Dubai's homegrown video games take centre stage at first ever Playtest Night

Dubai: The first ever playtest night organised by the Dubai Films and Games Commission (DFGC) was held in Dubai today (November 14), and brought together gamers from across Dubai to test out 10 games presented by nine Dubai-based studios.

Mariam Lootah, Executive – Talent Development at the Dubai Films and Games Commission said that the event offered a space where people can try out local games and see what’s fun.

“All these games are in development or may be have just been released and the developers are still making a few fixes,” Lootah said.

“Similar to how movies have test audiences, games have play testers. This is the same mechanic,” she added.

With this being the first ever playtest night, Lootah said the event allowed Dubai-based game developers, who may often be developing games as a passion project on the side, or at times may even be developing games full-time, to connect with the right audience.

“We’re trying to get them connected and get to know one another and also strengthen the gaming community as a whole. It's also a really nice way to bring together gamers with the game developers,” she added.

The playtest night saw 10 games from nine studios being play-tested, with a diverse range of games, from 2D and 3D games to those developed at different levels.

“Some of them are university level all the way up to festival levels, so we have a lot of variety here. We're also able to see a lot of the cultural aspect of games, with some of the games being made in Arabic and some including cultural aspects of the UAE and Dubai, in terms of the desert, small villages, or including the historical aspects in their stories,” Lootah added.

For Sheikha AlRemeithi, developer of ‘Arnoob’, the event offered her a chance to present her game to an audience and connect with other developers.

“The game is about a rabbit that lost his way home and you need to collect carrots on your way home,” the 29-year-old developer said.

While she has been working on the game on and off over the past year, while also working full-time, AlRemeithi said the event gave developers a chance to network.

“When you’re working solo, you need to manage your time between a full-time job, family responsibility, as well a hobby like game development. So, it's not an easy approach. But it's also fun at the same time because you test new ideas on a game, and try out new features,” she said.

She’s hoping to use the feedback at the event to improve the gaming experience, iron out any glitches and hopefully launch her game on Steam, a popular online gaming platform.

Lebanese game developer Ibrahim Hindawi, who was at the event with his game Sange, also felt like the feedback through such events can be critical for game developers to further fine-tune their concepts and user experiences.

“I’ve been working on the game for a year and a half. It’s a role-playing game so it’s a bit hard core but it has different talents, upgrades and procedural-level generation. Right now it has only one character, but I plan to add more characters and it has 50 levels. I'm really happy with it, and it's really good to get feedback on it from different players,” Hindawi said.

Talking about the type of feedback he received from gamers, he said: “Some people liked it and they thought it was engaging and addictive and they also liked the story. So that's cool. I think I just need to add a bit more impact and stuff like that and more content, but overall, the feedback has been good.”

Lubna Al Shamsi, who identified herself as a ‘mom gamer’ got into the world of game development just a year ago.

“It’s funny because I didn’t have a lot of gaming friends, so I just happened to go on Reddit and went on to different subs [discussion groups] just because it was a place where I could express my love for games. And I realised that there are a lot of solo developers. I didn’t know that was an option,” she said.

With no prior knowledge of computer languages or development, she decided to learn from scratch.

“I took lessons in Python language, which is the basis of the engine that I created the game in, and I took music lessons to know how to create digital compositions, because composing is one thing, but producing music for soundtrack is a different thing,” she said.

In the past year, she has developed ‘Saraab – Beyond the veil’, a visual novel and text-based games, with multiple endings, inspired by Arabian horror folklore.

“When I played games growing up, I felt that the games that touched my heart were the ones that had emotions in them, which people could relate to. So, I wanted to create a game that is meant to make people feel less alone,” she said.

The game follows the journey of a female protagonist trying to find her lost brother and begins to experience paranormal events, with the results of the game varying, depending on who the protagonist chooses to listen to – her spirit guide or her ego.

The play-test, Al Shamsi said, gave her a helpful opportunity to interact with gamers and see how they engage with the game.

Emirati developers Ahmed Alzaabi, 31, and Mansour Alahbabi, 23, were showcasing two of their games at the event and are hoping to use the feedback they receive to soon launch their first game ‘Oops, no floor’, which is the journey of a robot trying to escape a factory, while a machine begins dismantling the floors.

“We have been developing this for the past four to five months. We also have ‘The Last Exhibition’, which is a different genre – it’s a survival horror game,” Alzaabi said.

While the two developers expect ‘Oops, no floor’ to be ready for launch in two months, they expect their second game to take another year of development work.

For Alahbabi, events like these help put the spotlight on locally produced games, something that helps gamers with a chance to learn more about what is being developed and engage with the games.

Speaking about his journey into game development, Alahbabi said: “I developed a game in university called Pixel Dash two years ago, it was a basic 2D game. But then I got to know Ahmen and we started working together. While normally gamers may not engage as much with local games being developed, events like these help get more people to learn about locally produced games.”

Emirati Jamal Najib Al-Khaja, 41, has seen the surge in interest over the past few years in the gaming industry within Dubai and says that while as a young boy he always wanted to develop a game of his own, it wasn’t until more recently that the dream was actualised.

During the pandemic, Al-Khaja said he took a break from work and after his sister shared a brochure of a game development course with him, he decided to give it a shot.

“I honestly sent the college an email just out of curiosity,” he said.

Five years down the line, Dark Innings is his capstone project for the Game Development degree he is taking from SAE University College Dubai, working as the lead designer.

Looking back at how the industry has become not just a big focus but also financially more viable as a career option, Al-Khaja said: “In a way, I'm kind of shocked because it has very quickly become big in the region, and I'm happy about it. That’s also made me feel like I have to be more serious about it.”

However, Al-khaja also spoke about how the experience of developing games can be difficult, with long hours of work, often done solo. This is why he felt that events like the Playtest night can play a critical role for developers, not just to get feedback on their games but also connect with their future audience.

“Game development is extremely demanding and very hard, and so many a times while you’re working on developing a game you start wondering why you’re doing it. But then when you finish the project, or even release it mid-development or come to events like these and see people testing it, and you get feedback, you realise that you’ve got something here. This helps you push yourself harder and get that satisfaction when you see people testing your game,” he added.