out. We haven’t locked in the final minimum requirements to play Indus just yet. However much like our other games, we take compatibility seriously.
As for the file size, currently, the game binary is around ~500MB but this can and will grow as we add more content to the game heading toward release. We will ensure players have the option to download only content they prefer to play and hence keep the binary footprint on their devices as low as possible.
5. India has one of the biggest Battle Royale gaming communities, how optimistic are you for the title to have success in the country?
Our success won’t be determined by hitting arbitrary milestones like downloads but by working with the community to deliver a best-in-class battle royale experience. It’s the reason why we do our community playtests. We rather have a dedicated following of 1000 people who really love us than a million people who simply know of us. At the same time, while we want to keep our heads down and build a dedicated following, we are also acutely aware that battle royale games are those of scale. We will also need to broaden our community so we can build a thriving esports ecosystem around it. It’s a balancing act and we hope we’re able to build with players, content creators, and esports pros to make a battle royale game you’re all proud to play and an ecosystem you’re all proud to be a part of.
6. Super Gaming hasn’t shared any information about the iOS launch or Pre-registrations. Can we expect any beta version or selected testing before the title officially gets released?
Pre-registrations are coming soon to iOS. For now, Indus is available for pre-registration for Android devices via Google Play. As for playing it ahead of launch, we have more community playtests scheduled throughout the year across the country.
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