Bridging traditions with innovation
View(s):With many still in the Avrurudu mood, social distancing may not have to play a part in taking part in Avururudu games this season. The minds behind Thaprobane Interactive have taken the initiative to bring the thrill of Avurudu Games to your local devices.
The duo behind the app
Thaprobane Interactive initiated by Ramesh Maddegoda and Thelisha Herath, a husband-and-wife duo who are passionate about game development. They are professional Software Engineers, pursuing their free time to create games.
Avurudu Games of Sri Lanka is a gaming app consisting 6 Avurudu games namely, Pillow Fight (Kotta Pora), Blind Pot Break (Kana Mutti Bideema), Mark Elephant’s Eye (Aliyata Aha Thabeema), Guess Papaya Seed Count (Papol Gediye Ata Ganeema), Tug of War (Kambha Adeema) and Dice Game (Kata Gaseema). It is available on google play store and coordinates in both Sinhala and English languages.
In addition to ‘Avurudu Games of Sri Lanka’ they have created several other projects including a maths puzzle game named Math Combat (Ganitha Hatana). All their projects are freely available without consisting of any advertisements as they engage in game development as a hobby and do not wish for any financial gain.
However, game development is a mammoth task that demands a great deal of commitment, skill and time, but they were motivated on creating original and quality content, as recalled by Ramesh “We wanted to create our own artwork for this, we did not want to copy graphics from other sources. A considerable amount of time was spent on creating artwork, music and sound effects, in addition to programming. At that time our son was only about 8 months old and it was challenging to find time to develop this game, while handling personal and workplace responsibilities. We started developing this game in March 2012, and it was a challenging task to complete this game in a very short time period, in order to release it in Avurudu season.”
This inspiration of a mobile gaming app dedicated to avurudu games was implemented hoping to introduce traditional Sri Lankan games to the international level and to occupy tech enthusiastic younger generations of the country to value the country’s cultural heritage.
Ramesh and Thelisha initiated this application with only four games, reaching out to only among their friends and now it has nearly 29,000 downloads from multiple countries. This application was an awakening of memories from home to locals living abroad that it attracted a wide audience of Sri Lankans from foreign countries. Another milestone reached by this application includes qualifying to the final round of the Etisalat Android Challenge 2013.
Ramesh believes that there are few companies and individuals who have the prospective to develop the Sri Lankan gaming industry. He further stated that one of the main challenges faced by local game developers is the inability to compete with international successful games (AAA Games) which are budgeted with multi-million dollars, “To overcome these challenges, some Sri Lankan game developers are working on non-gaming projects in order to find the funds required to work on video game projects. Even though there are many successful software development companies established in Sri Lanka, most of those software companies are reluctant to invest in gaming projects.”
He encourages future potential game developers to keep expanding their knowledge and skills on platforms like Unity, Unreal Engine, programming languages such as C++ and to explore the fields of Open Source such as GIMP, InkSpace, Audacity and LMMS. He believes game creation is a harmony between technical knowledge, psychological, behavioural sciences and the process of teamwork approached by stepwise progress. He is hopeful that in the future with the support of investors, media and government, Sri Lankan game developers will be competent to enter the multi-billion-dollar gaming industry.
