Be a hero, be on top

KATHMANDU: Playing Super Mario in your childhood, you must have dreamt about being a hero yourself. While becoming a knight in shining armor might be a far-fetched dream in real life, you can be a hero and defend your castle with Top.

After various bugs and rescheduling, Top is a new Nepali game introduced by Sroth Code Games that was launched on September 1. It has a user-friendly interface with simple tutorials. The game also has a more relatable feel because of the Mustang landscapes, various rivers, bridges and woods in the backgrounds.

Developers of the game, Uday Gurung and Bishal Manandhar, have known each other for years, since they were in a band. Uday is a graduate of Bachelor’s of Engineering in Information Technology (BEIT) from Bangalore, while Bishal is currently in his sixth semester in Bachelor’s of Information Management (BIM) at St Xaviers, Maitighar.

Despite being beginners on gaming and coding, they chose to work out their own codes rather than borrowing the CMS and assets, which are the basics of majority of games that have been launched in Nepal. This is the fourth game that the duo has developed after Haku Run, Tap Tap Turn and Tile Swap.

Haku Run was named after the character ‘Haku Kale’ from the movie ‘Loot’. They managed its launch with the release of ‘Loot 2’ and this helped the developers in garnering the much needed exposure.

According to the developers, the team has stressed on a storyline and developed the game around it so that the gamers can relate and have a chance to play hero. Also in order to engage players, the game allows multiple swipes which ensure more physical interaction and help gamers avoid boredom. They have also paid a detailed attention to the game’s music, SFX (special effects) and backgrounds.

The villains in the game are inspired by Hindu mythology. Players will come across Garud, Sesh Naag and Anubis, among other mythical demons, while each of them has a different story. The game has 17 levels in total, but the developers are working to introduce new levels each week.

As a regular player of Dota2 and Warcraft, Bishal said he wanted to set up an online gaming hub in Nepal in the future. Although e-sport is globally appreciated by gamers and coders alike, Nepal has yet to develop the culture. This puts Nepali gamers in a backseat as they are deprived of the opportunity to participate in various international virtual gaming competitions.

Apart from Top, the duo targets to launch as many as 28 games within this year. The game is available for download in all android platforms.