#Indian Games

[deramin2]

Playing Raji: An Ancient Epic again and I'm so blown away at how it blends ancient storytelling mediums with modern videogames to tell a Hindi epic fantasy story.

It's a Indian game about a brother (Golu) and sister (Raji) who are orphaned and perform as acrobats with in a carnival. When Golu and other children are kidnapped by demons, Raji chases after to rescue him. Sure it's helped by the deities Goddess Durga and Lord Vishnu who also serve as narrators.

The cut scenes are all done in the style of traditional Indian shadow puppetry with Durga and Vishnu telling the story. The game design is based on pahari paintings with architecture designs inspired by medieval Rajasthan.

Along the way are status and reliefs of mythological figures that you can look closer at and hear/read who they are and briefly what they are known for.

There are also mural series with symbolic depictions of story elements. You can examine them and as Vishnu tells story, the figures are highlighted to show who or what each is in the same way a teacher would point to them. It's a super cool way to be introduced to the mythology.

Because she's an acrobat, Raji's fight style revolves around tumbling to avoid damage between attacks. Combat is mostly about figuring out the gimmick of the enemy to dodge them and effectively damage them. The main challenge is getting your hands to do it. You get up to 4 different weapons through the game that favor different fighting styles and you can quickly switch weapons to vary within a fight.

The puzzles aren't very challenging (most are clearly not intended to be), but they do serve to tell the story and highlight specific elements. The disk puzzles reveal Raji's past memories. There cursed tree rotating puzzles symbolize dispelling the evil. They're another way of using traditional art styles to bring the tale to life.

There are also platform challenges where you put your acrobatics (and maneuvering abilities) to the test. Again these aren't particularly hard if you're competent but I personally fail and die frequently doing them and it's just one click below being frustrating for me. I know I CAN do them, I just have to not get turned around.

They're are easy, normal, and hard game settings on Switch, plus story mode (no combat) and one hit kill modes on different platforms so you can really set your experience. It's about 10-12 hours of game play, so long enough to really get into it, but short enough that it won't consume your life. There really isn't any filler. It's a mostly railroaded story with locked perspective telling a specific series of events. It's meant to feel like you're at the feet of a master storyteller telling a well known epic. But that's brought alive with the technology of videogames in a wonderful way.

Do note that you NEED a controller to play this game. The mouse and keyboard controls are much harder and clearly secondary. The controller has aim assist and the mouse and keyboard don't (but it's almost harder to aim manually on the mouse and keyboard). The attacks don't have a good hand feel on mouse and keyboard but a great feel on the controller. I actually bought a controller for my desktop to play it. I'm playing it again on the Switch now and it feels better. Playing it on a TV also really helps you feel the sheer scale of the architecture.

The soundtrack is really cool and never gets old. It really captures the meditative feeling of exploration or the intensity of battle using traditional Indian styles and instruments.

It's currently 66% off on Steam until August 10 for $8.49. Normally $24.99 on all platforms. There's also a demo that lets you play the first level. WELL worth the money.

This is a wonderful indie game with a lot of heart and it's incredibly refreshing to see fantasy that isn't European at all. It's very firmly an Indian story about Indian mythology told using Indian story telling arts reimagined for a more interactive medium. Still hoping one day we get a sequel the door was left open for.

[planet-dark]

Indie Game Venba: A Celebration of Tamil Culture

Hey, checkout my new blog post about an Indie game being developed by indie studio Visai Games based in Toronto, Canada. Venba is a narrative cooking game, where you play as an Indian immigrant mom, who immigrates to Canada with her family in the 1980s.

Indie game Venba, developed by the Indian studio Visai Games, is a unique and heartwarming experience that celebrates Tamil culture through a beautifully crafted narrative-driven adventure. The game tells the story of Jhananam, a young girl who dreams of becoming a chef and follows in the footsteps of her mother, who was also a great cook. Jhananam’s journey takes her through the bustling…

[makeupreviewandbeautyblog]

Top 10 Apps for Indian kids During Summer Vacation!

