Hello World! : Story of my life

Hey guys, I am Nikhil Malankar and have been active on therodinhoods.wpengine.com since the last 2 months. This website is filled with a lot of enthusiasm, passion, not to forget the amazingly inspiring posts by people who would have been unknown to me had I not joined this site. So, anyways here I am writing down the story of my life on this site. A lot of people do not take the courage to follow their heart and their dreams. I hope that this little post(which is not so little in length 😛 ) might help you out. Alright, so lets start!

I’m 20 right now. Coder at heart, gamer in soul .If anything that entered my life as my passion as such were COMPUTERS and specifically COMPUTER GAMES. I remember using a PC when I was almost 3 and a half years old. My Dad had bought this awesome system back in 1997 and I remember playing a lot of computer games at that age. My favourites included some pretty badass games of the time such as: Doom, Road Rash, Midtown Madness, etc. Now these were some of the most popular games at the time and I literally remember even my Dad playing them on the PC in his pass time. I feel grateful to have realised very early in my life that this is my passion. At that time it was just a hobby and as full time I wanted to be Batman (Really! Those animated series really get you! 😛 ) and as time passed things started getting more serious and the dream shaped into something really amazing over time.

We all go through phases in life where our decisions change according to the time and situation. I had mine too. I’m not getting the exact sentence to pen this down but anyways I’ll just shoot up whatever’s on my mind. And yeah, I can relate each phase of my life to a game. So well I had these phases in life where I wanted to be:

a. Batman: Well I used to watch a lot of ‘Batman : The Animated Series’ at that time and there was a time when I used to consider Batman and Robin my foster friends! 😀 How cool is that, right?? hehe. At this particular phase in my life I was addicted to Doom and Wolfenstein.

b. Engineer: I realised very early on in my life that THIS is what I want to do. The goal was not as specific at the time. I was what, I guess 6-7 years old at that time when I had decided this. Engineering is all about solving problems. Only in later stages of my life I would realise that I will be solving the most interesting problem ever: ENTERTAINMENT! Oh and in this phase I was blessed with a wonderful friend, enemy and one of the most loveliest gifts ever: my sister! 🙂 We had also moved into staff quarters at this time. It was a pretty cool time and I have really fond memories of this time. This was a time that I can most relate to Road Rash.

c. Software Engineer: This was my 6th grade to 8th grade phase which is roughly around 1999-2003. It was the golden era of Windows XP and most of my time used to go spending on my PC and discovering new things about the system. I remember assembling my PC after something had gone wrong with the hardware in 2003 and it felt so cool at that time. I had just completed fixing the issue and I was so happy that I called up my Dad to tell this to him and at first he scolded me for fiddling with the machine since I was so young but when he came back home he was amazed to see that I had actually fixed it! I couldn’t be more proud! 🙂 This was a time which I can relate most of the part to Midtown Madness.

d. Game Programmer: It was around December, 2003 that my Dad had decided to take away my PC from me since I was literally very addicted to it. But then BAM! TV Video Games to the rescue. Now 2003 was a pretty PC-Age and to play those games in this phase could not make up to that mark, however it was a really cool phase where I used to play a lot of Mortal Kombat, Mario, Adventure Island, etc. It was a kind of a rough phase for me since my PC was taken away but you know what? My Dad used to take me to his office on weekends and gave me permission to play for 3-4 hours on the PC which he moved from home to his office every Saturday! Those 3-4 hours were the most awesome moments of my life. Computer, in a way, had turned into my best friend. Of course I played a lot with my ‘real’ friends as well. But then thats a totally different story altogether. By 2008 I had decided to join Rockstar Games* as a Game Programmer.

e. Entrepreneur of a games company: This phase came pretty late to me. It was around 2008 i.e. in my 9th grade that my company’s now Co-Founder and President Prasad Kajarekar had come at my place to give some photos of a school trip to me. After finishing with the file transfer I showed him a game that I was fiddling with. The game was Grand Theft Auto: VIce City. Now by this time I had become a pretty hardcore gamer as well as a modder. I had modded Vice City and added a lot of cool stuff in it, changed a few scripts and had turned it into an entire new game. So I showed it to him and then what he said would later change my entire life for good. He said “If you can do this then why not make a game ourselves?” THAT was the instant of creation. It was a dream, a vision thrown right at me and I had the responsibility to catch it. But then as kids, we had no idea how we could achieve the same so we waited. Now I think that was something we shouldn’t have had done. I mean look at Warren Buffet! He started at the age of 16 and yet regrets that he should have had started earlier. I feel every Entrepreneur feels the same. And yes, this was a phase I most relate to Grand Theft Auto Vice City.

