It isn’t often that a game developed by an Indian gets featured in Apple Market’s Top 90 or earns a review from the App Store’s editors. So, when Chennai-based Kirupa Shankar’s game app, Twisty Board, made it to the hallowed hall of fame, it was time to sit up and take notice. In a month’s time, the game has clocked over 918,000 downloads and is racing towards the 1 million mark. With the app launching on the Android platform on November 17, the makers are expecting the figures to rise exponentially.
Originally launched in September this year, the game was re-launched by Canada-based GalacticThumb earlier this month. “When we first launched it, it got lost in the host of other major apps that were launched around the same time. But it got noticed by GalacticThumb, which decided to re-launch it. Soon, it was featured in Apple’s Top 90 and got a review from the App Store editors,” says Kirupa, founder and CEO of Love Handle Developers (LHD).
Twisty Board, he says, is a typical arcade game, and involves missiles chasing a hoverboard. “We decided to make it futuristic by bringing in a hoverboard. The game has about 30 characters, and one of them is Rajinikanth,” he adds. “I’m a huge Thalaivar fan. So, every game I’ve designed will have his influence.” Incidentally, Kirupa has to his credit over 3,500 games since he set up LHD back in 2008.
Kirupa, who enjoys playing games as much as he loves developing them, says that Super Mario, Need For Speed, Crossy Road and Flappy Bird are some of his all-time favourites. Which is why, the entrepreneur was especially thrilled when Twisty Board was featured in Japan alongside Mario. “That is a huge deal for me,” he gushes. The game recently got a Halloween update for added fun.
Developing games is perfect for Kirupa, who always shied away from text books and theoretical knowledge. “I’m a more hands-on kind of guy. The only reason I went to college and finished it was because I wanted to have fun and graduate alongside my peers. Which is why I did B.Sc Computer Science instead of engineering that my family wanted me to. Fortunately, they were supportive,” says the entrepreneur, who worked as a programmer with IT companies before he decided to branch out on his own.
“I became a team lead within three-and-a-half years of starting work. But, there on, I realised that growth would be slow. So, I set up LHD in 2008 as a service company, but we soon switched to developing products. We released our first game in 2010 and have seen quite a few hits and misses,” says Kirupa, who now employees around 12 people in the city and several more in Russia and the U.S.