Yo, Lil Champs! Summer’s here and school’s out, while the sun will blazing like a tandoori chicken! Fear not lil buddies as we have a great mobile app for kids for your snoozefest vacation. We have a list of epic adventures, creativity, and some brain-boosting challenges, all those powered by the magic of apps! It’s time to grab your phones (of course with parental permission). Let’s dive into…

[red-moon-at-night]

After doing some research on the types of pets people had in ancient Greece, I'd like to imagine that Helen is the sort of person who has a whole menagerie of birds — and she loves each and every one of them very, very much.

It fits well with her being good at mimicry, you know. Talking and imitating and singing with her beloved birds 💜

Close up under the read more:

I had to include that one necklace from the minoan 'saffron goddess' fresco because it's my favourite thing Ever

[serenado-exe]

So anyway -

The point is that Pizza Tower still has a racist, outdated stereotype of Indigenous people in the Oregano Desert level.

It even has a achievement for rain dancing around a totem pole (totem poles are a Pacific Northwest thing, not a Plains Tribe thing). They war cry at you and they throw tomahawks (because it's always tomahawks or spears).

Bellyache about the screencaps being 5 years old if you want, but the stereotype made it into the game, so he hasn't changed that much. He didn't change enough to have a shred of awareness about using a racist stereotype. And before anyone tries: that trope isn't a hallmark of Wario games or 90s animation, it's a hallmark of racism.

Even if he "doesn't" make bigoted jokes anymore (though I would consider the Tribe Cheese one such joke), he made an entire level based around that trope.

And like every other time there's an anti-Indigenous caricature in videogames or popular media, it doesn't get mentioned, or it gets glossed over because the creator went "Oopsie! That was cringe."

The exclusion of the Tribe Cheese from that salvo of screenshots undermines the entirety of it, because it's a solid example of him not having changed enough to be conscious beyond "that was unfunny," and everyone just focuses on what he said and when - without the connection to how that mindset still lingers in the final product of the game.

[e-vay]

I MADE A HALLOWEEN GAME!

It's Halloween night and E-vay the Fennec Fox has asked you to help her whip up a last-minute Halloween surprise. But what exactly does that wily fox have up her sleeve? The fate of the evening all depends on you! Featuring E-vay's cast of characters as well as some canon characters.

Play the game here!

I’m sorry it took so long but I really wanted to make an extra special Halloween surprise for you all! I ran into a million technical issues but Ryan ended up saving the day and together we made it happen!

This game is best played on a computer, but you CAN play it on mobile. On mobile, the loading screen shows up as WHITE without any graphics. I promise, it is loading! Just be patient and the game will eventually start.

I really hope you enjoy it 🥰🎃🖤🧡 Ryan and I poured our souls into this!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

[kemetic-dreams]

Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige was born on July 7, 1906, in Mobile, Alabama. Though many speculate it may have been more like 1903.

According to Paige, his mother sent him to earn money carrying luggage for businessmen at the train station, but he was frustrated with the little money it paid. So he rigged a pole to carry several bags at once to make the job pay better, and his co-workers purportedly told him, "You look like a walking satchel tree." And his nickname stuck.

At the age of 42 in 1948, Paige was the oldest major league rookie while playing for the Cleveland Indians. He played with the St. Louis Browns until age 47, and represented them in the All-Star Game in 1952 and 1953. He was the first player who had played in the Negro Leagues to pitch in the World Series, in 1948, and was the first electee of the Negro League Committee to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.

[sandkessho]

Brahma an Indian god of creation in a style of Hades! Made for my thesis project

[starlightshadowsworld]

There's a cosy game being made called Venba about a south Indian couple moving to Canada.

And a way Venba cope with the new environment and missing home is cooking south Indian dishes.

Dishes she finds in her mother's cookbook, and just 🥺it sounds so wholesome and sweet.

The fact these recipes are real too like sweet.

