Toxic, the gun-slinging coffee addict bunny who starred in South Africa’s first successfully exported computer game 18 years ago, is back. An updated version of the game has been released by Celestial Games as Toxic Bunny HD, for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, and will soon be available on the Android platform for Gamestick. A PS Vita version is also in the works.
After its release in 1996, the game sold 150 000 units in German, English, French, Dutch and Polish. In South Africa, it briefly became the best-selling game in most stores where it was available.
"There was a lot of hard work but in the end there was also a lot of luck involved," says Travis Bulford, one of four developers who spent two years creating the game. "We were not the first company to release a computer game in South Africa – we were second by a month or two – although arguably we were the first to do so successfully."
It has taken almost two decades for that early success to evolve into a local game development industry. But, suddenly, the game developer rock stars are everywhere.
On Kickstarter, the crowd-funding platform for start-ups to get financial backing for their ideas, an adventure game called Stasis has raised $132 000 after setting a target of $100 000. The funding means that Stasis’s creator, Johannesburg 3D artist Christopher Bischoff, can focus full-time on developing the game.
A Cape Town game development studio, Pleasant Company Games, set a more modest target of $10 000 on Kickstarter, yet raised $27 000 to fund Ancient Terrible Things, a "pulp horror dice game".
In the years between Toxic Bunny and Stasis, says Bulford, South Africa has seen a steady increase in the number of games coming out and, more important, the local teams getting recognition on international platforms.
"What hasn’t happened yet is that same measure of recognition and support from local platforms. Ultimately it was the support of a local company, Vision Software, which was later bought out by Electronic Arts, that got Toxic Bunny into the international market. We desperately need local business to support the growing games development industry."
That's one of the missions of a developer community called Make Games SA, an association of "professional, indie, hobbyist and student game developers, artists and designers". It has an objective to "assist game developers in establishing sustainable businesses in South Africa … and promote proper game development education".
Bulford points out that a successful game has the potential to bring millions of dollars to the local economy, and "can do that in a day".
"My feeling is that the South African games development community is on the verge of just such an event. The skills are there; the local community is mature and hungry enough to do the hard work needed. The technical and artistic support structures are in place. We just need a killer local game that gets exceptional international attention."
Some of the most recent South African games success stories include: