Kapih blends Indian language, art, and folklore into a retro-inspired love letter to 16-bit, run-and-gun games

Kapih’s debut trailer is a densely packed reveal, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it left viewers with a laundry list of questions. Most of it is easy to digest—the run-and-gun action, platforming, and on-rails, shoot ‘em up levels are instantly recognizable to fans of those genres—but there are plenty of elements that may not be familiar to those who live outside South Asia or aren’t part of the Indian diaspora. 

Despite falling into that latter group, I admittedly had a few questions of my own. In the past decade, international game development has taken off like a rocket, and while heavy hitters like Estonia’s Disco Elysium and China’s Marvel Rivals have taken the world by storm, only a handful of titles from India (such as Nodding Heads Games’ Raji) have found an audience abroad. With plenty of burning questions, we sat down with 88 Games to learn more about the team’s debut title. 

“Kapih is a classic, retro platformer, run-and-gun game,” explained Game Director Shiben Bhattacharjee. “In a world of very complex game mechanics, we offer something very simple which can be played with your friends in couch co-op.” 

It’s a familiar-enough setup, and one that’s well-suited for a newfound studio’s first game. Bengaluru-based 88 Games is an offshoot of the similarly named media company 88 Pictures, and while most of the team have experience working at Zynga and other studios in the area, its nexus is very much rooted in 88 Pictures’ work in animation. Bhattacharjee has been credited on a handful of DreamWorks films, from Penguins of Madagascar to How to Train Your Dragon 2. 

At first glance, Kapih resembles other retro-style games from recent years. Although Cuphead certainly played a role in inspiring the team (during our chat, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to bust out the Frankenstein’d name ‘Kapih-head’) I was surprised to hear that a much older, oft-forgotten game lies at the center of Kapih’s DNA. 

“So, Contra: Hard Corps is the main source of inspiration,” Bhattacharjee said, noting the shared focus on run-and-gun gameplay, local co-op, the ability to aim and shoot in eight directions, and each game’s two protagonists, one male and one female. 

Several Kapih developers, from technical artists to designers, have an undying love for the 16-bit era, which was shaped by the country’s uneven access to gaming hardware. Between a lack of interest from major publishers and financial hurdles with regional pricing and import tariffs, several landmark gaming consoles from the 8- and 16-bit eras were either never made available in India or were sold for exorbitantly high prices. As a result, gaming never took off the same way it did abroad.

Of course, the landscape has radically evolved in the decades since. With the country’s booming population, not to mention the rise of PC and mobile gaming, 88 Games saw the opportunity to make a distinctly Indian game, one that could appeal not only to Indian gamers but to a global audience who might not be as familiar with the culture. This is on full display in Kapih’s announcement trailer, which is voiced in Sanskrit. 

As Bhattacharjee recalled, the team decided to record the entire game in Sanskrit—which, like Latin, is typically only used in religious practices—to keep things authentic and retro. 

“We are going for an ancient Indian art style. We are going for retro mechanics. The music is going to be classical Indian,” he said. “Everything was old, retro, and nostalgic, and we thought to ourselves, ‘What do we do about the language? Should we invent an Elvish-type of language?’ And then we thought: ‘You know what? Let’s do a Minions-style gibberish.’ Then we were like, ‘What the hell, let’s just go with Sanskrit. It will sound like gibberish to most, but at the same time, it will be authentic!’” 

Of course, this was easier said than done. Outside of academia, nobody speaks Sanskrit on a day-to-day basis, so the team brought in Sanskrit experts and leveraged online tools to finalize the game’s script and record voiceover work. 

“Now, these voice actors, they also don't know the language, right? So we needed someone sitting there who could explain each and every word to the voice talent, so that they can do the right inflections at the right time,” Bhattacharjee said. “We had a Sanskrit scholar sitting in the audio booth, wearing headphones, and they were constantly telling the voice actor, ‘This means this. That means that. Make a pause here. Say this word loudly.’”  

It’s an elaborate process considering virtually everyone who plays Kapih won’t be able to verify the accuracy of the voiceovers, but to the team, it was time well spent. 

“The person listening to it might not know if inflections and pronunciations are right or not,” he said. “But we felt that we should do it the right way. And there’s a certain satisfaction with doing things the right way.”

This same design philosophy can also be seen in Kapih’s visuals, which draw from a variety of ancient Indian art styles: Kalamkari textile artwork, Thanjavur and Madhubani paintings, and Warli tribal art, just to name a few. The decision to merge these distinct styles came through trial and error as the team worked to find art styles that would translate across the foreground and background layers of Kapih’s levels. 

“So if you take a look at Madhubani, Kalamkari, Mysore and Tanjore paintings, Kerala murals, and some of the tribal art styles like Gond and Warli, there is something common,” Bhattacharjee said. “There are no low-detail, low-frequency areas across the entire image, right? The entire image is highly detailed; it’s constantly changing.” 

While a specific art style might work well for enemies and environment art in the traversable foreground layer, that same style might not mesh well when it’s scrolling across background elements. Drawing comparisons to classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Bhattacharjee broke down how the dark, black outlines often employed in 2D animation don’t always work well when placed further away from the screen. 

“With [something like] Mysore or Tanjore paintings, we noticed that without those outlines, the art style is not there. It’s a very important part of the art style, as the outline is what defines the shape. So now, if in the background elements, I have to put outlines, I’m going to land in trouble,” he explained, referencing how these elements are hard to parse when the screen scrolls left and right. 

“If I put a depth of field [effect], that just looks bad; you know, you have black outlines that are blurry. I can reduce the saturation, I can try other things, but those outlines are not going away. They’re part of the art style, right? And so, if we try to stick to one specific art style, the player might like it for the first five seconds, but after that, they’ll probably get a headache, right? That’s why we made the decision that, instead of sticking to one thing, it’s actually more fun to create something new.” And thus, Kapih’s unique, hybrid art style was born. 

We’ve only scratched the surface of Kapih’s Indian roots. Its story, for instance, is based on the Ramayana, one of Hinduism’s most important texts, and the soundtrack features several classical Indian instruments such as tabla, sitar, dholak, bansuri, and veena. The 88 Games team is enthusiastic about bringing these lesser-known aspects of India’s culture to the world, but the undying love for retro run-and-gun games is very much at the heart of Kapih’s development. 

“This genre is so timeless and so classic,” Bhattacharjee said. “Even India cares about this genre so much. It’s so loved and it’s so close to everyone’s heart that it must be passed onto the next generation. So play it with your little brother. Play it with your wife. Play it with your husband. Play it with your kids, especially.” 

Kapih will be available on the Epic Games Store later this year.