Game on '71 war out on March 26

A group of girls have been kidnapped by the Pakistani occupation forces and are held hostage at a torture camp, four kilometres off from Shanir-char in Barisal, a strategically important Pakistani outpost. Shamsu Bahini, a group of five desperados and commandoes guerrillas who reclaimed the Char from the Pakistani's grip move to rescue their sisters.

After capturing the torture camp and freeing the kidnapped girls, in a strange turn of events, Shamsu Bahini meets Anila, a mysterious, deadly yet beautiful woman. Anila joins Shamsu Bahini. They together decided to move forward with another mission to blow up a strategically important bridge used by Pakistani supply convoys. As Shamsu Bahini moves on, suddenly everything goes wrong, and a simple silent mission turns into a bloody battle.

This is the story of “Heroes of 71-Retaliation”, the successor of “Heroes of 71”, first android game on the Liberation War of the country. It will be in the Google Play Store for free from the Independence Day. The new version will move forward ahead from where Heroes of 71 left off. Heroes of 71 had been downloaded over 2.5 lakh times in just three months since December 16 when it was released. It ranked top in the Google Play Store Bangladesh Zone with a 4.8 rating out of 5.

Developed by PortBliss, a BUET-based freelance game development unit, “Heroes of '71: Retaliation” has included woman guerrilla. The developer has the plan to take this game forward. Heroes of 71's 3rd version release is already in the production pipeline and is expected to be released on December 16 this year when people will be able to download the game from the Google Play store.

A group of 15 former and current students of Buet and Dhaka University, including Shafayat Latif, Masha Mustakim, Apratim Chakrabarty, Arifur Rahman, Rakibul Alam, and Abid Jahangir Razin developed the game aiming to educate the new generation on the Liberation War.

Talking to The Daily Star Razin said guerrilla warfare, the main phenomenon of the Liberation War, has been introduced first in this game. Moreover, inclusion of female guerrilla reveals the history that male and female working together liberated the country.

Latif said the main objective of building this game is to promote the spirit of the Liberation War among the new generation. They will think anew about the Liberation War of our country through playing and learning, he added.

He said the first game started with Pakistani occupation forces brutal killings, torture, rape and Bangabandhu's speech.

“We have a gaming community who are used to playing games. We thought of developing a game on the Liberation War to make people, who love to play games, learn and from that concept we developed the first game,” said Latif, a former student of Buet.