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WWDC 2023: Apple is all about safety, support and a community of like-minded people, says Indian developer duo

Apple will host its WWDC 2023 next month. Ahead of the annual event, we sat with a pair of Indian developers to know about their journey so far and how Apple helped them in their journey.

Edited By: Shweta Ganjoo

Published: May 23, 2023, 09:05 AM IST

Lila's World
Lila's World

Story Highlights

  • Apple will be hosting WWDC 2023 next month.
  • Apple’s WWDC 2023 will begin on June 5.
  • Apple’s WWDC 2023 will go on until June 9.

Apple is set to host the Worldwide Developers’ Conference or WWDC 2023 soon. The annual event will begin on June 5 and go on until 9, during which time the company will not only introduce its next generation software but also introduce some updated hardware, possibly mixed-reality headset and a new MacBook Air. In addition to this, the company will also give an exclusive chance to developers from all over the world to interact with the experts from the company and know about the upcoming technology that the company has been world on, which in turn would be used by them for improving their existing apps and developing new ones. On the sidelines of the upcoming event, we sat down with the Indian developer duo — Hrishi and Bhakti Oberoi– developers of Lila’s World to know more about their journey and how Apple helped them through it.

About Lila’s World

‘Lila’s World: Create Play Learn’ is a game for kids aged six to eight years of age wherein the kids can not only explore the existing worlds but also draw and create their own worlds and tell their stories. The game, as the founders describe it, is ‘a digital doll house’ wherein kids can create their own worlds just as they do while playing with dolls in the real world.

It has been developed by Indian developer duo — Hrishi and Bhakti Oberoi. Hrishi is a veteran who has been in gaming for almost 20 years and ran a production company called India Games before selling it to Disney and starting Tadpole Interactive Pvt Ltd. Bhakti is from the design background, who joined her husband develop a kids’ game that provided ‘productive screen time for kids’.

Hrishi and Bakti started developing Lila’s World along with the rest of the team during the pandemic, somewhere in the beginning of 2020. They took almost a year to develop and refine the app before doing a soft launch towards the end of 2020 and a global launch in May 2021.

“We had done this prototype very early on…where you could actually do a drawing of a character with the kids. Kids could do the drawing with crayons and then take a picture of using this prototype on the iPad. Apple at that time, really liked it. So we said, okay, let’s continue this,” Hrishi told Techlusive.

“…early May of 21 we did a global launch and since then it’s been doing really well for us,” he added.

The inspiration

While Bhakti and Hrishi worked with a team of experts both at their company and at Apple, the inspiration for game came from within their own home, more specifically their daughter, whose drawings have been used in the buttons within the game.

“Our daughter, she used to play with a doll house, and she used to make her own story. And kids are very imaginative at this age. That’s five to eight years old, and they make up their own stories always pretend playing,” Hrishi said.

“So, the idea was to essentially do a digital dollhouse like this. But then we said that why don’t we use creative drawing skills to actually get her drawings as part of the whole doll house…And that came about as an inspiration.”

“…we had my daughter work on all of the initial UI buttons. If you see the art in the game, it’s all done by her because I wanted it to be very approachable and connected with the kids. When sometimes gets the art, which is perfectly done, it’s intimidating. So, a lot of the app is very unfinished, very like raw. It’s exactly how things should be at that age to capture..the way they see the world basically,” Bhakti said.

“I think it became a really cool collaboration and the family project almost with my daughter doing a lot of the initial buttons,” she added.

Their challenges

That said, Hrishi and Bhakti were not alone in developing the game. They were joined by a team of six people who world tirelessly for turning their vision into a game that kids would love and learn from. They also worked with the team of experts at Apple’s Accelerator program in India throughout the pandemic to refine their app before going for a formal launch.

“It was a little bit tricky, but because it’s digital, it wasn’t that complicated. Our team was pretty small. It was just like about 5-6 of us at that time. Everything we were working on was digitally. So, we used to know come up with the ideas of what we were going do for the sprint and then work on the project and then just coordinate,” Hrishi shared.

Apple’s role

Talking about getting support from Apple while developing Lila’s World, Hrishi said that they worked closely with Apple’s team in India who gave them active feedback for improving the game.

“…once we had actually something running, we worked actually very closely with Apple. Apple and their Accelerator team, all working remotely…They did a good sort of a breakdown of the initial user flow and the UX of how that was working. They were giving us the feedback real time and saying, okay, this is what’s working. This is what’s not working,” Hrishi said.

“They have team members that are always online just in case I have any roadblocks or anything…I think Apple does a fabulous job to put it all together. So, I think personally that hand holding made wonders for me being a creative person,” Bhakti added.

Talking about what how Apple is different from other ecosystems, especially in terms of helping developers, Hrishi said that the company is good at helping developers make well designed and well-rounded apps that are popular among its users and hence prove to be revenue-generators for the developers.

“There are a lot of apps that are successful are not really very well-designed apps…Then there are apps that make money but are not necessarily well designed. Whereas there are a lot of well design apps, which may not be making a lot of money either. Apple is making sure that we are getting the best of both worlds here. So, I think that’s something very unique to the way Apple works with us,” Hrishi shared.

For Bhakti, the safety, the security and the community of like-minded people that Apple provides is second to none.

“For me as a parent, safety is super for Apple. In my entire house is connected. So, I think the safety, the security, the like-mindedness of the community once you’re in the ecosystem, it just feels like okay. I’m going to be okay. So, I speak as a parent and a designer, I always find what I like and the like-minded people in their particular system more than others,” she added.

The duo also stressed on the fact that Apple has also increased its focus on India and expanded its Developer Relations team in the country to better help the Indian developers.

So, what’s next for Lila’s World?

Talking about the game, the team at Lila’s World recent introduced a new functionality wherein kids can share their creations with the rest of the world. “..that doesn’t only give them the ability to play the 40+ scenes that we’ve created, but it gives them access to thousands of scenes, which other users have also created,” Hrishi shared.

In the coming days, the team is planning to add another feature that will let the kids draw in the app. These drawings will be used in the world that the kids create.

“So, the next feature after that is going to be for them to be able to draw in the app itself. And then have those drawings come to life within the game.”

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Author Name | Shweta Ganjoo

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