While world of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games has ballooned in the last few years, the content available to people who’d rather not play a character from Western-inspired troops beating the crap out of some vague Eastern enemy has been somewhat limited. Culture is important, right? Which is why ‘Knights of Glory‘ – a sort of ‘Arabian Knights’ inspired MMO where warring Sultans of old wage war against each other with their Medieval-era armies – has been gathering pace as the only fully Arabic browser-based MMO. Think in terms of a sort of World of Warcraft for the Arab-speaking world. Today sees the release of the iPhone version of Knights of Glory, after its approval on Apple’s App Store, and the company claims this is the first Arabic MMO on the App Store.
“We didn’t believe in the potential of MMO games on mobile phones until we found many of our players asking for a mobile version,” says Radwan Kasmiya, chief producer for Falafel Games, which produces Knights of Glory. He points out that while the content and production is in the Middle East, the game development is actually done in Hangzhou, China. Yes folks, welcome to globalisation.
The story-driven RPG allows the player to take the role of a leader during a historically accurate era when Arabic kingdoms fought against each other. The game is very social, with players all over the Middle East socializing, competing and collaborating. Last year Knights of Glory won the Readers’ Award for the Best Arabic Browser Game for 2012 by ArabMMO, a news portal for MMOs in the Middle East.
Falafel Games was founded in 2008 by Kasmiya and Vince Ghossoub, with a mission to produce games from an Arab’s perspective in light of the dominance of Western narratives in the gaming industry. The company is venture-backed by the MBC Group and Middle East Venture Partners.
Knights of Glory will be released as a paid app, but you can sign up to try out the game for free in an early bird promotion by going here and redeeming a code to dowload the game from the App Store.
Check out the video below for instructions on how to sign up and a bit of a review. It’s in Arabic.