INTERVIEW: Decoy Games swims to big milestone
Photo: Swimsanity!, developed by Decoy Games, features Crystal Caverns Worm. Image courtesy of Decoy Games / Provided by press kit with permission.
Finding success in the ultra-competitive world of gaming has been a longtime dream for brothers Ahmed Abdullah and Khalil Abdullah, and in 2019, their hard work paid off. In many ways, one can say their professional careers are going just swimmingly.
Ahmed and Khalil are the developers of a new game called Swimsanity!, available now on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Steam. According to press notes, the game is a multiplayer underwater shooter with action-packed co-op and versus game modes. The hero of Swimsanity! is Mooba, and he teams up friends on different adventures (although sometimes it’s just Last Mooba Standing, another game mode).
The brothers joined creative forces with visual artist Chris Venne for Swimsanity!, and their collective efforts have resulted in many positive outcomes. The debut title from Decoy Games won PC/Console Game of the Year at Playcrafting’s third-annual Bit Awards, and they recently launched the game at the flagship Microsoft store in New York City.
This year of highlights has been a long time in the making.
“We’ve literally been playing games since we were like 3 years old,” Khalil said in a recent joint interview alongside his brother. “My mom got us into actual gaming, so just from a hobby standpoint, it’s always been something we’ve done. It’s really been probably our biggest hobby since we were young. … When I even got into college, I always knew I wanted to be in the gaming industry, even though I didn’t quite know how to get into it.”
Khalil and Ahmed both attended UMass Amherst. Khalil began by studying computer science because gaming wasn’t a program option, but he was feeling anxious by his senior year because the gaming world was calling him.
“I was kind of disappointed because I wasn’t really finding anything that was educating me in the career that I actually wanted to get into, so it didn’t seem possible until there was a random out-there class that I found that taught Flash development,” he said. “And for one of the midterms they had you make a little casual game, and back then I made my very first game for my midterm. And I got real excited for it because, like I said, this was the thing I always wanted to do.”
This early beta version of the game eventually gained some word of mouth amongst other students. Khalil left the game on the computers in between classes, and he would come in the next day and find other students checking out his work.
“I was like, maybe I kind of created something; maybe I can do this,” Khalil said. “And at the time Ahmed was a junior, and he was kind of seeing this, too. And when he saw it, he started to have conversations with me, and he’s like, ‘After we graduate, let’s just literally dive all in. Let’s see what we can do to get a game to a console and just take it from there.’ And literally once Ahmed graduated, we just went all in. Since we couldn’t get the education that we wanted to at the school we went to, we literally just self-taught through YouTube videos and Googling, and we essentially YouTube’d ourselves into where we are now nine years later.”
Those online tutorials taught the brothers how to get into gaming, how the gaming business works and what the technical requirements would be. They grew together as business partners and learned the industry’s ins and outs.
“It’s been really great from the beginning, to be honest,” Ahmed said. “And all the reactions seem to be very positive, and even as we went through the journey, we definitely were rejected a lot. … Then eventually as we kept pushing forward and improving the game, we were able to have success.”
Khalil said he’s excited that the great risk they took several years ago has started to pay dividends. They never hit the pause button and never looked back. Since those early days, they have been pounding the pavement, working tirelessly and developing, promoting and selling their ideas to anyone who will listen.
“Sometimes as much as we probably should, we don’t really stop and take it in and be like, this is where we are right now, but it never gets old,” Khalil said. “It’s strange looking at some of the videos and being like, wow, that just happened. These people are talking about the game, so honestly that part of it keeps us going.”
The launch event at Microsoft was extra special, Ahmed said. They received a good-sized crowd of people, who were able to enjoy Swimsanity! on 10 high-powered PCs running the game online. These machines were set up for Swimsanity’s one-on-one “Death Match” mode. There were also four Xbox consoles that allowed four-player co-op mode and four-player versus mode. They also tried out a few new twists for dedicates gamers and kickstarted a few tournaments for those who wanted to go deeper.
“So we like to bring fresh things to people who might have played the game before, and then anyone that’s seeing it for the first time could see all the versatility and modes and ways you can play the game,” Ahmed said. “So shout out to the Microsoft flagship store for hosting us. It was a great event. It was a great way to have a little celebration at the end of the year after grinding so hard and being able to give back to the fans and let them enjoy it.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Decoy Games, co-founded by Khalil Abdullah and Ahmed Abdullah, recently released Swimsanity! on several consoles. Click here for more information.
