A Sliema-based start-up will be releasing the official Rambo game for smartphones tomorrow, tapping into a 20 million-strong fan base.

The €3.99 game was developed by Play Magic in a joint venture with UK publisher Reef Entertainment, on behalf of the licence holders for the Rambo franchise – in under eight months.

“We invested over €160,000 in this product, which is actually very competitive for this quality of game,” CEO Giuseppe Crugliano said.

“We hope it will take the company into the next level, attracting venture capitalists to help us grow. But we also hope it will help to bring Malta to the attention of the bigger players in the industry.”

Malta is now hosting a number of developers for digital games of skill but when Mr Crugliano first came here in 2013, he was one of the pioneers.

He got involved with game development in his native town.

“I was born in a flat over the biggest arcade in town,” he quipped – and after university worked with some emerging and established game studios in Italy.

He started his own start-up studio in 2003 after seeking investors in New York, but decided to return to Italy to build up his own company from the ground.

In just a few years, his company, Twelve Games, became one of the leading players, developing and releasing a number of games across various Sony and Nintendo console platforms. The headcount went up to 30 developers from all over Italy and Europe and by 2008, when the recession hit, it had over €1 million worth of contracts in hand with three publishers that unfortunately went bankrupt. Work dried up and he found himself once again with just a handful of employees.

He shook himself off and tried again, this time venturing into alternative markets such motion- sensing games, at the time still virgin territory. Things again picked up and his company was producing games for entities such as PrimeSense, Xtr3D, Softkinetic and Leapmotion to name just a few – but he knew that the time had come to move back to his original core market if he wanted to grow.

“It was hard to lure top talent to south Italy,” he admitted.

If Rambo is a commercial success, it will pave the way for us to invest into the development of the game we had first pitched to Malta Enterprise

He considered New York and Vancouver before being contacted by Malta Enterprise, which was at the time offering grants to build up this sector.

He thought the island had potential as the next European Silicon Valley and went to pitch for the first console game to be made in Malta. It got very positive feedback and there was potential deal in the pipeline, but after negotiation – probably because of apparent changes in the plan for digital games at Malta Enterprise – nothing was signed.

By then his company was already creating original intellectual property across a wide range of formats including PC, console and mobile, and they were researching the upcoming new virtual reality.

In February 2014, Twelve Games became Play Magic, entering into a partnership with Reef Entertainment to develop the official Rambo mobile game.

“We brought a piece of Hollywood to Malta through a mobile videogame,” he proudly states. “All through our own strengths and efforts without any of the support, grants or investment we expected before moving in Malta.”

The first-person shooter game will have chapters from the first three Rambo movies, with beautiful hand-painted frames from the movies interspersed between the action sequences.

The Oculus Rift, a virtual reality head-mounted display developed by Oculus VR, will be released early next year along with other competitors from Sony, HTC, Razor and others­ – and Play Magic is ready for the quantum leap through another big sci-fi TV series IP. In the meantime, a new mobile racing game based on Cartoon Network’s Gumball television series is in development.

“If Rambo is a commercial success, it will pave the way for us to invest into the development of the game we had first pitched to Malta Enterprise that we have not yet been able to work on. We want to create a massive portfolio of games based on international licences and original intellectual properties.

“We restarted interesting discussions with Malta Enterprise thanks to the invaluable support of a local consultancy firm, our new board of directors from UK and the Malta Digital Gaming Association members.

“We found a fresh and different climate with a better understanding of our sector that give us hope for potential collaboration to help grow the digital game industry.”