My Hindu Shooter (MUM) [PC - Cancelled]

Anyway, most modern games are based on cruelty and violence. The people who sat down at the beginning of 2000 for the game with the working title My Hindu Shooter came up with an original idea – to create a shooter where the main goal would be to kill as few opponents as possible.

On the one hand, most of the MUM studio employees were absolute newcomers to the gaming industry, on the other hand, several veterans from the Origin participated in the creation of the game, including Warren Spector (as a consultant and advisor).

For the development of the game, no less than the Unreal engine was purchased. My Hindu Shooter, who professed Hindu philosophy, was set in medieval India, which was attacked by demons. One of them, for some unknown reason, saved the main character from death … and then a standard story about saving the world.

The storyline starred a young female sneak-thief, Kendi, who was as karmically low as you can get and still be human. Aided, for mysterious reasons, by a demon named Venadatta, Kendi travels from a Himalayan valley across the gigantic carcass of the fallen dragon Vritra, through the city and palace of King Vasudev, up the legendary World-Axis of Mount Meru, to the palace of the gods in the celestial city of Navagraha, and from there to the demon realm of Asat. She’s looking for the long-lost mortal hero Anagha, a Brahmin who aided the gods many years before. It turns out Anagha is dead, and, owing to a contrivance too complicated to summarize, Kendi herself is his mortal reincarnation; Venadatta the demon is another aspect of her own spirit.

Murder in My Hindu Shooter is not that forbidden, but violence, like any action in the game, invariably affected the hero’s karma. And without karma, nowhere – it affects the reincarnation of the hero. Yes, it was impossible to die completely in My Hindu Shooter – the character was reborn every time. He behaved well – he was resurrected strong and smart, and even with a special ability; led like a pig – and became a pig. Or a dog. Or even a worm. The ending of the game also depended on karma.

“During the game, you may die repeatedly, but this doesn’t end your adventure. Through reincarnation you resume play in your next life; the storyline’s mythic war is assumed to continue unabated for generations. Your karma at the time of death determines your next incarnation. If you have purified yourself and spread enlightenment, you may return as a rich merchant or Brahmin priest; if you have defiled yourself with violent actions, you may instead become a lowly peasant or even a pig, dog or worm. The game is winnable in any human form, but your current incarnation governs how much people and other beings will tell you in conversation, the price you must pay for equipment and so on.”

It was possible to lose only by bringing karma to a completely indecent state. To avoid this, it was necessary to sneak past enemies or settle the matter peacefully using a ramified system of dialogues. Work on the game was in full swing for a whole year, but in the end they decided to abandon it – according to the developers themselves, they did not have enough experience to cope with such a large-scale task.

Then MUM undertook to transform My Hindu Shooter into a quest, the main idea of which was to give the player maximum freedom of movement and interaction with the outside world. But nothing came of this venture either.

Information is taken from «Игромания» magazine, 03 (114) 2007 and https://www.escapistmagazine.com/my-hindu-shooter/