Magic Hazard’s Journey: Bringing a story-driven shooter to life with Xsolla Accelerator

With extra video games out there than ever, it’s vital to deliver new concepts to stand out. That’s one thing Magic Hazard has at its core for its debut sport Reminiscence Misplaced.

Set within the dystopian cyberpunk-inspired metropolis of Detraxis, it’s a top-down motion shooter the place you play as an AI, the Neural Community, implanted into the physique of an murderer robotic who’s preventing for his or her freedom and future. What makes it distinctive from different video games within the style is which you can change the way you play by capturing the recollections of your enemies and gaining their skills. This ends in numerous and adaptable gameplay the place over time gamers can grasp a wide selection of mechanics with out the necessity to create and stage up a new character repeatedly.

Talking to studio founder and CEO Sergei Kuznetsov, the concept got here one chilly February morning as he and a few pals sat round a kitchen desk speaking in regards to the kinds of video games they loved enjoying from their childhood, and what they felt was lacking.

“After 5 hours of discussions, all of us agreed: since childhood, we have needed to play because the enemies we struggle towards. Not simply outwardly, however inwardly as properly – utilizing their weapons and talents,” says Kuznetsov.

Whereas some video games like Halo enable gamers to purchase enemy weapons, these inexperienced however passionate younger builders needed to take the concept additional by truly shifting and taking up a defeated enemy’s physique, claiming their skills for your self.

“Yow will discover various kinds of enemies, offering new prospects to management them,” he explains. That’s not simply restricted to weapon varieties but additionally completely different playstyles. “You may determine to seize somebody who’s obtained a melee potential, and you’ll improve your ability to enhance your melee.”

However Kuznetsov was additionally all in favour of not simply the mechanical prospects however what this meant narratively. “In case you inhabit an enemy’s physique, you copy his life. You journey in his pores and skin, encounter his setting, and see vital recollections,” he explains. “Will this make you view the enemy in another way? Presumably. Possibly not sympathize, however at the least perceive the motivation.”

In fact, the sport has additionally been balanced to guarantee gamers are at all times adapting. “Our sport designer did a lot of labor to stability the whole lot,” Kuznetsov explains. “So in case you expend all of your ammo and might’t use your gun, you’ll need to discover a new enemy to mind-capture.” You may even shift to a bigger enemy who has extra most well being with sturdy melee, although they’re additionally slower shifting, and as they’re a rarer enemy kind it’s not simple to seize one other substitute in case you determine to shift to one other physique.

“We spent round two years solely growing 4 hours of gameplay.”

To keep away from fight from changing into stale and monotonous, gamers are additionally continuously equipped with new variables, from new environmental hazards to keep away from or use towards the enemy, to new enemy varieties, which after all the transference mechanic additionally permits for brand new playstyles.

Improvement of Reminiscence Misplaced started in 2020, beginning with simply 5 folks – a programmer, a sport designer, two novice 3D artists, and a novice 2D artist. “For the primary 5 months, we brainstormed concepts, created a normal idea, and studied the brand new area for ourselves,” says Kuznetsov.

Extra members progressively joined the mission after that, together with a few members from one other studio whose prototype had fallen aside, finally reaching 19 folks. However whereas Magic Hazard was fueled by the fervour for the idea, this was nonetheless a younger and inexperienced group making an attempt to determine how to take Reminiscence Misplaced to the subsequent stage, whereas Kuznetsov took on one other job and different weekend aspect gigs to fund the group.

After a yr of labor, they offered the prototype to a panel of consultants at DevGamm, consisting of representatives from publishers and advertising. Kuznetsov remembers it had been a brutal baptism of fireside by way of criticism however that when he adopted up with emails he additionally acquired beneficiant and detailed constructive suggestions. Simply a few of the factors raised included the dearth of readability when utilizing the transference mechanics, a lack of selection in enemies and expertise, flat stage design, in addition to a want to enhance animation and visible influence.

“We went level by level to enhance the sport, remodeling from scratch for half a yr, after which offered it to them once more,” he says. Evaluating the preliminary construct to how it’s now, there’s additionally a clearer construction in how the fight and problem evolves as gamers progress. As an example, Kuznetsov describes the preliminary chapters as having the next fight cycle:

1. Coaching – one enemy spawns at a time, a warm-up for introducing you to the circulate.

2. Omnipotence – rising enemy rely, however which you’ll even have the required number of firearms and mechanical mastery to deal with, as gamers have a feeling of superiority and full management.

