With just one week to go until the launch of our game, we're sitting at the very edge of our seats and giving everything a final check-up to clean up any lingering issues and give everything a good polish!
Naturally, there has been a lot of activity from our side, so here's our weekly news roundup!
Demo Made Avaliable - Permanently
This was something that our community has requested many times throughout the year, so we're happy to tell you that we have heard you and we have acted. We put in some time to clean up a few issues on our past demo build and have created a new Steam page for it!
So, if you've ever wanted to try our game, or if you're the type of person who wants to try a game before purchasing it, you can do so here.
Steam Game Festival
Next up we have the Steam Game Festival! It's becoming a bit of a tradition for us to take part and this time round is no different, Raji: An Ancient Epic is taking part in the Autumn Steam Game Festival! This is an excellent online festival that has always helped countless new people discover our game!
So to all of our new community members and new fans, we welcome you here with open arms!
Time for some AMAs
Time for some hot news! We've been in talks with several huge subreddits about the possibility of us holding an AMA with them, so we're really happy to finally announce them!
Our first one will be on the 16th of October on r/pcgaming at 8am PDT/ 10am EST/ 7:30pm IST / 06:00 pm CEST.
For those of you that do not know what an AMA is: it is an event where a person (or a specific group of people - in our case the game's development team) announce to everyone that they will be at a specific (virtual) location and the anyone can join and ask us anything that they way (AMA = Ask Me Anything!). We'll then do our best to answer your questions as honestly and openly as possible!
Raji does Blocktober
For the game development fans out there, we made a blocktober special video. As we're very close to launching, this is a perfect opportunity to really look at how far we've come.
[previewyoutube="MJNPYF1K7hg;full"]
And that's it for this week's post, don't forget that our game launches on the 15th of October so next week this time, you'll all be in-game fighting the demons that have invaded ancient India!
Raji: An Ancient Epic in the Steam Game Festival!
Hello, Amazing Raji Community!
Can you believe that Raji: An Ancient Epic will launch in just 8 days? (October 15.) Our journey has been quite a spectacular one with plenty of ups and downs, but thankfully when the good times started they kept on rolling.
Now it brings us to this point - released on the Nintendo Switch, a prologue live on Steam that lets everyone try the game anytime they want, and the full Steam launch just around the corner.
If you would like to learn more about our journey, do check out this special interview with GamesIndustry.biz!
This leads us to our latest event…
Raji: An Ancient Epic in the Steam Game Festival
To keep the celebratory atmosphere going, we’re taking part in the Steam Game Festival - giving us the perfect opportunity to showcase our game to a huge audience - and really setting the scene for the best launch possible!
Also, be sure to check out this popular behind the scenes look at the team working on Raji throughout the years!
[previewyoutube="i8KsxQptdYs;full"]
Raji Prologue is OUT NOW!
Hello Raji Community,
Today we are pleased to announce that we have made our demo permanently available to download and play.
We feel that this is an important step for everyone as this gives you the chance to try out our game and get a feel for what it is like.
Armed with this experience, you can then make a well informed decision on whether Raji: An Ancient Epic is the game for you!
Naturally we hope that you will enjoy the game.
As always, we welcome any and all feedback, so please do let us know what you think about our demo in this thread over in the discussion sections.
Likewise, if you would like to know more about our game, please feel free to ask your questions directly in the comments or community hub. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram for daily Raji content, or read more in depth articles about the game over at our IndieDB page.
[previewyoutube="YDKJF7x5BZ4;full"]
Weekly News Round-up - 2 Weeks to Go!
Greetings Dear Raji Community!
Did you know that Raji: An Ancient Epic will launch in under two weeks? We can hardly believe it ourselves, but it's really happening!
With our launch quickly coming up we're doing our best to share our excitement with you - our community - and as such, we have quite a lot of news to share with you.
So, without further ado, welcome to this week's news round-up!
A Quick History of Raji Game Development
We kicked off this week with a special video that looked back at our journey developing our game.
It's certainly been an epic journey, with highs and lows at every corner, but ultimately, it's one that we're thrilled to have taken!
