To many developers, the fine art of game creation lies strictly within the domain of the first world. Europe, America and Japan have all been sitting pretty with a very well-developed industry for a while. Other territories have recently hopped onto the bandwagon, of course: we have high-profile offerings such as the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series from Ukraine, and the more recent Zeno Clash from Chile. But in terms of pumping out loads of awesome games, not many people currently look to Africa.

Zeno Clash

Admittedly, it's naïve to assume that this view doesn't hold considerable weight. After all, Africa is a continent ravaged by the effects of past colonialism, corruption and poor access to resources. Everybody has heard the horror stories of civil unrest, starvation and even genocide that emerge from this continent. And in an industry which is littered with the corpses of high-profile studios and long-standing developers, the outlook seems bleak for African game development.

Still, the fact remains that it does exist, even if said existence is tenuous compared to countries which have been able to spawn giants such as EA and Activision. Locations as seemingly unlikely as Kenya have featured on the game development radar and sport professionals who are capable of making a gaming industry happen if the conditions are right.

South Africa, as one of the more well-developed nations on the continent, is flirting with the line between the first and the third world. On the one hand, it's still under the oppressive yoke of poverty, disease and a high crime rate. On the other side of the court, it possesses an infrastructure that far surpasses that of most other African countries, has attracted considerable interest from foreign investors and still stands as one of the few states in existence which underwent a completely peaceful revolution with the destruction of apartheid in 1994. It also has a small, but significant, gamer population. Along with that comes a surprising penchant for game development.

Early development

In his blog post on Gamasutra, Joshua Dallman painted a bleak, yet significant view of the South African gaming industry as a whole. Dallman is a fairly experienced indie developer who has produced a large number of titles for GarageGames and is now working through his indie studio, Red Thumb Games. He recently took a six-month trip to South Africa to develop games for a local contractor, and commented on the size – or lack thereof – of the local development scene.

Toxic Bunny

Dallman's views are considerably more informed (and far less biased) than those held by a lot of assuming developers, but he still misses out on a lot of South Africa's game development history and a considerable number of companies that are still going today. Bigger groups such as Celestial (later known as Twilyt) were been doing the dev dance from as early as 1996. Celestial was one of the first "proper" game development studios in South Africa, their most well-known title being Toxic Bunny, a side-scrolling platformer comparable to Epic's Jazz Jackrabbit where players controlled a crazy, caffeine-driven rabbit as they navigated him through a psychedelic world.

Celestial also worked on games such as The Tainted and the cancelled Zulu War. They also had plans for Toxic Bunny 2 on the original Xbox, but these never materialised.

The company enjoyed moderate success at first – Toxic Bunny sold more than 150 000 units and was translated into several languages – but they suffered financially with failed ventures later on and eventually closed their doors in 2001. In a previous interview with Dev.Mag, Celestial's Travis Bulford related how difficult it was to be the first mainstream developer in a very young and uncertain local industry.

"It's damn nice to see so many people working towards game development in South Africa [today]," he said. "I can't help but wonder: if it was at this level when we stopped, it may have been just what we needed to carry on. It's terrible working on an island."

It's a cynical point of view, but Celestial's long-term success was never guaranteed: they were new, they were alone and they were inexperienced. All this at a time when the gaming industry itself was still far less developed than it is today. But even if they failed financially, they managed to prove a point before going under – South Africans had the potential to make big games. Where their studio fell, new ones quickly sprung up to have another go.