Father of Iron may initially sound like something out of a c-rated wrestling movie; there’s definitely something to be said for the concept “lost in translation. Abu Hadid, its Arabic-rendered counterpart, doesn’t in fact involve Hulk Hogan or any other aging barrel-backed performer, chunking his way through blown-out cars. It is, in fact, the new, and indeed the only, Egyptian computer game, the cyber-child of the young company Khayal Entertainment.
Sitting opposite me is Ahmed Deeb, one of the game’s creators and co-founder of the company alongside Ahmed Saby and Mustafa Ashour. A bright, bespectacled computer programmer, Deeb doesn’t give the impression he has a taste for mindless shoot’em-ups; he looks like he’d rather be tapping away deciphering complex puzzles.
“I don’t tend to play games for the sake of playing, Deeb told Daily News Egypt, “I’m more interested in how the game is designed.
So what inspired Deeb and his partners to develop a distinctly Egyptian computer game?
“We were computer engineers, but we wanted to break into in the gaming industry. For a startup company to create a computer game is very difficult, he said. “We didn’t want to compete with older gaming companies, whose funding and resources would far outstrip our own.
So, to find a niche in the market, Deeb and his partners went native.
The story of Abu Hadid follows the conventional Egyptian tragi-comic hero. The victim of unfortunate circumstance, the 3-D adventurer finds that a friend of his has been brutally beaten, and with characteristic Egyptian pride, he sets out to take his revenge. But, unfortunately for Abu Hadid, he finds his opponents are a merciless mountain gang with whom he must battle through 10 levels until he meets the big boss himself, the fearsome Abu Douma.
“He’s not exactly a smart protagonist, Deeb explained. “He’s always going the wrong way, for example. It’s partly to water down the violence, and partly because Egyptians love comedy. You’ll find that it’s always comedies that perform the best at the box-office.
The game was originally set to be based on the hugely popular comedy blockbuster “Booha starring Mohamed Saad, and in fact there is a striking resemblance in both story and character.
“When we were first starting out, we thought that as we are trying to build a nonexistent industry here in Egypt, why not try to make a coupling between our infant industry and the movie industry that is already well established and running stable?
This is, as Deeb explained, a strategy often adopted in the US, which has seen a fair few successful games launched onto the market as interactive quasi-sequels to a successful film.
However, the makers of “Abu Hadid, despite receiving initial interest in the project, were left disappointed. When the final blow came with the producers of “Booha pulling out of the enterprise altogether, “Abu Hadid was almost finished.
“It was unthinkable, said Deeb, “to thwart the project. So we consulted legal consultants, and were informed that if we did not use the actors’ voices, photographs or the name “Booha, we were not violating anybody’s rights.
Thus Abu Hadid was borne, indeed an unfortunate victim of circumstance, as the game lost a considerable amount of media hype and attention with the loss of the “Booha factor.
Yet, Abu Hadid isn’t doing too badly. Their sponsors are Internet providers TE Data and Intel. In fact, it was Intel who approached Khayal when they heard about the project. The company founders appeared on national television, and the demo version, recently released on their website, is downloaded 300-500 times every day. After acquiring a copy for a test drive, I found myself glued to the computer screen for hours. The last computer game I have played was ‘Lemmings’, those odd little creatures that made a squelch and a shriek as you lead them into a slime-filled valley – great for the more morbid among us. But, my excitement was cut short, as I was cruelly hijacked by two friends who, on seeing the game beside the computer, promptly spent the rest of the evening engrossed.
“It’s not a difficult game, my friend told me, “It’s a light mix between a shoot’em’up with a touch of strategy. You don’t need any serious mental dedication, but it’s fun, and I give it full credit for being the first Egyptian video game.
Despite the game’s very modest budget – a mere LE 1 million compared with $2 or 3 million, the average expenditure of an American game – Deeb and his colleagues have paid full attention to detail. Everything, from the language, to the geography, to the transport, to the energy points, to the self-deprecating absurd humor, is unmistakably Egyptian.
Abu Hadid’s exploits take him through the Egyptian countryside, along the ter’a (canals), through the Cairo Stadium and up into the notorious mountains of Southern Egypt, a haven for criminals on the run. His vehicles include those recalcitrant Egyptian microbuses, easily identified by their oft-exposed engines, and a donkey armed with a khartousha (bb gun).
As for his weapons, players can choose between the singa (short sword), nibla (catapult), shouma (a quarterstaff) and satour (butcher’s knife).
When Abu Hadid gets low on energy, he eats fuul (beans). When he makes a wrong turning and heads into the canal, he gets Bilharzias, and has to make a quest to find life-saving Bilharzias pills.
Khayal cleverly brought in an amusing political reference to accompany the protagonists plight. “Abu Hadid has to go to the tamargy (male nurse), in the local village healthcare center to fetch the pills. To obtain the pills, he has to bribe the medic. But when he gets hold of them, he finds they only work for 40 seconds, Deeb said. It’s the type of situation that cues the utterance, “inta akeed fi Masr! (You’re in Egypt indeed!).
Another phenomenon which cues that same phrase is the prolific illegal copying that plagues both the film and gaming industries. There’s nothing like a spot of piracy to jar a burgeoning success. But Khayal has priced Abu Hadid at LE 50 as opposed to the LE 300-plus of original international games, hoping to nip this in the bud. And, although their current distribution network is limited, available at HyperOne and CompuMe, Khayal considers Abu Hadid’s success so far a triumph for all those who worked on the project.
As for its players? Well, I can wholeheartedly attest that you’ll never look at your butchers the same way again.
