Mystic Moose’s Mike Levine On Cross-Platform Games And Custom Collectibles

[Music] thank you hello world welcome back to the pg.biz podcast with your hosts me Brian baglow and the ever Divine Peggy insults good afternoon Peggy it's good to see you again it is also good to see you as well Brian we've both been on the road now I'm not the only jet Setter oh I have I have traveled the length and bread well the length of the UK down to Brighton absolute Pinnacle of of the game's calendar uh in the UK for develop um slightly unexpectedly I thought I was going to be doing something else but I got the opportunity to go down and just hang out with the entire games industry so it was wonderful I saw a lot of people I haven't seen for a very long time and managed to pick up quite a few different um talks and topics and themes and of course I absolutely kidnapped each and every single one of them to bring onto

the podcast in the next few weeks so watch this space folks it's going to be wonderful how about yourself myself the same thing I've been out there looking around preparing for Gamescom and also dipping back into some of our very very cool interviewees that we had during GDC which brings me to Our Guest today we have not just a guest we have an experience an event because it's all tied in too a beta launch right now as we speak we have Mike Levine founder and CEO of Mystic moose the indie game studio and publisher that you might remember Brian created by the veterans of Lucas Arts Activision Electronic Arts great team great timing as well because Mystic moose has announced their multiplayer Auto chess game Mojo melee will launch its first season for its web version of the game today so hey that's great news and we're excited to have you Mike welcome you must be very excited as

well oh yeah really excited to be here really excited to launch this game Mojo melee and yeah really excited to talk about it with you guys and bringing it to mobile is is an exciting next step for us that's great Mike and listen we know that launchies can be an incredibly busy period so thanks for taking the time to join us but let's give our audience the inside scoop on the game Mojo Mojo Meli um chess but different Please spell the beans sure so it's a multiplayer PVP Auto chess strategy game we love these games we've been kind of tinkering with them for years and it's really a new genre we wanted to make a game that sort of could appeal to a mass audience we kind of focused on high action quick feedback but also have deep strategy for those who want to put the time in so it's it's a new take on the genre that we're excited to unleash to people that sounds incredible that's that's not a mix of genres that you just come across

anywhere um so drill down into it is a you know you see auto battler it's like for anyone out there on familiar with that kind of that that take what do we mean by Auto Butler sure well the game these games are and specifically Auto chess they're usually divided up into two phases which is kind of the preparation phase where you're deciding which how to use your gold and which units your champions in our game your Mojo's and spell Stones these new new new element that we added to these games and after you place them on the board and your opponent does as well within a time period This is where the auto part kicks in and then you kind of sit back and get to watch how your strategy played out did you do the right things and usually it plays these games take course over a number of rounds so it's really about how you're tweaking your strategy adjusting to your player using your your team and that's a major sort of thing that we changed in these games also is traditionally these Auto chess games they've only been around really since

2019 but they usually the players were pulling from what's called a shared deck right so players had the sort of same team they were pulling from what we did is added elements of deck building so kind of like Hearthstone and other games I mean where you're building your team and your comp before you go into the game and this really changed the strategy and just gave so much different meta that people can bring into these and every time we release new assets which we do monthly it really is continually changing the meta and the comps in the game so strangely enough going all the way back Mike one of my favorites from the early 2000s was the incredible machine which was broadly similar you know had all the setup you build your whole thing and then you hit go and sit back and see if you were clever enough to solve the outcome so I'm in I'm sold it's I'm not asking for a free copy I will absolutely pay but I can't wait to see it it's free to play so you're in it's okay there you go you know what you're gonna do next week or

sooner I have to have something different because we met like during GDC so I know you're this kind of person I would be interested in the most outlandish change tweak alteration in this particular version in this beta I don't know if I'd call it outlandish but I think adding that deck building component to these games was a major change to how these games have typically been played and you know this it isn't unusual to see a new genre morph and adapt and you know the games we love the games that are out there in this genre like TFT but we also wanted to we felt it needed to evolve it was going to appeal to a wider Mass audience and I think the other outlandish I guess thing we did is we added this new element called spell stones so that's you know up to now usually these games you're really just dealing with characters these are these elements that come in three different forms in our games but there's going to be dozens and dozens of them I think we already have about 10 of them in the game um but they they divide into three

