Chain of Games II – Ep. 1: Ahmed Khalifa

Hello and welcome back to the Chain of Games project!

If you need a reminder, here is the pitch: I ask one game creator to talk about one game that inspire them. Then, the next week I ask the creator of that game, and so on so forth. If you need more information, read the first blog post about it.

The first chain was a great success, I got to talk to cool peoples and learn about interesting games I didn’t knew. Here is a recap of the chain:

1. Taylor McCue
2. Lena NW
3. Cassie McQuater
4. Everest Pipkin

But then, I hit a wall: I couldn’t get an answer from the next people in line. Which is fine, some people are too busy to answer my silly questions. But I wondered: what to do in this situation. Well, after asking people on Twitter, I realized the best choice was: start all over again, and make a new chain.

So, for the first entry in the Chain of Games II, we welcome Ahmed Khalifa, game maker and AI Researcher, creator of countless web games and mobile games such as Atomic+ or C-Square. I asked him to talk about an indie game that inspired him, here is his answer…

IguaRPG (2023)

IguaRPG by Hubol is one of the best amazing games out there. The game is inspired by Oddwarg Animal RPG which is an older GameMaker game that was released in 2003 (it is still playable but the accessibility of the game is not great). IguaRPG addressed the accessibility issues from the original Oddwarg and utilized the formula to its full extend, it is kinda like encapsulated metroidvania RPG game similar to Castlevania Symphony of the Moon with less backtracking.

The game world expands into multiple different areas with a boss fights that locks it from the next one, solving puzzles and skill is needed to get access to the boss battle. The boss battles are very different from each other with interesting different phases and patterns that you need to learn to defeat it. IguaRPG is an incredible short metroidvania that will make you smile all the time and surprises you with interesting twists and puzzles.

Thanks a lot to Ahmed! You can follow him on Twitter or check out his website.

Next episode: Hubol