Fortnite

Fortnite is not a game Shaurya still plays daily. It is a game he remembers. And the memories are not really about Fortnite at all -- they are about the lockdown, the friendships that survived it, and the question that changed everything.

The Lockdown Game

When COVID hit and the world went indoors, Fortnite became the entire social life of a nine-year-old in Oman. School was a Zoom call that nobody paid attention to. Friends were unreachable in person. The only place you could actually hang out with your people was in a Fortnite lobby. So that is what happened -- every day, for hours, with Vivaan M on comms and the rest of the world locked out.

Those sessions were legendary in the truest sense: the wins that felt like championships, the losses that felt like betrayals, the rage quits that lasted exactly four minutes before you queued up again. "One more game" was never one more game. It was always four more, and then suddenly it was 2am and school was in six hours.

The "Stay Safe Twin" Era

The friendship with Vivaan M was forged in those lobbies. "Stay safe twin" -- that energy, that genuine looking-out-for-each-other vibe, came from spending a global pandemic playing Fortnite together every single day. When the world felt uncertain and scary, the one reliable thing was jumping into a game with your friend and pretending everything was normal for a few hours. That shared experience creates a bond that does not fade, even years later.

The Question That Changed Everything

Here is the part that actually matters in the long run. In the middle of all those Fortnite sessions, a simple question formed in Shaurya's head: how are these games actually made? He was nine years old, stuck at home with nothing but time, and the curiosity was too strong to ignore. That question led him to start coding. That coding led to early projects. Those projects led to LockIn, Simplifly, Raly, and everything he builds today.

Fortnite did not make Shaurya a builder. But it asked the question that started the journey.

Nostalgia

There is a specific kind of nostalgia for the 2020-2021 online school era that only people who lived through it understand. Yes, lockdown was isolating. Yes, online school was a disaster. But there was also something pure about it: no commute, no social performance, no pressure to be anywhere except in front of your screen. You could roll out of bed, join a Zoom call with your camera off, and then immediately load into Fortnite with your best friend.

Shaurya does not miss the lockdown. He misses the simplicity of it -- the time before ventures and exams and roadmaps, when the biggest stress was a 1v1 in the final circle and the biggest victory was getting a win with your squad.

Legacy

Fortnite's era is over. Valorant and Marvel Rivals have taken its place in the rotation. But no game will ever occupy the same space in Shaurya's story because no game was there at the exact moment when boredom turned into curiosity and curiosity turned into a career. Fortnite is not just a game in the timeline -- it is the origin point.

See also: Gaming | Vivaan M | Lockdown Memories | Early Projects | Origin Story