[previewyoutube="i8KsxQptdYs;full"]
Meet the team - Shruti Ghost, Co-Founder and Game Artst
This is something that we've wanted to do for a while, however as you may have guessed, the development of the game took up almost all of our time and so we were unable to properly introduce ourselves to you.
However, now that the game is in it's last few development sprints, we managed to find some time to put together a brief but interesting interview with one of our co-founders and game artists, Shruti Ghosh!
Be sure to check out what Shruti had to say in the interview.
Industry News and Game Reviews
Now we come to some of our community-driven and media content.
First up, we want to direct you to a special article/interview that we held with gamesindustry.biz. This particular article will be of particular interest to those of you that are interested in how the history of the game's development (and the rollercoaster ride that came with it) affected the game, what were our thoughts it all, and how it ties up to current day events in India.
Next, we have a (frankly amazing) video review by Chipz-N-Stix as part of his Bargain Bin Gaming review series. This review really called out to us as he was able to put his finger on one of the biggest goals that we had for Raji: An Ancient Epic, we wanted to make a game that was fun for everyone to play, but at the same time introduce and educate our players to Indian culture. Judging by his reaction, we think that we've hit those goals very well!
[previewyoutube="WO1-oyO_rXM;full"]
That's it for this week's news roundup, don't worry there is a lot more to come next week as we turn our attention to some of the most important members of the Nodding Heads Games team that have not yet been properly introduced - our beloved dogs! Yes, we've read all of the messages from the fans of the Nodding Heads Ganes team dogs and we will be lifting the lid on a few of them next week. And of course, we'll have more great game news and insights for you all!
Till then, have a great weekend and please do feel free to reach out to us anytime you want!
Meet the team - Shruti Ghosh, Co-Founder and Game Artist
Hello everyone,
In just over two weeks (October 15) Raji: An Ancient Epic will finally launch on Steam and we hope that you are just as excited for the launch as we are!
As the launch is just around the corner we want to give you a look at the team behind the game, starting with our amazing co-founder and game artist, Shruti Ghosh.
So, Shruti very kindly put aside some time to talk about her experiences and answer a few questions about her journey so far!
Can you tell us how your journey with the Nodding Heads Team started?
It started back in college, Ian and I (Ian is another Nodding Heads Team co-founder and artist) were game art lecturers and we met Avichal who at the time was in his final year of studies.
Back then, Avichal and I were both big fans of Bastion and Transistor and we both had the vision to create a game that represents India on the global market, what's more, Avichal was (and still is) greatly inspired by the architecture of Rajasthan, which linked very well to my love of the old traditional arts of India. After we got to know each other more we began to talk about our aspirations to make a game, this was the start of the Raji project!
That said, we didn't things start right away as we always chipped away at the concept of Raji bit by bit. On my side, I drew some sketches that we then showed to our closest friends and asked them if they would be interested in playing a game set in the universe that we were making, the response was absolutely positive which really helped us push forward.
Eventually, in 2016 we left our jobs and started to work on Raji's prototype, from there, the rest is history!
Our next question tackles Shruti's preferred style of drawing!
What painting style do you like using the most, and what style did you use for Raji the most?
I love the Pahari / miniature paintings and Madhubani paintings. These paintings are so intricate, the use of color is magnificent, and the amount of detail in these small paintings is insane. They literally paint thousands of leaves on the trees and gold details on the jewelry and clothes of the kings and queens.
This form of art or mostly all traditional art forms of India are slowly diminishing hence Raji’s art style was a nod or tribute to this great art form. I wanted to capture the old worn out faded paintings on walls of palaces and temples which tell thousand-year-old stories in the paintings of Raji.
Contining with the art theme, we were curious about how long it took Shruti to complete a typical scene in Raji: An Ancient Epic
How long did it take you to draw a typical scene in Raji?
It's hard to say as art is a team effort, so any piece will be worked on by many people! The concept art is done by Anirudh, the entire environment which you see throughout the game is mostly made by me and Shreyas, though Ian and Jalay contributed as well.
