Nautilus Mobile is an independent mobile gaming studio founded in March, 2013 in Hyderabad, India. Their operations studio is currently based in Pune. At Nautilus, they have a small but efficient team, which allows them to be nimble, action-oriented, and decisive. Passion and Creativity are the most important characteristics that made them to be amongst the best in the country in the mobile gaming industry.
The primary concern of any gaming company should be the targeted audience and its users, and this is exactly how things are at Nautilus. The users of the company’s products are of utmost importance to them and they strive in order to deliver the products and features which they crave for.
At Nautilus, they offer the very best in terms of design, creativity, and efficiency. They are skilled with most modern game engines such as Cocos2d and Unity. The art team at Nautilus boasts excellent creative vision.
Award Winning Games
Nautilus’ very first project was a casual action RPG game called Song of Swords – this was greatly appreciated by the critics and won them the NASSCOM Game Developer Forum’s 2013 Indie Game of the Year Award.
Their next title is so far their biggest title Real Cricket™ – which is the world’s biggest cricket title on the mobile platform. The franchise has grossed over 16 million downloads and they are still counting. Real Cricket™ 16 is Editor’s Choice on the Apple iTunes Store, and the title on the Google Play Store has individually breached the 10 million downloads. Real Cricket™ won them the NASSCOM’s 2014 People’s Choice Game of the Year award.
The True Trailblazer
Anuj Mankar, the CEO & Creative Director of Nautilus, is a passionate gamer and has been since the age of 4. What initially started as a hobby and his favourite pastime eventually came into being a possible career option when he accidently stumbled upon an opportunity to work as a game tester in Mumbai at the age of 18.
Anuj worked with the company for a year and a half and recognized the scope in the Games industry when it comes to taking it up as a profession. To better equip himself, he decided to pick up a gaming related bachelors course and eventually graduated with a BSc. (Hons) degree in Computer Games Production from the University of Lincoln, UK in 2009.
Anuj was a producer of Gameloft, which won great fame in the Gaming industry and adding more feathers to his cap, he has also developed 2D titles such as N.O.V.A. and UNO for Amazon Kindle. Anuj is the one who designed the Premier Feature Phone Cricket title – Ultimate Cricket for Synqua Games along with over 10 other titles. He has led teams on projects from companies like NAMCO, Empire Interactive and worked on several other titles on handheld devices such as Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, etc.
According to Anuj’s opinion, to ensure efficiency in gaming, one must first equip themselves with a high calibre, passionate, and trustworthy team, which allows executing the projects thoroughly and decisively. Understanding the demands and dreams of the users is also of the utmost importance. Anuj always go by the saying- “make not what you want, make only what your users want.” It is very easy for independent gaming studios to get tangled up in their own ideas and their own desires, but I would always first focus on the needs of the target audience.
The Epic Chronicle
Started with a team of six, they have fast grown to a team of 17 budding and passionate members. The success of the Song of Swords, in 2013, kick started Nautilus’ voyage towards a victorious profile.
The Real Cricket™ 14 which quickly captured the imagination of cricket fans across the world and went on to be a huge commercial blockbuster. Real Cricket™ soon became and endures to be the most successful mobile cricket gaming franchise in the world. Along the way they have had significant branding partnerships with the likes of Royal Stag, Basking Robbins, MedPlus and more. Apart from these, they have also benefitted from development partnerships with industry’s big names such as Microsoft, Intel and Blackberry.
Nautilus Mobile is thereby one of the most notable mobile gaming studios in India, and is a household name on the Google Play and iTunes Store.
Moving Ahead With a Great Vision…
Nautilus has really never ever tried to be a service oriented business and hence they have not gone out and done projects for anyone else apart from themselves. They however, have had strategic development partnership with powerhouses such as Intel, Blackberry, and Microsoft.
“I think we have a great vision. Nobody can tell for sure if a game is going to make it big or not, that said having the correct understanding and vision can greatly eliminate risks to some extent and lead to more educated assumptions,” asserts Anuj.
Nautilus Mobile: The Epitome of Mobile Gaming
