Indonesian Digital Comic Game Wanara’s Second Episode is now Out on Android

Remember the Indonesian folklore-themed app that we looked at a while back? Called the Adventure of Wanara: Garuda Riders, it combines gaming and a comic book series and was released back in November. Now the second episode, Garuda Riders Vol 2: The Chosen One, is now out on Android and it promises even more fun this time.

The Garuda Riders series is built jointly by Indonesian digital art studio Mechanimotion Entertainment and game developer Elven Games. We talked with the game studio’s CEO Mahdi Basroni Rizal about what the latest episode has to offer better and why it’s not a free app this time.

Acting as a sequel, The Chosen One tells the story of protagonist teenager Naradja who aspires to become a bonafide garuda rider. Though his father forbade him to be one because it risked the family’s well-being, the teen Naradja spontaneously runs after a garuda on the loose. This is where Naradja’s new adventure begins. I love that the story is rich with Indonesian characteristics like the Balinese traditional music put inside. It’s about time local developers start promoting Indonesia’s cool heritage and folktales in this way.

Mahdi says that the studio planned to use the first episode as a preview of their entire Garuda Riders series of games. The team gathered lots of feedback from its users and implemented some of those ideas into the following episodes. These new elements stalled the second episode’s release by a few months.

More music, more languages

How improved is the second episode now? Mahdi explained that, story-wise, there aren’t too many differences. But there are things like more story pages, more of the Garuda Riders musical soundtrack, and overall improvement of user experience as requested by the gamers.

The Chosen One comes in two languages: Indonesian and English. Mahdi tells us that there will be a Korean and Japanese version of the app released in the coming months. Garuda Riders’ first episode now has a Japanese version on iOS thanks to cooperation with Japanese software developer Deluizon. The first episode has racked up around 3,800 downloads so far. This decision to push into the Korean and Japanese markets makes a lot of sense too, seeing that developers can seriously monetize their apps there.

The iPhone version of the two episodes’ international versions will arrive in the coming months. You can download Garuda Riders’ latest episode on Google Play for US$0.99 or the Telkom Store for US$1.12.