Nader conquered the third festival. In a close race which "Nader's Blade" had eight nominations. It won the golden trophy for the best Persian game of the year.

CCTV (The English channel of the Chinese TV) in a segment about "QoP: Lotfali Khan Zand" talked about the game's popularity among the Persian gamers.

Alyum (The Arabic channel of the Russian TV) did a complete segment about "QoP: Lotfali Khan Zand", which talked about the game's story, quality, dvelopment, and the feedback of the Persian gamers.

In an article titled: "Lotfali Khan Zand, a fully Persian prince", Computer World wrote a complete review about the game, they think games like "Lotfali Khan Zand" will give hope to Persian game development industry.

The game looks very good in terms of graphics. The fact that developers have spent most of their time and budget on graphic has paid off. Furthermore, the Non-Interactive sequences have given a depth to the story of the game. You get to play with different swords with different moves and abilities, and  get to destroy boxes, scaffolds,  and other objects through out the game. The main challenge for the developers have been the AI system for enemies and friends, which have been done superbly  in comparison with other Persian games. The game lighting is ok, but has small some shortcomings. mechanical puzzles throughout the game has added excitement to the game. However, they should have done a better job , when a large number of enemies are attacking. Player should have better ability to defeat all of them, in those situations.

Quest of Persia: Lotfali Khan Zand - Preview

The Last Zand Swordsman ("QoP: Lotfali Khan Zand" Exclusive Preview)



Unlike "QoP: The End of Innocence", "Lotfali Khan Zand" is third person sword-fighting game with a historic theme. What started as a simple Tech-Demo has turned into a full action sword-fighting game. "Lotfali Khan Zand" has a good variety of gameplays from the main sword-fighting to mechanical puzzles. Although the developers have passed the borders of Persian game industry in a considerable way, but the game is still not in the level of games such as "Prince of Persia", or "Assassin's Creed".

Ability to use variety of swords with different characteristics is an exciting side of the game. Each sword has health, damage, speed, and angle parameters which are helpful in choosing an attack strategy.

A good gameplay in a third person action, needs a strong Artificial Intelligence. The most important challenge of the development team was to design a perfect AI. They have spent a fair amount of time researching different techniques which have been used in recent games, and came up with a very solid AI for friendly, and enemy NPCs. Overall, the fights are taking advantage of different moves for various characters, and shows a good variety of sword-fighting. Although we saw some collision detection problems when large of NPCs were involved in the fights, but the AI looked very acceptable. The development team is working hard to solve the remaining issues until the game's release.

"Lotfali Khan Zand", will have two boss fights which will take advantage of Key-Stroke animation, Stealth Kill and other gameplays which is available in QoP2. Although, these gameplays are exciting to see but might not reach the level of world class games such as "Resident Evil 4", or "God of War".

In terms of Level Design, and Environment, QoP2 is close to the level of world class games. In-game animations, are also very enjoyable to watch and realistic. Physics is taking  major role in some the levels of QoP2. Throwing  barrels and boxes around, breaking walls, and falling scaffolds made QoP2 a very dynamic game.

The game's graphic without a doubt is in the level of the good games of the last generation. The game consists of indoor and outdoor levels. The lighting looks better in indoor levels. The Lighting and shadows in some of the outdoor levels are not very realistic. But the main problem that we faced was dropping the frame rate, in some areas of the game. The development team is working hard to overcome these issues for time of the release.

The music has a sad theme which conveys Lotfali Khan Zand's feelings at the time. When we were doing the preview the sound effects of the game were not final so we will review that in a later time.

Overall, we can say the  efforts of the development team for "Lotfali Khan Zand" considering their budget and the size of their team have been successful. If they can solve some of the issues mentioned above by the time of release, the final product will be in the level of the 2002-2003 world class games, which is a success for an independent game developer with no support.

"QoP: The End of Innocence" has won the Best Iranian Game of the Year award at WCG 2007, September 2007

"Quest of Persia: The End of Innocence" two years after its release has become "The Best Persian Game Of The Year" at the WCG (World Cyber Games) 2007's Persian national final.

Also the brand new trailer of "QoP: Lotfali Khan Zand" has been released for the first time in the closing ceremony of the event that has been sponsored by Samsung.

 

Imagine "Quake II" dropped on its head in a desert: that's "Quest of Persia" in a nutshell. Compared to the Porsche engines of modern titles, this game is powered by a Ford Pinto. But with a meager budget and no publisher support, it's still darn sight better than some of the other first-person shooters out there.

QOP's success has got other developers in the region all fired up, various game titles are under development in the region. Despite this, Ila Soleimani, character animator on "Quest of Persia", says: "The region won't have a proper game industry until the problem of piracy  is solved and domestic investors pay some attention to our industry's potential."

