A mobile gaming app joins hands with the cricket legend to make you feel like you've stepped into his shoes. The game recreates moments from 108 of his finest matches
Not many cricket enthusiasts might be aware that Sachin Tendulkar was carrying an onion in his pocket while playing a match at Sharjah. His grandmother advised him to do so because the temperature was over 46 degrees, and an onion is known to help absorb body heat, preventing the person from suffering a sunstroke. This is one of the many interesting trivia that you'll learn when you play the Sachin Saga Cricket Champions, a new mobile-based gaming application for iOS and Android users that launches on December 7.
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The team flew down to the UK to motion capture 28 of Sachin's top shots. The game to 18 months to develop
Developed by JetSynthesys, a digital gaming company that also created the Being SalMan game last year, it's the first gaming application to have collaborated with the cricket legend. "Cricket as a genre is the second most popular in the digital gaming space after social casino. So, the idea was to join hands with Sachin and find a way for gamers to feel the power of playing as one of the most accomplished cricketers of all time," says Rajan R Navani, vice-chairman and managing Director, Jetline Group of Companies, and head of JetSynthesys. Navani and his team spent 18 months identifying 108 best innings of Tendulkar from the time he was 16 years old to the end of career and, recreated the digital version of those games including the stadium in which they were played, the condition of the pitch at the time and the players. "We culled out 108 matches in order to collect two-months worth of content, and plan to increase difficulty levels in the future by adding more detail, depending on the completion of the initial content. We wanted to pick games that Sachin suggested and given the length, progression and game time content, 108 was a realistic number," explains Navani.
The team also flew down to the UK to motion capture 28 of his top shots. "This actually happens in very high-end console games globally, but, we wanted to bring the experience to the smartphone. So, when you hit a cover drive, you will hit it exactly the way Sachin would," he says. Navani, who spearheaded the initiative from start to finish, says the process gave him an insight into Sachin's sporting career which he would have otherwise never known. "During our brainstorming sessions, we realised the impact of seemingly inconsequential things like dew on the ball, timing of the day and the effect of the wind," he says. The game, therefore, includes nuances like the wrist angle, bounce, pitch, swing, spin of every delivery, and even the shadows of the players. "In fact, if Sachin found it tough to play a certain match, as a gamer, you will face the same difficulty levels."
Rajan R Navani, vice chairman and managing director, Jetline Group of Companies
The effort is also to popularise cricket as a global sport. Navani says, "Of course, in India it's a religion. But if you see overseas, besides the UK, Australia and New Zealand, not many other countries are into the sport. We want to cash in on the gaming community in the US, Japan, China and Korea and take cricket to the world."
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