kinshuk sunilit aint no, dessert if therez no caek

Mid-Day did an interview with me on one of the community Initiatives I am working on – Indie Game Development, India, Community. The interview is included below:

Gaming is no more a waste of time, it’s serious business. and even if it isn’t, who cares? Living by this law are the members of a freshly formed community DiningCamps. Its founder Kinshuk explains the highs of the game

Not many understand that online or console games develop intelligence, skills and decision-making power.

Especially, IT administrators give video-gamers a hard time because they consider gaming applications as a wastage of space, conducive to viruses and obviously and impedence to Internet speed.

They realise that these very geeks are probably much smarter and creative than you. Here comes a group of game developers who not only want to shed all the myths about gaming, but also give it a corporate twist.

Over to Kinshuk.

Read full interview on Mid-Day website. OR read the scan below (click on image to full view the article)

Folks

I have been working on this idea and concept for some time now. Since, my early open source game-dev days (early 2004), I have felt the need for having a pan-india indie game development community. Me and Yadu kept discussing it for so long, its hard to even recall. This all happened while we kept jumping projects on Sourceforge.net and then Launchpad.net.

November 2008, saw the setting up of a mailing list on Google Groups. I called it Indie Game Developers India (InGDIn) community. With no active promotion taking place, the community kept growing at a snail’s pace to the present day 32. That was until yesterday.

On September 2, 2009, Yadu and I, we have finally come up with the InGDIn Community formally. Currently, the website is under development – so we have an active presence on Facebook. See the InGDIn Page on facebook and become a fan as well (just to stay updated). InGDIn is also on twitter now! Follow us!

To propel the whole idea forward, and give us momentum, we have also come up with the idea of DiningCamps (organised by InGDIn). The objectives of DiningCamps are three-folds:

1. Create a platform to interact and network with people interested in game development – create a talent pool
2. Create a platform to showcase one’s work, find team members, investors and publishers – create an indie marketplace
3. Have loads of fun while doing the above both

A lot of stuff has still to be planned. Check out the event page on facebook – DiningCamp 04.10

A lot more will follow… keep your fingers crossed!

Have fun!

Afterlife is a science fiction novel I am working on. Currently in talk with some publishers (do recommend me to some if you find it worth it). This is an old copy of the initial 3 chapters as old as 2006. Will soon update with more details. Matrix and Harry Potter are acknowledged inspirations :)

Afterlife tells the story of Rahul Sharma, a prodigious software engineer from India, working for the best Virtual Reality company in the world. During his researches and his work, he designs a powerful neuro-electric simulation program, which is soon licensed as a successful MMO. The company, though, in their greed overlook common development wisdom and rush through the development cycle. The long and winding road soon brings Rahul on the crossroads where the interest of his family will conflict with the benefit of the world. he has to choose his own path, forge his own destiny. He is no hero.

On june 25th, my blog was hacked by one Mr. Rat and the Black Hacker. Genuinely and very humbly they thanked ‘the administrator for vulnerable scripts‘. Bleh! I learned some lessons then. My Plugins and Themes folders within wp-content were set to +777 which is not a very advisable setting. Now, I am wise. What followed was a series of precautions. I, now, use varied passwords for my profiles now. Simply put, I use a system of a base password + a unique site identifier – useful enough to make a unique password for all sites. And no more +777s. you can learn from my example.

Right here, in this post I will just post an update of what all has happened since.

This blog has undergone a lot of changes since then. I changed the theme – feedbacks for the previous theme were that it looked a lot more like a magazine than a personal blog. This theme fares better on that count. But I lost a lot of readers due to the hack. My subscriber count fell from 108 to 20, which is very sad. In the meanwhile, I have, also, been working on a number of new initatives:

There is Digimantra with Sachin Khosla. Digimantra is a technology blog for everyone from the newbies to the pro. I am currently looking after the Open Source and Gaming Sections of Digimantra. we also recently launched some cool services at Digimantra. Do Have a Look!

Then there is InGDIn or the Indie Game Developes India community – which I intend to make into a platform for all indie gaming action in India. Loads to do there yet. If you are interested in indie gaming, do have a look at the community.

I have also started working on The Boon Prophecy and actively looking for collaborators. The Boon Prophecy is a third person action adventure being developed by me and Yadu in the Ogre3D engine. The game tells the story of a Kargil veteran of the Indian army who faces a supernatural evil in his hometown of Sikri. Part 1 of a trilogy, it is still in the planning stage.

Not to forget, Chronosign.com is also making fast headways as a development garage of a couple of my friends. We are working on some fun Apps concepts which would be nice to use. At least we think so. More updates on this later.

Right now, I am also working on some major changes on the OSScamp community site. So keep your fingers crossed, a lot is about to come.

A lot of stuff is going on. There are good news on the front of Afterlife – the novel I was writing. I will soon share a reading draft of the same on my blog. While, i am also making some useful efforts for my career in the Music Industry.

All in all, It has been a very hectic week and I am sure there are many more hectic weeks coming. Will keep you posted.

Ciao

It feels really strange to realize that in those few minutes when I was at CCD, just after having felt the bombs; I was there, between two bombed sites, joking, trying to preserve my calm, while people were injured, while they were crying, trying to find their loved ones, while they were witnessing violence, gore, and death. It is a tragedy of unknown proportions…
A tragic end to a day full of twists and turns. Sadness and sorrow fills me as I write this. As I began my day, I had never thought how it will end. I had no clue at all.

September 13th, 2008. New Delhi
8.0 AM
It started with me rushing to my Ahok Vihar office for the monthly strategic review meetings. Had to work on the Marketing Divisions strategic intent and planning and put it across the board. Had just updated Open Coffee Club Delhi in the morning that I shall be attending the OCC Delhi Meet at Café Coffee Day, Outer Circle, CP later in the evening.

At around 12:40, between the series of meetings, got a mail at the OSScamp Community mailing list about the offline Drupal Meet up at Srijan Campus, Nehru Place. God! I was going to miss it as my schedule was already overflowing. I didn’t want to miss it anyway. But that’s what short notices do. No offence.

3.20 PM
Started my presentation. Discussed the various aspects of our brand building exercises, problems we are facing and possible solutions and the ones the marketing team would recommend. A fierce discussion on a new brand identity that needs created. A lot of discussion I wouldn’t want to bore you with. Finally, I was free by 4.15PM.

4.20 PM
I left a note for my boss that I am leaving for the OCC Delhi Meet at CP; an unusual first for me. At the time it felt the right thing to do even when I have never really cared about updating my boss with my every movement. It’s like we have an understanding at OSSCube that if we are doing quality work in stipulated time, it proves that I am a good judge of how to utilize my time and we don’t question each other. My boss doesn’t question me and I don’t question my team. That’s the way it goes. So it puzzled me: why I wanted to leave that note. Obviously, now I can speak a lot about my intuitions and premonitions and other such myths. But that wasn’t it, exactly. Not very easy to understand what it was.

4.35 PM
Trying to get an auto for CP has always been a tough job for me at Ashok Vihar. Finally I got one and I called Satpal to update him about my being late. The problem with unconferences is that people generally don’t take the deadlines very seriously. Or let’s put it correctly, diplomatically: we all are busy people with overflowing schedules; unconferences are just flexible enough to accept such situations. Needless to say, moron me was not the only late guy. But that’s what the game is all about – people coming.

5.11 PM
Some problem at Ramakrishna Ashram. The road was closed. Had to take a detour through Gole Market for CP. A thick jam there due to all the vehicles detouring.

5.20 PM
Finally reached CP. Café Coffee Day, Outer Circle. A few hundred meters from Central Park and Gopal Das Building.

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