3. Problem – faster and bigger enemy spawns with combined weaponry, which pushes the participant to grasp the mechanics so as to progress.

All that concludes with areas afterward for gamers to take a break and discover the environments, giving them the time to resupply themselves but additionally uncover bits of narrative on the earth.

As improvement continued, it was additionally changing into clear that Magic Hazard would wish extra help to get Reminiscence Misplaced to the form it wanted to turn out to be aggressive. “With no expertise, you attempt to do one thing good however do not perceive the quantity of assets you want to do it,” Kuznetsov says, citing that deciding to make a narrative-driven sport with totally hand-crafted ranges and an goal of offering six hours of gameplay added to the issue of improvement.

“Loads of video games like roguelikes, you’ll be able to create half an hour or an hour of gameplay, specializing in smaller items of property however present infinite methods to play,” he explains. “However in case you select storytelling, the issues that you’ve to do are a lot extra. We spent round two years solely growing 4 hours of gameplay.”

However impressed by campaign-led video games from the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, this was one thing the group needed to consider, with greater than 90,000 phrases of textual content capturing the group’s love of darkish humour. That narrative isn’t simply delivered from lore drops within the setting but additionally by way of dialogue, as your heroine, the Neural Community, is accompanied by two observers, MARK (Cellular Assistant of the Company Employee), a form of mentor and colleague coexisting inside the identical physique, and the Liaison, a consultant from the company Redsky who additionally created you. The way you interact with NPCs, equivalent to killing, sparing or ignoring them, also can have an effect on the narrative, with a number of endings to unlock, making Reminiscence Misplaced not simply a one-and-done expertise.

The exterior lifeline Magic Hazard wanted got here from Xsolla, which Kuznetsov had already been acquainted with after a assembly in late 2021. Thankfully, the corporate introduced plans to launch Accelerator the next yr and was in search of builders with attention-grabbing sport concepts. After submitting its newest demo construct, the studio efficiently joined the programme.

“Now I perceive how to put together lovely displays with gifs or movies that assist folks taking a look at your pitch”

A serious incentive for Kuznetsov was that Accelerator offered monetary support. Whereas the group had been scraping by funding themselves for 2 years, the extra funding would give you the option make the general bundle extra interesting, equivalent to extra animated cutscenes and voice appearing, that are vital components for an immersive story-driven sport.

Being on the year-long programme additionally offered the group with lectures and mentorship, which actually helped in all sides of bettering Magic Hazard as a sport enterprise. “You may have session hours the place you’ll be able to ask assist from specialists in any space, from sport design, to advertising, to publishing, and so they’ll attempt to discover a specialist to present providers to you,” says Kuznetsov.

Probably the most vital issues he discovered may additionally be typical for inexperienced sport builders. You might have a good thought however you want to understand how to promote it to your viewers. Within the very first occasion, this meant how to successfully pitch the sport to traders and publishers. “My pitches earlier than have been principally Google Docs,” he laughs. “Now I perceive how to put together lovely displays with gifs or movies that assist folks taking a look at your pitch perceive the chances and options of our sport.”

Whereas the additional steerage and assets led to new options may be applied within the sport, it additionally meant bettering the start by way of onboarding and instructing gamers the mechanics. A fair higher means to introduce Reminiscence Misplaced was the choice to launch a free Steam demo, subtitled Chapter One and together with the primary two ranges, which acquired greater than 90% constructive suggestions. “It’s truly lower than 200 evaluations,” Kuznetsov admits. “However after suggestions from Accelerator and different consultants helped us to enhance the sport, we’re actually pleased to obtain that suggestions.”

Magic Hazard is now collaborating with ESDigital who will likely be publishing Reminiscence Misplaced later in 2024. “In fact, you simply click on a button and you’ll publish on Steam, however with out a writer, it is easy to launch a sport and nobody will find out about it. So I actually hope the writer will assist us ship details about our sport to a lot of gamers world wide.” The writer can also be serving to port the sport to a number of platforms in addition to with localisation and QA to guarantee Reminiscence Misplaced is in one of the best form to attain as many gamers as potential.

There have been nonetheless many different nice concepts from Accelerator that Kuznetsov says the group wasn’t ready to implement due to time, although he’s hopeful they are going to be thought-about in Magic Hazard’s future video games. That’s a promising signal for a studio’s future prospects, which is apt as Accelerator isn’t simply there to assist a studio with one sport however to guarantee they will thrive as a enterprise.

You may wishlist Memory Lost on Steam now and likewise obtain the free demo.