Develop and conquer! The teen game prodigies taking India by storm

The game-makers behind studio Vague Pixels used to squeeze in coding after their homework. Now they're hoping that their frenetic action game Alter Army takes off

Jaipur has a population of around three million people, but only one video game development studio - or so Vague Pixels claims. Founders Mridul Bansal and Mridul Pancholi are set to release their debut game, the frenetically paced action platformer Alter Army, at the end of the month. An early build of the game shows enormous potential - it's a little rough-hewn, as you'd expect from an unfinished version, but it's energetic, characterful and boasts an entertainingly hard challenge. What makes it more remarkable is that it's been created in less than two years by 16-year-olds with no game design experience.

In fact, as Bansal explains to me over a patchy Skype connection, the pair were barely 14 when they started working together. He had recently moved schools when he met Pancholi; they were classmates, but rarely spoke. "One day we heard each other talking about computers and game development, and we thought we should discuss it," Bansal recalls. "I went to his house and we decided to start a project so we could polish our skills."