Factsheet
Developer:
narayana games
Based in Munich, Germany
Founding date:
22.11.2011
Website:
narayana-games.net
Press / Business contact:
jashan@narayana-games.net
Social:
twitter.com/HolodanceVR
twitter.com/narayanagames
facebook.com/Holodance
Skype
Releases:
Beat The Rhythm
Holodance
Address:
Hauptstr. 19
82266 Inning am Ammersee
Germany
Phone:
+49 (8143) 992 86 88
Description
narayana games is an independent game development studio focussing on VR, AR and multiplayer. We're based near Munich at Lake Ammer (Ammersee), Germany, but have an international team collaborating all over the world. Our current project, Holodance, is a Virtual Reality rhythm game released on Steam into Early Access on April 5th, 2016 that evolved from "Dancing with Dragons" into "Clubbing with osu! beatmaps" within roughly one year and keeps on evolving based both on player feedback and our own creative flow.
History
Before narayana games: Jashan Chittesh (founder)Jashan Chittesh started developing a game called Traces of Illumination as a side-project in 2007, after he found out about the Unity game engine and converted to Mac to actually use it. Traces of Illumination is loosely based on the mechanics of Snake or Lightcycles but turned them into a cooperative game where teams of players help each other to achieve a common goal - instead of trying to lock everyone else in walls. In 2015, Jashan's first book "Das Unity-Buch" (currently only available in German language) was published by dpunkt Verlag. This book is a 512 page introduction to the Unity game engine that starts with 2D and finishes with Virtual Reality.
narayana gamesThe studio narayana games was founded in 2011 and started with releasing ScoreFlash to the Unity Asset Store. ScoreFlash is an extension we originally developed for Traces of Illumination for our animated score-popups and -HUDs. With approximately 500 units sold, generating an income of about €6,000.00, this addon was moderately successful and we have also used it for several contract game projects as well as our current game Virtual Reality game Holodance.
Sustainable GamesWe believe that games are the most advanced and eloquent form of communication that we as humans currently have at our disposal. As such, what drives our game designs is the question: What is it the world really needs us to communicate? There can never be a single or definite answer to that question as the world constantly changes and thus the need constantly changes - but keeping the question in our awareness brings forth an endless creative flow which eventually expresses itself into joyful fun game experiences. Experiences that are designed to enliven your true joyful nature.
Holodance: A Virtual Reality Rhythm GameThose principles are implemented in our Virtual Reality Rhythm Game Holodance that has a group of dragons returning to planet Earth to remind us, the human species, of our duty of care for the planet and the responsibility for our own future. In its upcoming collaborative multiplayer mode, Holodance gives players working together internationally a bonus – and during development, we also worked with artists from Turkey, USA, Canada, Great Britain, France, The Netherlands, Russia and China. Due to requests by players we have added support for osu!-beatmaps and turned what was originally planned as two episodes into a single game with both a "story-mode" that still has the dragons and a "free mode" that lets players pick any of the environments we had created for the story as well as several additional environments, to eventually play with any music they like (osu!-beatmaps support is just the first step towards that direction).
Projects
Videos
Holodance V0.8 Release Trailer YouTube, Vimeo
Holodance V0.8.3: Avatar System Teaser 2 YouTube, Vimeo
Images
There are far more images available for narayana games, but these are the ones we felt would be most useful to you. If you have specific requests, please do contact us!
Logo & Icon
Selected Articles
- " I recently had a chance to play through an early pre-alpha build of the game and despite bugs here and there the game was pretty darn fun ... both for me and those watching."
- Will Mason, UploadVR: Dance like nobody else is watching with Holodance VR - "Holodance [...] challenges players to follow perfectly timed instrument tracks while dancing with dragons. Each of the songs available with the game has several tracks – bassline, bass drum, and melody – with different rhythms and complexities, and a natural progression of difficulty."
- Ivona Baric, Fitness Gaming: Holodance Challenges Players to Dance with Dragons - "It lets you play with the music while dancing with dragons. Isn’t it exciting? And looks like the audience enjoyed it ..."
- Deniz Ergürel, Haptic: 18 amazing virtual reality games and experiences from Gamescom 2016
Additional Links
narayana games Press Image Package
Logos, Icons, Banners holodance-press.com.
About narayana games (PDF)
Similar information as available here, as PDF holodance-press.com.
narayana games @ Vimeo
Our company Vimeo account vimeo.com.
narayana games @ YouTube
Our company YouTube account youtube.com.
Holodance
Direct Link to our Game on Steam store.steampowered.com.
Team & Repeating Collaborator
Jashan Chittesh, Munich, Germany (Website)
Game-Design, programming, set-design, project-management, marketing, community-management, some music remixing
Mirimah Münch, Munich, Germany
Producer
Samuel Hajek, Freyung, Germany (Website)
Art direction, modeling, texturing and animating all the dragons, concept art for the levels
Hrishikesh Varaskar, Mumbai, India (Website)
Art direction, modeling, color-theming
Antonia Schaller, Cambridge, UK (Website)
Marketing, 2D artist, user interface design, animation
presskit() by Rami Ismail (Vlambeer) - also thanks to these fine folks