These were the 5 stages of my life. So by the end of my 10th grade I had already decided that I wanted to be an Entrepreneur. They say that follow your passion. So I did the same. I took up vocational studies in my 11th and 12th with Computer Science as a subject. I was never so good at other subjects as I was with Computer Science. I never really kinda scored high in other subjects ever. Even in SSC I secured 78.15% which btw in Mumbai is very tough to secure admission in colleges for vocational subjects but then I got a college in Malad for the same. I couldn’t find the college good so I burdened my Dad to change my college and then well, just after my 11th I changed my college. Which college? How? Why? Doesn’t matter now but it was a pretty tough phase for me since not getting something that you desired punches you right in your face and challenges you to get up and fight back! I literally felt like a burden to my parents at the time.

That was a phase where all my gaming interest was kinda lost. I was entering the ‘reality’ mode of life which is supposed to be: ‘Go by the rules, don’t drive too fast, don’t be too greedy’…. In short: ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t and some more don’ts’. It was kinda tough to enter this stage since a lot was changing so fast and it was no longer fun. Though I had got a field of my choice I was not so happy with the education system since I had to study Physics, Chemistry and Maths which according to my opinion should be optional subjects if you choose a vocational course. So I had to fight these nighmares of trigonometric functions, kinematic equations, molecular densities, etc. which really left me with no time for my passion. But by the end of my 12th grade I decided this will not continue! Before 12th was a pretty bad phase for me however things changed for good after that.

I decided to once again follow my passion and this time be specific about it. So I joined Maya Academy Of Advanced Cinematics(MAAC) to pursue a Diploma in Game Design and Intergration(DGDI) which till today I consider as my life’s best decision EVER! The faculty at the institute gave a significant boost to my confidence towards becoming a game developer and I met a lot of like minded people at this time. THIS was the time when I actually started with the idea of a games development company. So once again after almost 2 years me and Prasad met and planned out our moves. We had big dreams, a great idea, a fantastic vision but no road to walk on! We formed a team of 5 members and eventually people started liking the idea and me and Prasad became kind of ‘Rockstars'(how ironic considering my ‘Game Programmer’ phase*) in our institute. MAAC gave a really good platform to us and encouraged us to take seminars and also recruit people at a very young age of our life. I was 17 and we were already recruiting people as interns! It was a really amazing phase of my life.

Around January, 2012 we get this idea of developing a game on Kites. We were very enthusiastic about developing it and it was our very first game concept that we locked on after huge brain storming sessions. Now what I am about to write may destroy someone’s career so I won’t take his name however here’s how it goes:

We get this idea of developing a kite flying game and then I talk to my team members to get started on this. At that time I was not so experienced with game programming as such since I had programming experience but didn’t have GUI experience as such so I decided to delegate the responsibility to one of my fellow friends with whom I was pursuing my DGDI course at MAAC. To make a long story short here’s what happened: I trusted this guy with the project. He developed a basic game play of the game in almost 1 week. After that he stalled the work for 1 YEAR because of his selfish reasons which included making a short film, pursuing higher education abroad, etc. And let me tell you one thing I learnt about karma during this time. It actually works. The guy didn’t achieve anything with the short film, he was selected for the foreign university he applied but then his visa got rejected and then ultimately his stalling wasn’t working anymore. And we were fools to have not started another project without him since we had become dependant and blind with him. But then decisions have to be taken.

