Innovating Every Pixel of a Game Never Lost - Interview with Harsh Khurana, CEO and

Innovating Every Pixel of A Game Never Lost

A finished product (read games) is all we know and care about. But when we try and get to know the legitimate madness that goes behind making even the mundane games, a whole news world opens up where tech and a human mind goes hand in hand. Hashbyte Studio did give us a gist of the whole spectrum of activities that goes behind the door!

By Donna Amo

he digital age is here

Tand with every passing year, technology keeps advancing at a rapid pace. The gaming industry with its various offerings of engaging entertainment is running at the forefront of this age. While we usually see the finished product when it comes to video games and gaming apps, we are often not aware about the work that goes into making even the most casual and mundane game. From concept arts to game designs and everything in between, we wanted to take a look at the method behind the madness. For which, we interviewed Harsh Khurana, CEO and founder of Hashbyte Studio.

Started in 2018, the company is sill growing in leaps and bounds. Oceans Lite, Grind My Gears, Unicorn Run: Candyland, and BattleCow Unleashed are just some of the games developed by the team. With more than 10 years of experience, Harsh Khurana has led the young team in Hashbyte Studio to its current successful stage. Let’s take a look at the beginnings of this vibrant company to its very promising future. Harsh Khurana, CEO and Founder, Hashbyte Studio

Tell us about the journey of Hashbyte Studio.

The journey with Hashbyte Studio has been very impressive so far. I always had a great love for gaming and used to burn my whole pocket money to play games during my childhood. With Hashbyte Studio, I am grateful that I got the opportunity to serve the gaming industry. We started in June 2018, completed three years in the gaming industry, and successfully completed more than ten games. Every day is a challenge, COVID-19, being the biggest of all. Still, we managed to take it as a challenge and even grew during the pandemic because of a clear vision, enthusiasm, and teamwork.

Hashbyte Studio has continued to grow because of its amazing team and clientele. As the saying goes. “Individually, we are one

drop. Together, we are an ocean.”

How did you become interested in game development and design?

I was a gaming geek since childhood. When I reached a point where I had to decide on my career, I opted to be in the gaming industry. I always wanted to do something that kept me excited every day.every day. I love game development and design because it is full of creativity, where you can imagine and build. I’ve always been interested in learning how a game was made and how it could be created differently. As my interest in gaming grew, my career goals became clearer. First, I started as a co-founder of a gaming company in Chandigarh and after five years, I decided to start Hashbyte Studio.

What is one project that you’re most proud of?

Though I am proud of every project we have worked upon, the Oceans Board is the biggest project we have worked on and we are extremely proud of it. This game took our skillset to the next level creatively and technically. The Lite version of the game already has around 100k users. We are planning to release the complete version in the coming weeks. Another game that I am proud of is Battle Cow Unleashed. It’s a 3D shooting role-playing game with a unique idea that we developed from scratch. We have sustained a 100% delivery success rate and have never lost any project that we started.

What part of the game development process do you enjoy the most?

I enjoy the whole game development process. However, the most exciting part is the project planning stage, where we create the initial concepts and roadmap of the game. Good project planning is always the key to a project’s success. I also cherish the time we deploy the games to the stores, which is a moment of triumph for us as a game development company. For us, the feeling is similar to a rocket being safely landed on the moon!

Which game was the most challenging to work with and why?

Developing a game, big or small, is not a small feat. This is because game ideas always come from the imagination, and it’s always tough to control our creativity. The fictional ideas are derived from vision, animated movies, or current market trends. Every game that we developed has its challenges. For example, in Oceans Board Game, the biggest challenge was creating Rule Engine, which executed more than 100 cards with thousands of permutations and combinations that a user can play. It was very challenging for us to test all the combinations.

Another challenge was to get it ready for the AI training where we had to train the AI bot by running hundreds of games every minute and thousands of games every day. AI worked on a neural network which trained its system with every game it played and made decisions based on its trained neural network.

For Battle Cow Unleashed, which was in 3D, maintaining the size of the game and making it compatible with low-end mobile devices was very challenging for us as it had many 3D assets.

What sets Hashbyte Studio apart from other game developers?

Our vision is to deliver high-quality games to our clients and players. So, our workstyle ethics, client support, and 100% delivery success and satisfaction rate is what differentiates us from other game developers.

Innovation plays a significant role in game design. What do you think is an upcoming trend in game design?

Yes, I do agree that innovation plays a vital role in game design. our tagline, ‘Innovating Every Pixel,’ is derived from it. The use of AI for making the game’s levels hard and challenging for the users is one of the upcoming trends. The multiplayer games are rocking the market as it creates an environment where people can play together, have fun and challenge each other. Another upcoming trend is gamification for the utilities, such as banking services where they want to add gaming factors to educate users to their services, education institutions, etc. With gamification, we can create a virtual/simulated experience for the user to easily understand any product.

Talking about AR and VR, do you think these tech trends will take off in India? Why?

AR and VR will take their own time to take off in India as it needs an extra setup and the dependencies on hardware. To play a game in VR you need to have a virtual reality headset which can cost you anywhere from $200 - $500. After which you will need a high end configuration computer for it, which can cost between $700 - $1000. So, it is quite tough and expensive to set up. In contrast, AR can be the next big thing in IIndia. It’s more interactive and doesn’t require any hardware support. Another challenge that we face in AR and VR is to educate users how to use it.

How do you cater to the interests of India’s demographics?

To cater to the audiences, we have to follow the latest market trends and keep ourselves updated with the newest content that users are excited to play. Beta testing our game is another good approach to get user feedback. In this process, we call hundreds of users to play our game, who then give us their feedback on the game. We take these feedbacks and try to improve the game to the best of our abilities.

The mobile gaming market is booming in India, are there any upcoming projects that Hashbyte Studios is currently working on?

We are currently working on a few games which will be released this year. We are also regularly updating the games that are already available in stores. We are coming up with major update of our in-house game ‘Unicorn Run: Candyland.’ We are coming up with an AR feature in the game where users will be able to interact with the Unicorns through their mobile phones in the real world. They will be able to take pictures, create videos of them with Unicorns, and share it on social media.

How are you coping with the looming threat of cybercrime?

Cybercrimes are happening every single day. It’s like, we launch the game, and you can get the same game with everything unlocked on the internet within a few days. We, thus, integrate the security check in the game to avoid hacking as much as we can.

Another major issue arising is online bullying. Many of the games provide a voice chat feature that users can misuse. This then leads to incidents of cyberbullying.

What factors need to be considered in a gaming platform before deciding to play on it?

My foremost recommendation is to download games from authentic gaming platforms like Google Play Store, Apple Store, Ninetode store, etc. Avoid downloading hacked versions of the game. If you download the hacked versions, it may lead to any phishing activities due to a lack of security. Many users play the hacked version to avoid the cost to buy the game or unlock the game’s features, but it may lead you to serious phishing troubles.