Meghdoot: Using new technologies to tell age-old stories

The games industry in India is still very much in its infancy. Research in this area is overwhelmingly dedicated to videogames in e-learning contexts, or at most to mobile gaming, an inevitable phenomenon given the deep penetration of mobile phones in India. Despite the exemplary progress in areas of computing, programming and even animation there are still no major or independent game companies or developers creating games that compete on a global level. Meghdoot: Using new technologies to tell age-old stories is a project that will be based around a prototype of a game Meghdoot that was developed in the first phase of the Unbox Fellowship. Meghdoot draws on features of Indian culture such as gestural movements from Indian dance in gameplay and is inspired by using narrative structures drawn from Indian mythology, making a conscious choice to move away from Anglo-Saxon linear sequences in the game's design and deploys an aesthetic that is inspired by Indian heritage artefacts but does not resort to usual tropes of the exotic or the oriental. Meghdoot will fall into the increasingly popular category of 'serious art game'

Using Meghdoot as a cornerstone of this research, this project will explore what it means to create an 'Indian' videogame and how viable it is in local and global markets. To this end, surveys of videogame players, developers and funders both in India and abroad will be used to provide empirical data to underpin these assumptions. The scope of these investigations will be broadened by investigating how such a game might be used in educational institutions in order to 'gamify' the learning experience.

The game will also be used as the basis for a testbed for educating players in basic programming, in order to create very simple 3D controllers that can be used in the game. In order to do this effectively, empirical research will be conducted into levels of literacy required to acquire simple digital skills—a feat that has been made infinitely more cost-effective and feasible by the introduction of such mini computers as the Raspberry Pi on the market. Future prospects for this research involve modelling artefacts within the game on heritage artefacts from museums, thus providing alternative channel of interpretation for the cultural heritage sector in India, which till date has been quite conservative and prescriptive. Research from this project will also be used to explore the potential for a mobile games van that can bring console games to rural areas, and introduce users to simple digital making skills to create artefacts that can be used in-game.