We had the pleasure of chatting all about indie game The Wave of Monké Game!

1. What inspires your work?

Hmm. A lot of things inspire me. Things from movies all around the world, television, anime, comic books, art pieces, the real world, etc. But the things that inspire me are super random. Like I would say my work is composed of a random string of things that inspired me. For example, in my new game that’s coming out, I had our main character use a laser guitar gun. I got that from some fan art of Thor I found on Instagram. He was holding a guitar the way you would hold a gun and lightning was being shot out of it. I thought, “well, that’s f*ckin baller, let’s see if we can use that.” Originally, our main character was supposed to use a gun that shot laser beams but I told my programmer that I wanted to replace the gun with an electric guitar. Those are the little things I get inspired from.

2. Tell us about your game? What can fans expect?

The Wave of Monké is an action, comedy RPG. The basic premise is about a gorilla who is bored with his gorilla life and tries to evolve into a human. The premise is heavily inspired by the “Reject humanity, return to Monké meme.” It’s an extremely wacky, nonsensical game but weirdly enough, the core message is a critique on how we live our lives. As the gorilla progresses through the game, he gets some a new ability that will ultimately turn him into a human such as language, knowledge, self-awareness etc. He learns about how we live our lives. In fact each boss is the personified version of each attribute. Knowledge for example, is an Instagram model who rules a cyberpunk-esque city. If Monké defeats her, he will gain the ability to contemplate knowledge. Seriously, it’s a very weird game, but that’s what I love about it. I love things that don’t take itself seriously yet, gives us a new perspective on something.

Also our game’s programmer is Vishal Siddireddy and he is a great at what he does. He spends day and night hunting for pesky bugs. He worked extremely hard and made the gameplay for this game so entertaining and challenging. Our cinematic’s designer is Sree Gajula and he is also a huge creative force in the making of this game. He created the environments and the cut scenes for this game and all I have to say is, he is a master at what he does and I truly believe people are going to be blown away by the cut scenes. He runs a YouTube channel called PopNerd where he does a lot of VFX breakdown so if anyone reading is interested in that, they should check out his channel. I remember, it was the summer of 2020 when the pandemic hit. Vishal actually asked me if I was interested in making a game. He knew I was into storytelling.

I immediately started coming up with ideas, most of them being very serious. But during the pandemic and even after the pandemic, we saw a lot of things go down in the world. A lot of scary things, a lot of terrible things. I thought maybe we don’t need something serious and dark right now. I thought of making something fun, colorful, and funny. The whole core message of the game (about how we conduct our lives) was inspired by my routine life I was living during the pandemic. I wanted to make something that told people, “let’s just take it easy, we only live one life so let’s just have fun and live it to its extent. The kind of life we are given is out of control but finding the fun in it is totally in our control and we should use it.” After writing the first draft of the script, I thought this game represented that well.

So I took the script, threw it at Vishal’s beautiful face and said, this is the game we are making. He loved the idea. Eventually, we got Sree Gajula in. We all went to the same high school and we all shared the same humor so it was perfect. Sree was getting into VFX work during the pandemic and he wanted to make cutscenes for our game. So that’s how the team formed. We are three man team. And it’s been a blast.

One more things fans should expect is the voice acting. We are going to announce the cast soon but, I think some people are going to be surprised with who we got.

3. What are your goals for 2023?

Our game is set to release December 23, 2022, so our goal for 2023 is to start work for our next game. I also want to go back I to making short films. I used to make short films before I came up with this game. My goal is to continue expanding the library for my indie film/video-game studio (Check us out, Gojagi Studios on YouTube).

4. What advice would you give to someone who wants to do what you do?

Hmm what advice would I give? I think the main piece of advice would be to have fun. Seriously, you are doing what you love so you should have fun. I know it sounds cliché but once it starts feeling like work or an obligation, you are not going to want to do it. Just have fun. If you need to delay your work, then delay it. If you want to change up your work, change it up. No one should stop your creative process. Also, networking is key. Find others who you think can help you out. If you don’t have the money, try to do something for them and they can do something for you. Exchange your talents with each other. So yeah, talk to people and have fun, and have fun with those people.

5. Where and how can people support your work?

The Wave of Monké is now on Steam. Search the game up (or use this link https://store.steampowered.com/app/2089480/The_Wave_of_Monk/…) to wishlist the game. Also follow us on Instagram and Twitter

@waveofmonkegame. And for teasers, trailers, and announcement for a potential Monké 2, subscribe to Gojagi Studios on YouTube channel. Check out the PopNerd YouTube channel on YouTube as well. My name is Mayank Mekala and this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for this lovely interview.