However, for the gods and goddesses avatar paintings, the line art was made by Anirudh and then it would take me roughly an hour (or more) to paint them, usually, it is a time-consuming process.
I remember the longest panel that I drew was the Durga blessing where it is blessed with all the weapons by different gods, that took quite a while as it was a huge panel.
That said I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was one of my favorite pieces to work on!
Continuing on the theme of favorites
What was your favorite drawing (for Raji) that you worked on?
I've never really thought about that! The Durga blessing from the first level (as I mentioned in the last question) and probably the mandala of Golu’s birth would probably be my favorite as I just love the composition of it all!
Ani did a stellar job in visualizing it and I just added colors and a bit of life to it. It was a team effort between me and Anirudh and I love the final results.
More on the art but now looking on the challenges
What was the most challenging drawing that you had to tackle?
Honestly, it was all challenging as I knew that I only had limited time to complete the paintings and there were so many panels for each level. But I think that the third level story of Garuda had the most number of panels.
That piece took a lot of time and some parts were really small and had quite a bit of detail in it!
Now we move to more personal topics about Shruti and how she got into art
What was it that made you want to become an artist?
I think it was a natural choice for me. Quite early on my parents knew that Iw ould choose a career in art! My mom would always tell the story of how, when I was young, I would pick up the newspaper ads or pictures and then try to draw them myself!
I was the happiest the day they sent to learn art in a drawing school, and that was the moment that I had the biggest smile.
But choosing game art happened accidentally as I wanted to be more of a traditional artist. I love paints, paper, and pencils more than computers. But in the end, it worked out nicely!
Looking into Shruti's journey into art, we wanted to know more about her inspirations
What were your sources of inspiration for both private art and Raji related art?
Generally, I am inspired by a lot of things in life with nature being my biggest inspiration as I feel the calmest amidst trees and greenery, however, architecture also plays an important role in inspiring me creatively.
To me, India is such a vast canvas of art as every state has its own art form and history to go with it, any artist would be inspired by that.
For Raji, primarily it was the palaces and forts of Rajasthan that were the major inspiration sources, then there were also the Pahari paintings, and the Balinese mythology and culture for imagining the entire universe and style for the asura clans.
Also, our cutscenes draw inspiration from Wayang puppet shows and shadow puppetry which is used in a few parts of India to tell mythological tales. I remember that when I was a child in Bengal, outside a temple they used to tell tales of Lord Krishna and Ram, I used to love listening to them as a kid, and even now thinking about them still gives me just joy!
Bringing everything together in a nice circle, we looped back to the experience of developing Raji: An Ancient Epic
Many of us know about the roller-coaster ride that accompanied the development of Raji: An Ancient Epic. Did this affect what you drew for the game? And if it did, what part of the game would you really love to re-do?
That’s a really good and tough question. I guess the ups and downs did affect all of us in the company, and even more so for Avichal, Ian, and I, as we had the added responsibilities of running the company and making sure that everybody was paid.
Sometimes the pressure of running it all did get to me, things like running the day to day affair of the company (which wasn't easy to do) and then the daily task of making art for the game would quickly pile on. There were times that I didn't feel like painting or making an asset for a level because my mind wasn't cooperating, but I still had to do it because we were in a race against time.
I think that if we didn't have to spend six months struggling to find funding and we could have concentrated on the production of the game instead, we could have done a lot more to the art or overall game, and I could have painted more details on those avatar paintings.
Looking to the post-launch days, we were curious to know what Shruti had planned
With the launch of the game less than a month away, what are you planning to do once that happens?
Take a break definitely! We hardly spent any time with our dogs during the last year, so we want to take them for some outdoor activities or take them for a trip somewhere. I am also planning to do a few art courses from the London School of Arts so I am excited about them.
And to end things, a special question to help the budding artists out there!
There are many people that have been inspired to draw after seeing the art in Raji: An Ancient Epic, do you have any tips for those that are just starting out?
We love seeing different artists depicting Raji in their own art style! It’s really humbling to see all of the art and love that everyone is pouring into Raji.
My advice is, don't think about what you can do or can't, always keep practicing, trying new stuff, and never stop learning!
