MADIBA Olivier is the founder of Kiro'o Games, the first video game studio in Cameroon (Africa). He is also a Gamedesigner / Screenwriter / Programmer of the first African-Fantasy RPG in the world: Aurion The Legacy of the Kori-Odan released on steam in 2016. Aurion started as an amateur project on RPG Maker in 2003. Today, the game is already in Hollywood pipes because of its quality of writing and staging. Madiba Olivier was even received by President Obama as part of the YALI program.
PS : The writer usually speaks French, so sorry for potential English mistakes.
Hello everybody,
So I will explain (with a lots of pictures) how we evolved from a simple amateur project in 2003 to the professional video game Action-RPG that you may already know. It's a long journey, take popcorn to discover the path of the Wallbreakers.
How the game evolved from 2003 to 2015
(trailer shownig the evolution there
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-SIwgGHqPg&t=3s
2003-2005 : Play with the cards you have, don’t cry those you don’t.
I just finished my high school at that time in Cameroon and I dream about making my perfect RPG one day at Square Enix. I tell myself that if I make a good game from Cameroon, one day they will discover me and they will hire me (The illusion of Drake ...).
Around me of course everyone laughed, I would even post on a french forum my idea of the perfect RPG that I will create one day (it looks like what FF15 was supposed to be)
http://www.jeuxvideo.com/forums/1-31-8247500-1-0-1-0-0.htm
I am on internet every day to search about gaming creation and then I discover RPG Maker. It’s a revelation: everyone can really make a game.
This was my shaolin temple for gamedesign for years !
I meet two friends (Dominique Yakan and Wouafo Hugues) and together we create our amateur game Aurion: the legacy of Enzo Koriodan, a big shonen RPG full of cliché with an "Afro Gokou", a prophecy and a choosen one (Erine) to save the world of a big demon.
We decided to focus on the staging, the programming and the scenario, ripping the drawings of the other games (thank you SNK, Capcom, and all the emulators of the world).
How to use graphics from others to start your game
The game creation never ended (stucked at 50%) But we already had a lot of ideas which survived in the actual game :
The Aurion was already linked to the ancestors.
Enzo could already merge the basic Aurions to have more.
We already wanted dynamism with QTE during the turn by turn gameplay.
The fighting cut-scenes at the beginning and ending of boss fight with “prorixyde flash logic” were the future !
You can see a old trailer there I made in 2006 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HUmiSMIZRE
One wall down and I can see another in the horizon…
2006 -2011 : Hard reality.
The hardest years of my life: repetitive academic failure, financial hell, I stagnate to have my bachelor degree in computer science in a depressive environment. I also understoodd that I will never get into Square Enix when I live in Africa and with a RPG Maker experience only... it seems I am already a total loser.
2008, I have a boost of combativity, with others friends I open my first startup MADIA in webdesign and this will teach me the basics of CEO life: men and project management and my basics in computer graphics.
I owe my psychological survival to the fact that I continue to work on Aurion every night when I back home and on week-ends. I'm going on RPG maker XP and I start to read about the Professional GameDesign process. It is also there that I decide that my gameplay will be one of the most dynamic ever created in 2D, and I start to create my engine the Astral Engine in overlay of RPG Maker XP.
I worked mostly to not become mediocre, I wanted my brain to remain active on something big, challenging to hold on in this psychological prison of lack of opportunities, corruptions etc.
2012 : The return of the Jedi… who see his father
At the beginning of the year 2012, MADIA is bankrupt (it's better today), I'm about to fail my life with style. But two things will put me back on the path of Gamedesign::
Kickstarter eldorado, and the new indie gaming scene with the digital publishing.
A press release about the studio Yager which spent 4 million dollars in the “entertainement of the team”.
I think that if someone give me those 4 million dollars, I can create an AAA in Africa and then I begin to simulate on excel how much I need ... miracle! the figures show that it can work!
All this year I worked like a crazy on Aurion via RPG Maker XP. I rewrited the script, the gameplay notebook, I designed and realized my engine and I seeked volunteers to make me at least Enzo and Erine in Pixel Art.
Aurion 0.5 Demo was done at 50% on my own script with no combat available
Without money no one wants (or can) works seriously, I think that with a non pro demo I may convince people in Kickstarter to give me $12,000. I start to make a demo for December 2012 to launch my Kickstarter campaign.
A trailer of this version is available there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP5-aA5C_xs
One wall down and I can see another in the horizon…
December 2012... The slap in my face. The demo is ready, I want to launch a $ 12,000 Kickstarter to create an amateur RPG that will show my potential (to find 4 million later). I sit in front of Kickstarter and there... the reality (again!). As a Cameroonian, I do not have the right to post a project on Kickstarter. The "new campaign" button was available all the year I never tried because I was sure it would not have been there if not working.
Depression, tears, bitterness. I was wondering "Am I designed by the gods to fail because I'm African?"
2013 : We are Diamond Dogs
You must know that I was born on 10 October (like Naruto), and I am a super Saint Seyia fan since my childhood. My team and I decided that we will "change this world or die trying." If the world does not give us an opportunity we will create it by force: We will open our studio in Africa.
We pre-recruited and trained artist and coders
in MADIA which became our Mother Base.
We exploited our demo (yes a demo on RPG Maker XP it was insane) to make conferences call for investment in Cameroon: 2 conferences organized in 2 months by 5 people. With the support of our Ministry of Culture which sponsorised them.
At the end of the conferences there was a little buzz in Cameroon, so we decided to make a professional game directly. After all, the Team Meat had less money and fewer people, we will not have any respect from the game industry if we release an amateur game with a team of 20 peoples.
Some local journalists at this time say that we are suffering from a "crisis of collective hysteria". Moreover, no international investment fund believes in us. So we decide to create our fundraising system ourselves.
The quest for financing in Africa is hardcore mode, in addition to having to reassure investors that your game will work; you must also reassure them that you are not a scam and that you will deliver it while your GameDesigner track record is blank.
