> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.isakaba.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Ribat Studio on building Kasbah, self-funding and designing a distinctly Moroccan world - URL: https://www.isakaba.com/ribat-studio-on-building-kasbah-self-funding-and-designing-a-distinctly-moroccan-world/ - Published: 2026-09-15T11:03:31.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-15T11:16:52.000Z - Description: "After years of building other people's worlds, I wanted to build one that feels like home..." - Author: Isa Muhammad - Tags: Interview, Ribat Studio Building a video game around a fictional Moroccan city is a way for [Ribat Studio](https://www.isakaba.com/ribat-studio/) founder [Omar Souissi](https://www.isakaba.com/omar-souissi/) to design the kind of world he always wished he'd been handed as an environment artist. After years of shaping other studios' fantasy settings, he set up his own studio at the start of 2026 to build [Kasbah](https://www.isakaba.com/kasbah/), a first-person mystery about a fortified desert city rather than a person. We spoke to Souissi about drawing from Maghrebi and Andalusian architecture, how the game's development is being funded, and what it will take to get Kasbah in front of publishers in 2027. **IsaKaba: Tell us about Ribat Studio. How did the company come about, and what are you up to right now?** **Omar Souissi:** Ribat is a small independent studio in Rabat. I'm an environment artist by trade, and after years of building other people's worlds, I wanted to build one that feels like home and truly expresses the spaces I love. So I set up the company at the start of 2026 and began work on Kasbah. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/41/49/41499d0c-2aba-44d9-90ee-2f06884f30ea/content/images/2026/09/omar-souissi-key3-2.jpg) **Image Credit: Ribat Studio* The name of the company is deliberate. A ribat is a fortified outpost on a frontier, and it's \[where\] the word Rabat takes its name from. You build it, you hold it, and it sits on the edge of something bigger. That felt right for a first studio. Right now we're in pre-production. The team is building the first fully playable slice of the city, one district end to end, while I lock the creative direction. **How big is the team currently, and is everyone based in Morocco?** Seven of us, including me, fully remote. Most of the team is in Morocco, split between Rabat and Marrakech. Art is the most developed side of the studio, covering both environment and characters, which is no surprise given where I come from. **Tell us about Kasbah. Where did the idea come from, and what should players look forward to most?** Kasbah is a first-person mystery about a place rather than a person. You arrive in an ancient ksar, a fortified city built into the wall of a desert gorge, and the city itself is what you're trying to understand. The idea came from my fascination with Moroccan, and more broadly North African and Andalusian aesthetic codes. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/41/49/41499d0c-2aba-44d9-90ee-2f06884f30ea/content/images/2026/09/omar-souissi-timeline-1-00108008-1.jpg) **Image Credit: Ribat Studio* I think this specific part of Africa has a distinct visual identity that is not expressed to its full potential in the video game world. Maghrebi/Moorish architecture shows up in games from time to time, but almost always as set dressing. It's usually part of a mishmash of a vaguely "Arabian" style that mixes Persian, Middle Eastern, Indian, Egyptian, and North African shapes and colors from all periods. My favorite games were always those that built fascinating fantasy worlds (The Witcher, Lord of the Rings, Warhammer, etc.). Those fantasy worlds always have some sort of Arid region with people wearing turbans and buildings with onion-shaped domes, somewhere far away from where the action takes place. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/41/49/41499d0c-2aba-44d9-90ee-2f06884f30ea/content/images/2026/09/omar-souissi-highresscreenshot00133.jpg) **Image Credit: Ribat Studio* I always dreamt of being given the responsibility to design one of these settings for a hypothetical DLC or spin-off. Indirectly, this studio answers that desire. What I want players to look forward to is the feeling of discovering a new coherent world by exploring a place slowly giving itself up. **How important is Moroccan culture to the game, and how are you bringing it into the world?** The ksar is fictional, so no real city has to carry our story. I'm going after the specific vocabulary of the Maghreb, places like Aït Benhaddou, Taourirt, and Chellah in Rabat, where I was born, rather than the generic "Middle East" blend games usually fall back on. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/41/49/41499d0c-2aba-44d9-90ee-2f06884f30ea/content/images/2026/09/omar-souissi-omar-souissi-seq-jineta5-0004-2-1.jpg) **Image Credit: Ribat Studio* If a Moroccan player walks through it and nothing feels off, the art direction has done its job. It also helps that most of the team is Moroccan. This isn't research from the outside. **Why PC, and could we see the game on consoles or mobile in future?** \[PC\] allows us to reach the biggest amount of players and is easier to develop on the first stage. We're using Unreal Engine with a small team. PC is simply the most coherent target for us. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/41/49/41499d0c-2aba-44d9-90ee-2f06884f30ea/content/images/2026/09/omar-souissi-laylacam6-0027-1.jpg) **Image Credit: Ribat Studio* Consoles are realistic later. Unreal makes it feasible and nothing in the design rules them out, but I'm not announcing anything until the PC build is what it should be. Mobile, no. This is a first-person game about slowing down and looking closely, and I'd rather not pretend that survives a phone screen. **What has been your experience with the funding landscape in MENA, and how is Kasbah's development currently being funded?** Kasbah is self-funded so far. That's partly a choice and partly geography. It's a bit cheaper to develop in Morocco. That buys runway and freedom, as well as more time to think things through and grow our skills and experience. > **"Cross-border finance involves more paperwork than most studios elsewhere ever think about."** The landscape here is young. There's real institutional interest: AMDIE bringing Moroccan studios to Gamescom under the Morocco Now pavilion this year is a concrete example, and that's where we had our first publisher meetings. But there's no local publisher, public funding for games is still in its infancy, and cross-border finance involves more paperwork than most studios elsewhere ever think about. **Tell us more about the opportunities and challenges for the games industry in Morocco and the wider MENA region?** The opportunity is that this region has been a backdrop in games for twenty years and almost never the author. Add a young, hungry talent pool, a cost base that stretches runway, and a Moroccan state that has started paying attention, and it's a good moment. I'm sure we have plenty of new interesting stories to show and tell, and I'm happy to jump on the train now. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/41/49/41499d0c-2aba-44d9-90ee-2f06884f30ea/content/images/2026/09/omar-souissi-highresscreenshot00155-1.jpg) **Image Credit: Ribat Studio* The challenges are the ones behind the numbers. Senior talent is scarce, especially in engineering: plenty of juniors, very few people who've shipped, and the seniors tend to leave for Europe or Canada. Almost nobody here has a track record of shipped titles, so publishers price in risk. And the plumbing - contracts, cross-border payments, IP - wasn't built with remote game development in mind, so founders spend a lot of time on paperwork. None of that is fatal. It just means the first studios to ship a good game out of Morocco will do it the hard way, but that's a chance I'm ready to take. **What are the next big steps for Ribat and Kasbah through 2026 and into 2027?** Lock the creative direction and build the vertical slice. One district of the ksar, one character, the core of the game, fully playable, around twenty minutes. That's the milestone that decides everything else, and the aim is to have it in publishers' hands in 2027. From there, we decide how we ship, with a partner or on our own. Either way, if the slice is what I want it to be, 2027 is the year people get to see Kasbah properly.