NINTH GRADER DEVELOPS 26/11 GAME

June 28, 2010

Shivam Gupta's game, Terror Attack - Project Fateh, was recently released by UTV Indiagames

Aalap Deboor

The terrorist attack on Mumbai's hotels in November, 2008 disturbed 14-year-old technology enthusiast Shivam Gupta just as much as it did anyone else. In his residence in Patna, Shivam began sketching a story on the event. "I'd found the plot for my way of asking people to stand up against terrorism," he says.

The ninth grader, has developed a game called Terror Attack - Project Fateh, the basic premise of which is shooting down terrorists at five-star hotels in the city. The young game designer has pulled this off in only about eight months despite having no formal education in computer programming. "At five, I taught myself 2D animation on Corel Wave and then moved on learn DarkBasic over the Internet," he says.

Facing hurdles

Shivam is also a self-taught web designer and special effects technicians. He's been sketching since the age of three, and loves to study computer in school. The boy suffers from a limb disorder called Klippel-TrenaunayWeber syndrome, and has been making frequent visits to Mumbai hospitals since he was four. This makes physical activities stressful for him. He has to brave constant body pain, hemihypertrophty and atrophy, and his nervous system is at risk too.

On one of his visits to the city last year, Shivam's father, DK Gupta, contacted UTV Indiagames. "They were impressed. Once the idea had been sanctioned, he kept the designers posted on sub-plots from Patna, and they helped with the development," says Gupta.

Time and action

Work began right away. "He used to dream about making games bur never knew how to go about it," he adds.

Back in Patna, Shivam faced enough hurdles. The Internet wouldn't work for hours on end and even the computer they own wasn't up-to-date either. "he's take two months to do the amount of work he does here in 10 days," says Gupta. Shivam would make it a point to go to the UTV Indiatimes office and brainstorm with the developers. Finally, the game was released on June 22.

The game can be played on the Games on Demand portal, and is also going to be put up on an individual portal for free download. "My earlier games were only for children With Project Fateh, I've tried to take the gameplay a notch higher." Ask him why he chose to call his game that, and shivam says, "Because I'm a proud Indian."

Next month, Shivam will be at a support clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he's going to meet other people with the same disorder. "There's a lot you can actually do if you set your mind to it," he signs off.