Sham: There’s more interest from youth to start being game developers and to work in the games industry. Sham (far left), Jana, their mother and publisher Martine Spaans chat at PGC Jordan 2019. And if you have a good mechanic and good art and there’s no feeling – there’s no idea, there’s no story the game is telling – you might be lacking something that’s very important to the success of the game. If you have good art and a poor mechanic, it won’t work. So in games, you need to focus on the game feel and the story as much as you focus on the mechanic and the 3D art. But it took us time to learn that it needs to feel good, to make the player feel relevant and entertained while they’re playing the game. For a long time, we were focusing on the technical part and just dedicating time to making it efficient and work well. Sham: One other thing that we learned with time is that game “feel” is very important. It takes time and practice – tonnes of practice. It’s OK to feel like you’re not really getting this, and you don’t understand what this does, and this does, and it’s OK to just be following tutorials and writing code after someone. We have learned that through our journey here. You could have tonnes of bugs and have to spend weeks fixing them. You can work on a game for years, and then it could fail. You don’t know for sure that this is going to be successful. Making games isn’t easy, and you have to have a lot of patience to get through the hard times. Jana: We found out that patience is really important, especially in our industry. We’re grateful to see that today, in 2022, there’s more awareness about the importance of games being an educational tool. The fact that we started when we were still in school, and the fact that the studio was founded by two females in a male-dominated industry made Sakura special. The concept of 3D and interactivity in games, especially in the region, wasn’t that much. There was a lack of content in the Arabic language. When we started there was a lack of edutainment content. The impact we’ve seen always made us so happy to continue and do more and create more games. We wanted to change the world via these educational games, and we made many prototypes and worked with a couple of companies. We’re grateful to see that today there’s more awareness about the importance of games as an educational tool Here’s the full video panel, with some excerpts below. They have become regular speakers at our events since encountered them for the first time during the Big Indie Pitch activities in Jordan a few years ago, and they have great insight into the opportunities for young creators in the region. They are originally from Jordan but are currently spreading their wings, including Sham attending university in Turkey. You may recognise the sibling developers as the winners of 2021’s Rising Star award at the Mobile Games Awards. The median age is less than 24 years, compared to over 38 in the US, meaning that there’s a youthful population ready to embrace technology. In this instalment, you’re invited to watch a video interview with the sisters behind Sakura Games. This is the third part of our series talking with Arabic game makers. The pandemic-inspired growth in Western markets seems to be slowing in contrast, the MENA market has become the fastest-growing scene in games. There’s great potential in the Middle East and North African games market right now.
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