Shasn: Azadi Creator Zain Memon on the Journey From VR and Feature Films to Board Games and Esports in India

In a world of increasing emergence of digital entertainment, Mumbai-based Memesys Culture Labs has its eyes set on delivering a vast range of experiences with its innovations in VR and feature films, but more surprisingly, board games. The studio’s recent venture Shasn: Azadi, a politically driven strategy board game, passed its funding goal less than 24 hours after going live on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. Azadi is a standalone expansion to Memesys’ first board game, Shasn, which was released last year to critical acclaim.

IGN India had a chance to talk to Zain Memon, Memesys’ co-founder, about the studio’s ambitions for Shasn: Azadi and beyond, which for starters has ignited a renewed interest in tabletop games for many in India.

“In 2019, Shasn launched on Kickstarter to great success, becoming not only the largest ever Kickstarter campaign, but also the largest ever Indian crowdfunding campaign,” says Memon.

“Since then, it has been the driving force in establishing the board gaming scene in India, and has even carved out a space for itself in mainstream culture. Players around the country have adopted it with glowing reviews, and have appreciated the game’s politicking, intrigue, and strategizing. Shasn has also served as an entry point for many first time players into tabletop games, and helped kickstart the hobby in India again. Every weekend, we see an increasing number of people across ages playing and enjoying Shasn with their friends.”

Why tabletop games? Given that both Shasn and Shasn: Azadi can deal with potentially heated topics, Memon says that tabletop games were the ideal medium to explore themes in a “safe, low-stakes environment for players to have fun, take risks, and explore their beliefs.”

“Shasn was built to make politics fun and engaging for as many people as possible,” he says.

“This often makes for hilarious moments, as players compromise on their ideas in order to get ahead and hold positions they never would otherwise. In the words of one of our playtesters, “your right-wing friends will be raising taxes and your left-wing friends will be screwing over unions in no time”. We’ve also seen a number of arguments break out, where players have discovered the leanings of their friends and family. However, players have overwhelmingly enjoyed roleplaying different beliefs and engaging with real-world issues in a way that is fun and productive.”

Aside from board games, Memesys Culture Labs is also known for its work in co-producing acclaimed films like An Insignificant Man and Ship of Theseus, both of which were directed by the studio’s founder, Anand Gandhi. Memesys Studio also produced the recently released Disney+ Hotstar show, OK Computer, with Gandhi serving as a writer on the series exploring themes of moral and ethical implications for artificial intelligence through a humorous lens.

With a history of work in film and VR, Memesys aims to establish an identity that echoes beyond the confines of traditional media, with an upcoming project centred around esports.

“At Memesys Studios, we first identify the most important stories that we want to tell, and then figure out the best medium to tell that story,” says Memon.

“This has resulted in ambitious ventures across film, VR, AR, and now, board games. Most of us have grown up playing video games, and hold a deep reverence for the immerse, narrative potential of the medium. We would absolutely love to build video games down the line and have already been developing concepts for the same. One of our upcoming projects is also set in the high-octane, explosive new world of esports!”

While there have been many games in the past which tried to combine the passive experience of cinema with the interactive mechanics of games (e.g Erica), Memon knows that both mediums offer unique storytelling opportunities that may not mix well with each other. “Narrative experiences play out very differently in cinema and games – in the former, the viewer is a spectator, but in the latter, the player is an interactive co-creator,” he says.

“Our lifelong fascination with games and stories helped translate our experience from film to board games quite readily. Even while creating both Shasn and Azadi, one of our core game design principles was ‘follow the story’ – to craft mechanics and systems effectively that tell the story that we want, and hit the right highs and lows.”

On the topic of Shasn: Azadi, we had to ask how accessible the game is going to be for novices to the tabletop genre. With Shasn, the objective was simple – defeat other players and win the most votes from the constituencies on the board. Azadi, on the other hand, is a different experience.

“Shasn was a purely zero sum game,” says Memon.

“The benefit of one player meant a loss incurred by another. On the other hand, Azadi is a semi-cooperative game where players must work together to defeat a common enemy – the dangerous Imperials – and liberate their country. Players must take the Imperials on by resolving Azadi Cards – where they get to dissent against the Imperials, make meaningful choices about their revolution, and unlock new Resistance tactics to fuel their revolution. As their revolution grows, so does their nation, with players adding new zones to Azadi’s modular map. As they progress through the game, players will amass Glory and Legacy, and build Monuments to unlock new powers. Once they manage to gain Azadi, if they manage to gain Azadi, they will compete with each other to be elected as the first leader of their new nation.”

Shasn: Azadi will launch with four political campaigns – the American Revolution 1776, Russian Revolution 1917, South Asian Independence 1947, and the Egyptian Revolution 2011. Each of these campaigns will come with their own unique ‘Azadi cards’, which pits players against each other in interesting situations to explore alternate histories. Of these, Memon gives us a taste of what to expect from the unique sets of questions the game will impose on players.

“Instead of marching to defy the salt tax, what if you could challenge the British Raj to a Cricket match? How would your nation look if it were liberated by guerilla warfare, rather than civil disobedience? Azadi gives players the freedom to decide how they want to lead their revolution. And the choices they make will have lasting consequences for their nation, and their game.”

Shasn: Essential Edition is now available for Rs. 1,999 on the game’s official website.

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