Babylonian Twins: game built in Iraq 16 years ago finally about to be released | Hacker News Reader

Babylonian Twins: game built in Iraq 16 years ago finally about to be released

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89 pointswaleedka17 comments

Background story: this game was built for the Amiga by my friend, Rabah, when we were in college in Iraq. He brought together a team of a graphics designer and a music composer and they built an amazing product, but they couldn't sell it due to the economic sanctions on Iraq at the time. Then the Amiga just died after that and the game basically went no where. It was a sad story of a dream that didn't materialize. But now after all these years, Rabah brought the team back together along with new members to port it to the iPhone. More details here: http://babyloniantwins.com/background/

Thanks Waleed for sharing the story. It has been a long time. Looking back at the old days of hacking software under the sanctions in Baghdad and how our small group was keeping the spirit high with all the sufferings and the lack of infrastructure, it was amazing. Every few months we used to get a photocopy of Byte magazine and/or CGW and circulate it among ourselves and then discuss and analyze every peace in it, that's was our source of energy. Also, I won't forgot when you learned Prolog and wrote a complete class scheduling software on paper when we were without electricity after the first gulf war. For those interested in the history of Babylonian Twins, you can also check http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwshihab_en.p...

Paper hacking. Respect!

Are you guys still back in Iraq or are you expats now?

Congrats on the game, akh raba7, looks good :-)

Thanks. The team reunited from three countries for the iPhone game: Canada, US and Australia.

If you liked that story, you'll probably find this one interesting: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/warajevo/Story.html

It's a story about the development of ZX Spectrum emulator during the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s (very poor conditions, similar to those Iraqi guys experienced).

Outrageously cool. Out of curiosity, did you guys also participate in the Amiga demoscene back then?

At that time, we were not allowed to travel outside Iraq, we did not have Internet or other means of communication with the outside world. Actually, even having a printer or sending a fax (especially in English) required certain process and security clearance. So the answer is no, we were isolated. The game was sitting on my floppy drive and then on all the hard drives of all the computers I owned. Actually, even the graphics artist did not have a copy and did not have the chance to play the game. We were doing all the development on one Amiga 500 machine (500kb, no HD and connected to a TV) at my house. To add do that, it was even difficult to communicate with game publishers and send them a demo of the game. Even when we were successful in sending the demo, the feedback we receive was often negative because they can not deal with Iraq due to the economic sanctions.

Considering all that, the fact that you guys were able to produce any game is nothing short of amazing, but that you put together a game that still looks fun and interesting to play 16 years later is absolutely astounding.

Having spent some time in Iraq during the recent "situation" from 2006-2007, I really look forward to playing this and seeing your home country reflected in a positive and proud light.

it certainly makes me feel that my long distance phone charges to Finland in the late 80s and early 90s to download games and demos at 2400bps seem like not such a big deal in retrospect

You guys are inspiring.

Thanks, you are actually right. Reuniting the team after all these years and building a product with this quality was not easy, especially that the graphics artist is now an architect and the musician is a medical doctor. Also, as a father of two and with a full-time job, I have different set of challenges. I started working on this project after hours and on weekends back in May last year, I was sleeping around 4am almost daily. Then I took a risky unpaid leave in October to work full time, I am now sleeping at 6:30am on average. I was also lucky to have a strong team working with me on this project.

Wow, the game says "Babylon" in some many ways. If you heard 1.5 seconds of the sound track you would immediately know it's from Iraq.

Are there any plans to release this game for other smartphone platforms, such as Android?

We are thinking about Android, not sure however if we can achieve the same smooth performance with the Android NDK. We also have strong demand for a PSN/PSP from Amiga fans in Europe. I guess all that will depend on the outcome of the iPhone release.

For those unaware, the Amiga was an extremely innovative platform, released in 1985 by Commodore, that saw rather limited success outside of Europe.

The Amiga was a big deal in Canada. I doubt this statement is true.

Cool, now I need an iPhone emulator so I can play it :-)

I miss my Amiga 1000 :-(

I guess I can say that's a game with history about history :)

This game's graphics looks amazing - can't wait.

Very interesting story from the author. Fun!

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