The End of Limitation

We start this article with congratulations to the makers of the game, who succeeded in finishing the first Persian 3D Computer Game, with all problems and limitations.

Usually, a large part of a review is comparing the game with other games in its category. However, it’s not fair to compare “Quest of Persia: The End of Innocence” with blockbuster games currently out in the world market. On the other hand, there is no Persian game in this level that we can compare it to. Therefore we just talk about the game itself.

“The End of Innocence” is the first game of a series called : “Quest of Persia”, which has been made by a team talented programmers and artists. It uses a game engine called QoP, which has been developed by Vahid Kazemi.

The game has 21 short levels, and each of them has a different and specific mission. Other than driving game, it has even a puzzle game. The story is very nice for a Persian FPS game. You will not be able to "Save" the game everywhere, it will be saved via checkpoints in the start of each level. In terms of graphical look “The End of Innocence” looks like games such as “Counter Strike”. Places are mostly closed, and it has a fast loading time. This is one the strong points of the game. But the enemies character looks are very simple, and Leyla doesn’t look great at all. You will get to play with a variety of weapons from AK47 to RPG7. This game has animation cut-scenes which can be seen after each level is completed. It seems the developers have spent lots of times for those cut-scene, and they look really good.

Overall the game play is good, and different game plays and levels make it a dynamic game, although the driving game levels sometimes are a bit boring. Also, when Leyla fallows you, there is a chance that she will stuck somewhere in the level, and you need to guide her through the level. Enemy AI is not so great either, looks like they haven’t used any complicated AI algorithm to control enemy mods. Sound maybe the greatest problem of the game. It would be better if they used a professional narrator for the characters of the game. However the game Soundtrack is just amazing, and that helps the game in a big way.

The main problem of the game is not having a Farsi menu, and Farsi in game messages. If it’s a Persian game, everything in the game has to be in Farsi.

Talking about this small game is more than just what we have discussed here, and although we criticized it in some ways but we won’t forget that “The End of Innocence” as a first complete Persian 3D game is a worthy attempt.

“Quest of Persia: The end of Innocence” has set a new standard for Persian games, and we hope, better games will be made in the future.

The Start of an Evolution

2 years ago, a couple of young talented guys gathered in the hope of fulfilling their long lasting dream of making a computer game in Iran. They knew from the beginning that they have no chance to compete against world class games. However, they worked hard, and after 2 years with a team of 10 people, and a very limited budget they managed to publish their game.

The important part of design and development of this game is the game’s engine, which is the first completed 3D Game Engine ever developed in Iran. Although, the game engine has some limitations in comparison with current world class engines, but developing a complete engine is a big step for Iranian game development. According to the Engine developers, it has been designed to work with low profile hardware.

At first glance, this game might have nothing to say in comparison with world class games which we can buy in Iran almost free, but if we look back, we will see that this game is a masterpiece work in comparison with what Iranian game developers have done before, and “Quest of Persia” has given hope to Iranian game development.

The interesting point of the game is the story which includes a variety of environments, you will get to play with a complete arsenal of weapons. You will also be able to experience various game plays, which is really great for an Iranian game. Game Modelers have done a good job too. Leyla character has only 3000 polygons, which is really great for such a quality. One of the problems though is the design of the characters which is not related to the time which the story is happening. Cut-Scene animations are the amazing part of this game, and although music and sound effects are very promising the voice actors for characters are not chosen very carefully.

In conclusion, this game developed by such a small team and budget, is not only a masterpiece in Iran, but also it’s a remakable effort in the whole world.

“Quest of Persia:The End of Innocence” is the first Persian 3D Computer game. How do you feel about that?

We think being the first soccer team in the 3rd division of Bundesliga is not something to be proud of. However, with all the limitations, and problems we managed to publish a game which people are enjoying. We think that’s nice.

What were your limitations?

Well, in terms of limitations, we had to support 64MB graphic cards, which is what most of the people have here. Therefore we had to take lots of things out of the engine, in order to have game run smoothly on low profile machines.

How come you guys decided to develop an FPS game? Isn’t it hard to compete with blockbuster games in this field?

Of course, we knew from the beginning that with our first game, we are not going reach the quality of world class games. However, this showed us, that if we don’t have to support low profile graphic cards, we might be able to have something close to last generation of game engines.

How long did it take to write the engine, and how many lines of code the engine has?

It took 18 months to design, and develop the engine. The main source is around 25,000 lines of code, and it’s completely object-oriented.

Why didn’t you use Engines like Quake 2 which is freely available under GPL license?

Our story demanded different game plays. We needed an engine which could support all of them, besides we had to support low profile graphic cards, so we had to optimize it a lot. As you have seen Loading time is quite fast in QoP.