[m00nb04rd5]

Young Kulfi (Cookie Run)

[maibearcore]

Me and my non-canon & angsty ships against the world ˗ˏˋ 𓅰 ˎˊ˗

They started dating ok?!

They are together and happy idgaf about canon.‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡🪐༘⋆

࣪ ִֶָ☾. They deserve better and they also deserve therapy. 🧸ྀི

Weak Hero Class 1 (2022), Squid Game (2020), Ballerina (2023), Beyond Evil (2021), Tomorrow (2022), 25-21 (2021), Raazi (2018), Sita Ramam (2022), Sanam Teri Kasam (2016), Laila Majnu (2018), Kill (2023).

[anonymouswarriorhumanist]

We Need to Talk About RC and South Asian Representation in its Stories

Hey beautiful people, this is going to be a long post yet a very important one. From a Desi (A South Asian) to my fellow Desis and non-Desis (who especially need to hear me out).

I know the popularity of Romance Club as an interactive game. And being a South Asian makes me wanna pick literally any story that represents us. So, I went into RC's stories promising South Asian representation: Kali: Call of Darkness and Kali: Flames of Samsara. Apart from the poor research done on Indian culture which is too niche and trivial to be understood by everyone (relating to Indian languages and North-South differences), there is yet another aspect of Indian society that the game not only completely misrepresents but even whitewashes and this is very harmful to people, especially those with no knowledge of Indian culture, picking up the game to learn smth and that is: CASTE.

While playing the game, I am sure many of u may have come across such terms as 'Brahmin' or 'Kshatriya', 'Vaishya', or even 'Shudra'. And I am sure many of u may even have a rudimentary understanding of the same. This is the caste/ varna (Sanskrit term) that has plagued Indian society for thousands of years. And these terms basically divide desis even today. I especially want non-South Asians to understand that these terms carry a history of violence and discrimation. This was the chaturvarna or the 4 varna/caste sys wherein groups were ranked on their superiority to each other.

1.Brahmin-Priestly class

2.Kshatriya-Soldiers/ warriors/kings

3.Vaishya-merchants and traders

4.Shudras-Servants/slaves, (the lowest rung on the caste ladder and the most miserable)

Do keep in mind that this is not some class sys similar to feudal Europe or France, but this is CASTE which is very diff from what a non-South Asian may imagine. Notions of purity and pollution guide the caste sys (which may not influence class). A Shudra person was considered impure and hence an 'untouchable' and their mere shadows were considered polluting on the other 3 castes, so much so that they were ghettoized. In South Asia, servile work is generally considered 'polluting' and a complex history of multiple factors relegated this strict division of labourers, In simple lang, a Brahmin priest's son could only be a priest (which was a divine occupation and revered) and a Shudra's son could only do work considered appropriate of his caste which usually translated to things such as manual scavenging (still in India) and servile work considered 'polluting' from which they had no respite. This system was horrible towards Shudras in general as their labour was appropriated by the upper castes for their own gain very similar to how African slave labourers worked at white plantations if I hv to draw a rough comparison. Shudras/Dalits (the term 'Dalit' means broken/oppressed and was given by a Dalit leader and Indian legend Dr. Ambedkar to help uplift this community in Indian society) are subject to not only physical but structural violence. They were barred entry in schools, wells, tanks, roads and literally everywhere since their presence of 'polluting'. Now I have 2 more points:

