Temple Siege puts Kerala talent on Fortnite map

Like any school kid, Sabal Krishna was fond of gaming. As a student at St Mary’s High School in Trivandrum, he played whenever he could and even tried to learn how to create a game, but there was no one to explain it to him.

He signed up for a BTech in computer science at St Thomas Institute for Science and Technology in 2021. Soon after, with a laptop of his own, he began discovering more games and experimenting with software such as Unreal Engine.

As a fan, he explored the possibility of making a career in gaming, but all he found were warnings about the lack of opportunities in India.

“Creating a game looked almost impossible, especially from here in Kerala,” Sabal recalls. “If you look at universally popular games like Grand Theft Auto (GTA), you’ll see many Indian names in the creative team. But they were all people living abroad.”

By the second year of his BTech, he had abandoned his dream of creating games and decided to focus on artificial intelligence (AI), the current hot career ticket.

But a series of events changed his course. By September 2025, Sabal had created a multiplayer game called Temple Siege on the Fortnite platform, and it was showcased at the Tokyo Game Show last week by his employer Tiltlabs.

The experience has made him confident that there is a future for people like him in gaming. His story is proof of what Indian youngsters can achieve when given the right pathway – a generation that, if given the chance, is willing to create products that can compete globally.

Lucrative market: India’s gaming industry has grown rapidly in recent years, dominated by mobile titles. The companies making the big money are mostly foreign – from the US, China, and South Korea. For these global players, India is a prized market projected to reach 8.74 billion US dollars by 2030.

Until recently, real money games drove much of this growth. But the government’s ban has reshaped the landscape, opening space for new types of games and fresh talent to find a foothold.

That shift matters. Across India, countless youngsters like Sabal have the creativity and capability to lead an Indian foray. Yet many are forced into safer career paths, leaving their potential untapped.

Sabal too might have gone that way as he was also looking to upskill on AI and programming, the two paths open for most students now.

Lightbulb Moment: He says his turning point came during an interaction with Deepu S Nath, chief volunteer at MuLearn, a peer learning group he joined for hands-on experience.

“We were driving back after dropping a friend at the airport when he asked me about my ambitions and future plans. First I said AI was my focus, but later admitted my real passion was game making, though there was no scope for that in India.”

Deepu’s response was blunt: “He rejected my claims straight away. His argument was that people with talent often take the easy way out by migrating to places where the ecosystem already exists. He lamented the fact that no one was taking up the challenge to create similar platforms in India.”

That conversation didn’t just challenge Sabal’s assumptions – it reframed the problem. Instead of asking, “Why isn’t there opportunity in India?” he began asking, “Why aren’t we creating that opportunity?”

Action Plan: The switch flipped. Sabal started a MuLearn subgroup for gaming, which evolved into Muplay.gg, attracting about 50 students at first and eventually swelling to over 800 members across Kerala and beyond.

It wasn’t just a chat group – it became a movement. With mentors like Nikhil Chandran, CEO of Tiltlabs, pitching in, the group drew in students from colleges and even gaming companies. Fragile though it was, an ecosystem began to take shape.

In early 2025, the group was chosen to represent India in the Global Game Jam, the world’s largest game creation event involving tens of thousands of participants worldwide.

Trial by Fire: For Sabal, the real grind began after graduation when Nikhil offered him space at Tiltlabs to hone his skills. The two had met through MuLearn events, and Sabal had come to see him as a mentor who gave both tough advice and steady encouragement.

Sabal accepted the offer in July, and true to form, Nikhil set him a challenge: to learn Verse, a new programming language tied to Unreal Engine Fortnite (UEFN). It was a complex tool, but one that offered tremendous potential well beyond gaming.

UEFN is democratising game creation, allowing developers and individuals to publish and monetise their work. Over 722 million US dollars has already been paid out to creators on UEFN.

Sabal was comfortable with Unreal Engine, but Verse was brand new. Tutorials were scarce, the documentation was dense, and everything had to be figured out step by step. Determined, he downloaded the program and learned through trial and error.

Pressure Builds: As he grappled with Verse, the Tiltlabs team planned a game called Temple Siege, a multiplayer title for the Fortnite platform. The theme: humans defending their temple against demons bent on ransacking it. Indian mythological elements and philosophy were woven into the design.

