Girnaas, a local Qatari company specialised in Game and Application developments announced today that they are working hard towards launching their first game, “Giddam”. Girnaas was founded in 2013 by three local Qatari’s: Munera Al-Dosari, Faraj Abdualla and Fatima Al-Kuwari. What brought them all together is a common passion to gaming and everything technological, or in other words… they are all geeks!
Their passion for games was actually what inspired the idea of establishing Girnaas and their goal is to make Qatar a leader in this filed by actually producing and publishing games and not only consuming them. The company was established at the beginning of 2013 under the ictQatar incubation centre. Providing full support to this technology start-up business.
Girnaas is an Arabic word that means the highest peak of a mountain or a building, and because our vision is to be at the top of the gaming industry in Qatar, the region and the world, we have chosen a name that reflects this desire and aspiration of our company.
The lack of local games that reflect the uniqueness of this region was another driver to produce games that reflect the actual region. We want to be able to find and play games that are relevant to us. We also want to use gaming as a platform to export our rich heritage and stories to the whole worlds, starting by the younger generation here in Qatar and the region.
“Giddam is our first game, we have built it based on several months of focus groups with local and expats from different age groups and backgrounds. We actually asked them about their expectations of a game. Children, teenagers, youth and adults of both genders and many nationalities participated in designing the characters and defining the weapons. In addition, a key point is that the actual team that worked on the game are actually representative of the actual consumers market and hence it was very easy to make it happen. As we say, we all spoke the same language.” Said Munera Al-Dosari, the Co-founder of the company.
“Giddam” is a racing game that is built on 4 main characters, Strawbery, Rashid, Big Mama and Ali. In their race, players will use local and non-traditional game weapons such as the famous Karak tea, the A’qal which is the traditional man headwear and many other weapons that either give them power or help them trap their opponents. The game offers a unique networking opportunity as well, so players can actually socialize and play with friends or make new friends.
“The past few months have been fun, interesting, and full of learning’s. It is not easy, but it is indeed rewarding. There is no feeling that is close to the joy we feel at every stage of progress we make as a team. We get to know and work with many talented people from Qatar, Jordan, Iraq, India … and from all over the world and that is what is unique about us. We are a small but dedicated team that is growing steadily but rapidly.” she continued.
ictQatar incubation centre has been instrumental to our success. We can never say how much we owe them and we can never thank them enough. The incubation centre offers us funding, as well as professional services such as financial and legal advice and networking opportunity with international partners.
We have already launched our first app, Q-News which is a free news app that collects all news in one app for easy access. It is available on the App Store and on Google Play.
Currently are focusing all our efforts on launching Giddam, one other game that we will announce soon and two apps before the end of the year. So you can say that we are quite busy!
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