In RC, I know everyone loves the male leads, and rightly so. But u need to understand that Ratan Vaish and Amrit Doobay won't give a fuck if a Dalit person died in front of them no matter how caring they might be. Since Brahmins were the priestly class, they hegemonized control over Hindu deities and mythology and only they could 'talk' to Gods (according to them ofc and their superiority complex). Amala is a Basu (a Bengali Brahmin surname) and hence both Doobay (again Brahmin) and Vaish (def upper-caste surname) r after her. If Amala was a Dalit, Amrit would hv raped and even killed her (Dalit women and the sexual violence enacted upon them by upper-caste men....again to draw a comparison similar to black women being raped by white men during slavery and jim crow eras: Google Hathras Rape case) and Ratan would have ignored her. ( Notice how Amrit was having an affair with that temple lady. She is most likely a Shudra as most Shudra women were forced into sexual slavery in temples by Brahmins like Amrit. Therefore, he treats her like an object and throws her away once Amala i.e. a woman of his caste falls in love with him. A Dalit woman's body is disposable and objectified here. Look at the complete whitewahing of power dynamics in that sexual encounter with Amrit and the temple dancer).We all need to understand that a similar fate would hv befallen Deviya Sharma (again a Brahmin woman) as even she would have been raped and ignored by other Brahmins and upper caste men in the story such as Ram/or Kamal etc. Arhat is likely a Shudra and Deviya will never bat an eyelash at him since his only job is to be in service to her tiger which Deviya probably treats with more respect than she does Arhat. My point is RC is mass producing these stories for the hyper-privileged White people of India i.e. the upper castes and that is Brahmins and Kshatriyas and Vaishyas. Dalits have rarely been entertained in representation much less in India than in abroad. But that is not what I am pissed abt. What I am pissed abt is that an American sitting in their home will check this story and see terms such as Brahmin or Kshatriya thrown abt without understanding them and then even internalize the harmful notions about these terms and caste in general in both stories abt a bunch of upper-castes freaking out over some goddess ritual.

Be very careful people in what u accept and what u don't bcoz even if it is a game, many non-Desi people may not have the relevant positionality (and that is completely fine!) to understand how the insidious caste sys is being shown and represented by RC. It is being glorified even (ik in the earlier chapters of KCD where Brahmins r shown as saviors of society and keeping Indian society stable when in reality they have done nothing but dehumanize and alienate Dalits for generations) and downplayed and even whitewashed as some trivial division. If RC wanted to publish a story about upper-caste people then pls go ahead but don't you dare whitewash it and glorify the caste sys. When impressionable audiences see all this, it is in their best interest to know the ugly truth about Indian society and not some cheap exotisation of the same. BE BETTER, especially for the Dalits who have suffered so much in South Asia. I am also attaching some material as I would greatly appreciate it if more people knew about the horrors of the caste system and how it plagues Desi society even today.

Discrimination (all types) r shitty and needs to kicked in the balls. Many times, it is subtle and while we may not know much, it is our responsibility to know more and try our best to stop it in whatever way we can.

Thank you for staying and take care y'all.

[neembu]

@suniah help sunaira yours is too cute! ily thank you for the tag <3

tag game for my pookies; look up “flowers”, “plushie”, “aesthetic outfit” & “your own name” and pick the first one that comes up to get your vibe 🩷🎀

npt- @adrakwaalichai @wizardcherryblossom @sailing-forth @kamariya @milkteawithrusk

@artcinemas @mazhai @antiquititties @alliyambal @spiceandtealeaves

@bypatia and anyone else!

[neoruby-loves-ut-aus]

Since there's a trend of Miku dressed in everyone's country traditional style, I made her in Indian Bengali traditional style since I'm from India's state of West Bengal.

It's not exact but I tried using Gacha Nebula

নমস্কার সবাই। আমার নাম হাটশুনে মিকু। আমি প্রথমবার বাংলায় কথা বলছি তাই কিছু মনে করবে না।

Pronunciation:

Nomoshkar shobai। Amar naam Hatsune Miku। Ami prothombar Banglay kotha bolchi tai kichu mone korbe naa।

Translation:

Hello everyone. My name is Hatsune Miku. I am speaking Bengali for the first time so please don't mind.

[angrybathbomb]

POV: A slow & sensual dance with Ais

The melodic chime of your anklets tantalizes him as he pursues you with the grace of a predator, his movements deliberate and sensual, savoring every moment of the chase.

This is a Hindi song, so you might find this helpful: translation (in english)

complete song (slowed + reverb)