So I confronted him and told him to submit the code to me and I will work on it simultaneously with him to finish the game. Now this was in February, 2013 roughly. He even rejected the submission of code and then ultimately showed his true colors. He demanded money for the game code he had written and BELIEVE ME! THE GAME WAS NOT EVEN HALF COMPLETE! The mechanics were all wrong, no scoring system, it was lagging on even a Sony Xperia Play specs and a lot of bugs. Now I do realise that work should be compensated for and paid for but this was our very first product and if he would have continued with us he would have had been counted in as one of the CO-FOUNDING members. And I had to deal with this IMMEDIATELY without causing any further delays! All the art work was ready from 1 year! So I along with another of my trusted friend Prasad Thakur decided to write the game from scratch. We both together learnt the language in 2 days by working on it day and night and then developed the game WITHIN 2 weeks! It was a big ‘F**K YOU!’ to that guy. I will not be dishonest by saying good things about this guy and keeping my ‘relations good’. I am, till date, highly sad about the way he behaved and I hope karma does its work! Btw, the game’s name is ‘Kyte – Kite Flying Game’ and is available on the PlayStore for free! It has crossed more than 60,000 downloads and is ranked NUMBER 1 in the ‘Kite Flying Game’ search category!

So well, we wasted more than 1 year behind this guy to get our first product out in the market however this taught me a very big lesson: NEVER TRUST ANYONE! Anyways, after that part everything seemed to go on very well.

After that it was a great time for me. I was 19 and I had a registered company to my ownership, some really great friends who turned into my employees, one very awesome friend and co-founder Prasad Kajarekar and finally a road to success: Slog! In our initial days we did almost every IT thing just to earn ourselves revenue since we didn’t want to contaminate our games with ads. We were earning quite awesome by developing websites, android applications, etc. However there came this phase where we realised that THIS IS IT! If we want to be a games development company we should focus only on games. That was a turning point in our lives where we chose to break out of the fact that ads will ruin our games and we turned it into our advantage. So we implemented ads in our game and STOPPED all our other IT services. It was a really bold move since we had actually stopped all our income sources and banked ONLY on games now. The work that we had done in the past had gathered us a good amount of money that helped us survive our first year of business. We have entered our second year of business as of 19th April, 2014 and are becoming stronger and stronger each day.

Also would like to thank a very close friend of mine Victor Fernandes who is a web entrepreneur and is the same age as mine. He really taught me a lot of things. I still remember having a conversation with him at The Leela where he explained to me how much he earned during his startup times and related that to the sacrifices and calculations our parents make. That really taught me the importance of money and made me less careless.

It was in the month of April that Alok Sir called me up at Games2win office which proved to be yet another turning point in my life. I along with Prasad Kajarekar went there and we were really amazed to see the down to earth nature of Mr. Alok Kejriwal, the man who we had read about on blogs and other internet sources as being the opposite. However, after meeting Alok Sir, it was really heart warming to see him encourage us to be Entreprenuers and at first, quite frankly, we were scared that Alok Sir would threaten us since we are his competitors in the gaming space. But all was merry and we had a great time chatting with Alok Sir. He even showed us the Steve Jobs sketch that was gifted to him and offered us cold drinks. I was shivering with cold so he even turned the AC off and told ki “Consider this your home, don’t be scared to turn the AC off. I won’t eat you” Lol. These are minute details but they do make a lot of difference. I still remember the aroma of coffee all around his office and the typical ‘Mumbaiyya’ style that his office has! Just one word: AMAZING!

As a company we’ve come very far and have seen a lot of ups and downs in our lives. On a personal note entrepreneurship has taught me that to achieve something you always need to come out of your comfort zone and slog for it. Conditions will not always be favourable. You may fail 99% of the time but never lost hope for that 1%. It may or may not take time but surely your time will come. And it will go as well. Nothing is permanent. That’s it guys! If you have read this till here i wish to THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART for doing so. As like every other rodinhooder I regularly write here and you can check out my other articles:

Cricket Knockdown: Yet Another Cricket Game!
Box Cricket International 2014
Cricket and Nostalgia
Memtrix. A. Tough. Memory. Game.
Chor, Police, Paisa!

You can find me on:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/Nikhil.Malankar

Twitter: @nikhilking

Email: nikhil@gameeon.in / nikhil.malankar@gmail.com