Hooked on games
new ideas
THT
A YOUNG GAME ENTHUSIAST LOOKS FORWARD TO TURN A SMALL VENTURE INTO A SUCCESSFUL GAMING APPS COMPANY
Video games are very popular among the country’s teenagers and in order to cash in on the growing trend as well as to offer customers locally developed video games, Yeden Sherpa, 25, established Biyo Studios a home-based startup venture in 2016 in Lalitpur.
“I always had a great passion for video games. However, as most of them were foreign-made, I thought of creating video games in my own country which local video game lovers can be proud of,” says Sherpa.
Although Sherpa started researching on making video games in 2016, it was after completing his Bachelor in Fine Arts from Kathmandu University School of Arts in 2018 that he fully devoted himself to the venture.
After working on developing video games solely for two years, Sherpa teamed up with three enthusiastic friends in January through connection on social media sites. While Sherpa heads the venture as its director, Binay Poudel, Manjil Thapa and Arba Tuladhar work on programming, adding 3D effects, and as an intern respectively.
“After working hard on the animation and programming, I developed my first game app named Jump 2D in early 2017 which is a casual game about balancing the ball on the top of the falling rectangular blocks by just touching the mobile screen for thrusting it on to the top,” says Sherpa.
However according to him, even after working really hard on developing the app, in order to put it on Playstore, he had to ask his USbased friend’s help for the game’s registration in the US paying hefty amount in dollars.
“Nepal’s gaming app sector hasn’t developed yet and there is no mechanism for registering game apps in the country which has been discouraging independent game developers like me in the country,” adds Sherpa.
Then in late 2017, Sherpa again developed another game app titled Remake: Word Puzzle Game where players need to arrange the scrambled word displayed on the screen with a picture of the thing above the puzzle. “Most of the pictures include local settings,” adds Sherpa.
However, unlike in most startups facing initial hardship to make money, Sherpa faces more challenge with no marketing done so far due to financial limitations.
According to Sherpa, to financially assist the venture, he has been working part-time at several IT companies in the Valley.
“So far our own friends and relatives consist of the majority of our customers and we are limited to word-of-mouth promotion only.
However, we are searching for financial sponsors to take our project ahead systematically in the coming days,” adds Sherpa.
He further says, “All our games can only be played on mobile phones and on computers due to technological limitations.”
According to Sherpa, Biyo Studios is launching a new game titled KillAR next week which is about shooting hidden enemies inside a house.
Sherpa calls it a game with augmented reality, which means shifting back to reality from virtual world as the real surroundings of the player can be seen on the screen as the background.
Similarly, Sherpa has been working to develop another game called Ang, which is about a local boy’s journey that is full of obstacles where he helps to restore the degraded environment.
“It will take us around one year to launch the game and the team is working hard on it. We are confident that players will enjoy the game and relate themselves to the local settings which include local architectures and country side scenery,” says Sherpa.
According to him, the name ‘Biyo’ comes from Dandi Biyo game which has given the venture a Nepali identity.
“Despite the hardships I have been dealing all these years, I am very optimistic of continuing the project and gradually upgrading it for establishing a successful local gaming apps company in the future and offer Nepali video game lovers enjoyable stuffs,” adds Sherpa.
Video games are very popular among the country’s teenagers and in order to cash in on the growing trend as well as to offer customers locally developed video games, Yeden Sherpa, 25, established Biyo Studios a home-based startup venture in 2016 in Lalitpur.
“I always had a great passion for video games. However, as most of them were foreign-made, I thought of creating video games in my own country which local video game lovers can be proud of,” says Sherpa.
Although Sherpa started researching on making video games in 2016, it was after completing his Bachelor in Fine Arts from Kathmandu University School of Arts in 2018 that he fully devoted himself to the venture.
After working on developing video games solely for two years, Sherpa teamed up with three enthusiastic friends in January through connection on social media sites. While Sherpa heads the venture as its director, Binay Poudel, Manjil Thapa and Arba Tuladhar work on programming, adding 3D effects, and as an intern respectively.
“After working hard on the animation and programming, I developed my first game app named Jump 2D in early 2017 which is a casual game about balancing the ball on the top of the falling rectangular blocks by just touching the mobile screen for thrusting it on to the top,” says Sherpa.
However according to him, even after working really hard on developing the app, in order to put it on Playstore, he had to ask his USbased friend’s help for the game’s registration in the US paying hefty amount in dollars.
“Nepal’s gaming app sector hasn’t developed yet and there is no mechanism for registering game apps in the country which has been discouraging independent game developers like me in the country,” adds Sherpa.
Then in late 2017, Sherpa again developed another game app titled Remake: Word Puzzle Game where players need to arrange the scrambled word displayed on the screen with a picture of the thing above the puzzle. “Most of the pictures include local settings,” adds Sherpa.
However, unlike in most startups facing initial hardship to make money, Sherpa faces more challenge with no marketing done so far due to financial limitations.
According to Sherpa, to financially assist the venture, he has been working part-time at several IT companies in the Valley.
“So far our own friends and relatives consist of the majority of our customers and we are limited to word-of-mouth promotion only.
However, we are searching for financial sponsors to take our project ahead systematically in the coming days,” adds Sherpa.
He further says, “All our games can only be played on mobile phones and on computers due to technological limitations.”
According to Sherpa, Biyo Studios is launching a new game titled KillAR next week which is about shooting hidden enemies inside a house.
Sherpa calls it a game with augmented reality, which means shifting back to reality from virtual world as the real surroundings of the player can be seen on the screen as the background.
Similarly, Sherpa has been working to develop another game called Ang, which is about a local boy’s journey that is full of obstacles where he helps to restore the degraded environment.
“It will take us around one year to launch the game and the team is working hard on it. We are confident that players will enjoy the game and relate themselves to the local settings which include local architectures and country side scenery,” says Sherpa.
According to him, the name ‘Biyo’ comes from Dandi Biyo game which has given the venture a Nepali identity.
“Despite the hardships I have been dealing all these years, I am very optimistic of continuing the project and gradually upgrading it for establishing a successful local gaming apps company in the future and offer Nepali video game lovers enjoyable stuffs,” adds Sherpa.