Updating the Demo
Hello everyone,
In our last news post, we told you two important news regarding our current demo.
To recap:
The demo was an older one (from June 2020) and as such had a few known issues.
The duration of the demo has been extended from just over last weekend to the 20th of September.
So, now we are very happy to announce that the demo has been updated. As part of this update, we've fixed issues related to the difficulty of the tutorial and bugs with it, resolution issues, and Raji's peculiar ability to fly in certain areas!
[previewyoutube="uLDQn5adcDc;full"]
If you have the demo please make sure that you've updated it and give the game a go!
We hope that you'll all enjoy the updated version, and please do give us your feedback in the discussion section.
Information on the Raji: An Ancient Epic DEMO
Hello everyone
We have some special news for you regarding our current demo and how long it is going to be available to you.
Updating the Demo
We want to start by thanking you all for the overwhelming support that you have shown us since the launch of our recent demo. It is great to see so many of you playing the game and posting about it on social media, not only does this help gets eyes on us, but it also speaks out for the Indian game dev community.
We also thank everyone who has reported bugs and issues on the demo, some of these have been addressed and we will be releasing an update very shortly to fix these.
With that said, we wanted to inform you (and be transparent with you) that the current demo build is from June 2020, the last Steam Game Festival.
Since then we have been occupied with the Switch launch, and now XBOX, PS4, and PC development. Due to the tight schedule, we couldn't make a new demo build in time for the event's start.
However, the good news is that we now have some time and the next demo version should address issues such as the tutorial being too tough, Raji flying around the level, resolution problems, and many more such issues and bugs, which were fixed since the last Steam Game Festival.
We're hoping to update the demo by the end of today!
Extending the Demo period
Originally we had announced that our demo was only going to be available over the weekend. However, this has now changed and the availability has been extended to the 20th of September as we are taking part in PAX Online 2020.
So this means that you have more time to enjoy our upcoming updated demo!
Raji: An Ancient Epic - Launch Date: 15th October!
Great news everyone!
Raji: An Ancient Epic finally has a launch date for PC, PS4, and the Xbox One:
15th October 2020
Check out our special trailer, originally aired at Gamescom 2020, and presented by IGN, and watch as Raji takes on Rangda, one of the most ferocious opponents that she will have to overcome.
[previewyoutube="uLDQn5adcDc;full"]
News from Raji - Xbox, IGN, and Substance3D!
Hello and welcome everyone,
It’s been a while since we last made an update post here so let’s fix that!
Since the end of the Steam Game Festival we’ve been hard at work sorting out the various bugs that you all reported to us, making the game smoother, and of course, completing the game (there are many more levels after all!)
One thing that really stood out to us was the reaction to the video of Raji by IGN
[previewyoutube="DQPIV9Ov1MQ;full"]
To see the video get over 130,000 views, and for the comments to be so overwhelmingly positive is a big confidence booster and a great sign for us that we’re working in the right direction. So thank you to everyone who has been supporting us!
Bringing Raji to the Xbox
More recently, we’ve been giving some love to our Xbox port, and as the Xbox Summer Game Fest recently started this was an excellent time for us to give the Xbox community the chance to try Raji!
So, though this is Steam, if you have an Xbox One, do try out Raji there as well!
Development - Behind the Scenes!
If you’re interested in game development, or even just 3D development we’ve got something special for you!
Substance3D is a special toolset that helps 3D artists create textures and extremely detailed material. As part of a series focusing on the 3D industry in India, Magazine by Substance actually visited our offices in Pune where they got a behind the scenes look at how we use their tools to develop our game!
[previewyoutube="hGcb80FOKZI;full"]
They then wrote up their experience in a fantastic article that we recommend that you all read!
So, that's it for this week's post, we look forward to sharing some more news with you in the near future!
Watch exclusive gameplay from a future level and let us know what you think!
We teamed up with IGN to bring you this exclusive look at the second level of our game.
Be sure to give it a watch and let us know what you think about it in the comments!
[previewyoutube="DQPIV9Ov1MQ;full"] We can't wait to read what you have to say!