It was up to Sabal to bring it to life. “It took me about three weeks just to master the simple task of dividing players into two teams,” he says. “When I finally cracked it, I was jumping up and down like a little kid in the office.”

Once he got the hang of it, things moved quickly. Over the next two weeks, he poured every available second into the project, sometimes spending entire weekends in the office. “For me it wasn’t work. It was a challenge – and fun I enjoyed,” he says.

His efforts paid off when Temple Siege was completed in record time – compared to the months full-fledged teams usually take – and launched on UEFN just as Nikhil arrived in Japan for the Tokyo Game Show, where companies worldwide were showcasing their latest creations.

More Than A Game: Temple Siege may not yet be a blockbuster, but its creation carries a bigger message: India has the talent to build global games, as this youngster from Kerala proved. With a peer-learning platform and two mentors who encouraged not to give up, Sabal went from a disheartened gamer in Trivandrum to the driving force behind a title on one of the world’s most cutting-edge platforms.

With encouragement and support, more Sabals could be nurtured across India. But for that to happen, technical institutions must stop dismissing gaming as a “waste of time” and recognise it as a viable career path.

Sabal’s journey isn’t just his own – it’s a roadmap. With passion, some institutional backing, and the right kind of mentors, Kerala can set an example for the rest of the country.

The tools are available, the market is proven, and the talent is undeniable. What remains is the choice: will India remain a nation of consumers – or rise as a creator?

Street protest leads to internet forum

Internet campaigns spilling onto the streets has been a pattern in Asia recently, starting with Indonesia, and then Nepal. In the Philippines, it seems to be going the other way. Thousands of Filipinos took to the streets of Manila and across the country, calling out corruption in the Philippine government. Off the streets, a group of startup founders and developers have created an open-source platform called BetterGov.ph to make the government “more transparent, efficient and accessible to citizens.” UK-based entrepreneur Jason Torres launched the idea, and it now has 75 contributors and an active page on the Discord platform dealing with different areas.

Across in China, where the internet is closely monitored and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, officials are warning social media platforms against "undesirable trends". The Cyberspace Administration of China accused social media companies of “damaging the online ecosystem” and urged punishment to the erring officials. The regulator said they displayed “unhealthy content” on its hot search list and the top of its landing page, and featured “sensitive and malicious topics” related to cyberbullying and children’s privacy. Different countries, different strokes.

Officials yield to Kerala nutmeg farmer

Kerala was known for its spices, but its hold over produce like pepper and cardamom is weakening. The state, however, continues to be a stronghold when it comes to nutmeg. A problem planters faced was the fall in yield of this spice. Adimali-based farmer Pushkaran TM has been working on this, and he has developed a breed which addresses the problem. The Thottanal Jaathi he developed yields better petals and nuts, attracting 25-45 percent higher prices in the market. In December 2024, he was granted a patent from the central government, though he had applied for it back in November 2017. Some nuts are difficult to crack when it comes to government ways.

Nasa releases Nisar images

The first images taken by the Nisar satellite have been released, and Nasa says they offer a tantalising glimpse of the science the mission will deliver. The Nasa–Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite is a joint mission between the US and India, and Nasa says the images provide unique, actionable information to decision-makers in areas such as disaster response, infrastructure monitoring, and agricultural management. The Indian media still depends on Nasa for such press notes, and the pictures released were of areas in Maine and North Dakota. Our space officials are probably putting up files for the bosses, seeking permission to release similar pictures of areas in India.

Back to the future in Japan

It is not exactly The Truman Show, but close enough. The first batch of Japanese residents has been allowed into Woven City, a connectivity town created by Toyota. The project is aimed at accelerating real-world trials of next-generation technologies. It simulates a real-life urban environment where residents live alongside self-driving shuttles prowling the streets, 24-hour delivery bots, and homes that double up as data-harvesting smart labs. About 300 people, including Toyota employees and their families, are set to live there, with the number later expanding to 2,000 residents, reports Reuters. Tourists will be allowed in from 2026 – perfect if your dream holiday is to be monitored by AI while dodging cheerful delivery robots.