This husband-wife couple created a charming independent video game set in a small Indian community

“On one of our trips to Rajasthan, we discovered the Kumbhalgarh fort, perched on the hills, surrounded by ruins, and the fort looked so beautiful, lonely and mysterious. We wandered around the ruins and at the foot of the mountains was a small valley with a quaint village inside. This sparked our imagination and we thought it would be the perfect place for an arcade adventure. "to learn. Sena and her husband Mridul Kashatriya (creator of Palace on the Hill) had the idea for the game back in 2016, but it never materialized. Instead, the pair experimented with smaller games before continuing to build flagship video games during the pandemic.

"The idea was deeply rooted in our minds and we as a team felt that hosting the game in an Indian village would resonate with both Indian and international audiences, giving the game a global feel," Sen told India Express. an interview. “When they (international viewers) think of India, they think of things like Mumbai, canyons and butter chicken. However, we wanted our game to take place in a village, a peaceful environment that reflects the nature of the countryside.

Set in a fictional village in 1990s India, Castle on a Hill tells the story of Veer, whose father is a farmer and deeply in debt. One fine day, Vail discovers that the school will hold an art exhibition to promote art and culture in the area. He then meets his childhood friend Savi, who happens to be the school principal's daughter. Savi had moved to the city but recently returned to the village. She had always been interested in discovering the history of the ruins around the village, and together they decided to use the ruins as inspiration for the artwork in the exhibition.

"This is the story of the princess, and there is another story within the story of the ruins," Mori said. Sen describes The Palace on the Hill as a cozy game and says that Nintendo games have been a big influence on the jump to make a slice of life. "We love adventure games, so the ruins around the village were a nice place to experience a kid who grew up in that village and goes on this adventure to discover the past and the stories," she says. , the idea seemed strong because they often heard stories from their parents about their villages, and these stories continued to be passed down to the next generation. "It's based on our childhood and traveling around India," she said. “My partners and I are from different parts of India. We combined elements of travel and childhood.

However, Sen clarified that the game's story is not set in Rajasthan, but in a fictional village somewhere in the hilly regions of India. Check it out. Based on feedback, we refined and refined the story. We spent about three and a half to four years developing the game.

Sen says being a traditional artist, she wanted the game to have a unique feel. “I started painting and realised that if I paint each thing, then it becomes very hard to edit it or make iterations,” she recalls. Instead, she took paper and made large blocks of color on it, then digitally painted the assets and used the paper as a texture for the drawing. This is how she manages to give the game a paper-like exhibition feel.