different types which are really like offensive defensive and then sort of one that can um sort of work as a something that affects the rest of your team so where you place these at the beginning of the match whether they're going to boost give a boost to your team or possibly uh affect what you know you kind of have to decide where the other team might be hiding essentially because they go off at the beginning of the rounds is also a big outlandish I guess changed to these games you said it yourself it's all about great games in fact all of our guests tell us you know it is really about the game now and I'm excited about that because it wasn't always that way they stand and fall now very much on their narrative now yours is about nature versus technology on a mysterious alien planet can you unpack that a little bit more for us I guess I'm a big nature guy I live in a rural area I'm very I try to stay in touch with nature and honestly I learned this way back when I worked at Lucas working getting to go out and work at Skywalker Ranch I

really just like that balance of like if I'm gonna be sitting in front of this giant screen all day when I take my breaks you know it's nice to go into nature and so yeah with Mojo there was you know when we started this the the metaverse hype was really starting to swell and just sort of looking around at the landscape we just saw a lot of cyberpunk and very sort of dystopian things and I guess I just kind of figured hey if population is going to spend our future in these quote unquote meta verses never liked that word by the way but um I wanted to make something at least that was tied to the real world you know and to remind people and kids growing up that like we're still living in the real world and there are things going on um that we should you know be conscious of and aware of and so yeah that's really sort of takes the story of what we're living through it's a planet it's a story we want to tell over time so sort of like a mystery it's a planet like Earth but it's not Earth it's

similar has all these sort of animals that we're familiar with but they've evolved very differently on this planet and they're great Clans that have had Wars for centuries and as you can imagine all different types from Warriors to assassins to clerics and there's magic of course and this very strange event happens at the beginning of the story where this mysterious object hits the planet and the Clans essentially have sent out Scouts to learn more and this is where they meet these magical creatures the mojos which are these plant-based creatures that the planet has kind of given birth to to help defend the planet on top of all of this umely is a web 3 game so you know it's uh it's something that we've come across all too rarely and it's something that we've certainly had a lot of debate and discussion around when we've ever when we've mentioned it on the podcast so how are you dealing

with this where does web 3 come in and where is it implemented in the game we were able to raise funding pretty early on when you know the sort of the web 3 hype was beginning and you know we've really been on the Forefront in terms of our thinking about it and how we want to utilize it and for us you know as I've said the game and the fun is the focus and the headline and what we've realized is we believe in the power of web3 to empower players to empower developers but it's a feature right it's a feature for those who want to take advantage of it in our game and really we're really being subtle with it you know in terms of letting people experience it at the level they want to experience it and trying to educate them and really trying to make the process as simple as possible which is has been a big issue up to and what's the response means so far have you had any kind of any of the criticism that's been leveled at you know the whole crypto nft blockchain um you know appearance in games or or if

people really kind of picks up on it we haven't had much negative feedback honestly um as we bring the game out to a wider audience I'm sure we'll get some of that but you know I think we have to remember that a lot of that criticism and things we hear in my opinion A lot of it comes from the press and it definitely is more of a sentiment in North America and Western Europe right it's a big world and just as as hesitant and maybe scared of it as people are here we know that Asia and that side of the world as we've seen before in gaming is leading the way and you know I think the CEO of Sega and I'm gonna misquote him but he just had some great quote the day before they announced their web 3 game but just talking about how it's it's foolish to ignore kind of the these things on the fringes and and the potential that they can bring and we feel like you know with Sega Square Enix now Ubisoft you're seeing these walls crumble more are

gonna join and you're gonna see good games you know come out of this and that's that's really the most important thing and then it's up to the players to understand hey I'm putting in my time and money into this maybe it would be beneficial if I could actually own my assets and have the ability to sell them and you know take take participate in this economy on a deeper level which is to your point exactly what's possible here because avatars are a big part of this players can select their own Mojo Avatar and to your credit it's very subtle so I can do it or I cannot do it is what I'm hearing here yeah I mean when we think about things and we're about to introduce our skins for Champions and then soon um our 3D modable mojos as we call them so Gamers um um you know it's very natural right to have an avatar and customize it you think the things like SackBoy and Little Big Planet which we were actually inspired by if you look at the Mojo so we were

thinking about this from the beginning um and you know we think about things as you know what do what is just a normal gamer want right and these things are kind of obvious to us and then you look at the web three side of it and you have to keep in mind up to now right we try to not call them nfts anymore by the way we call them digital Collectibles but almost all of them really are static jpegs right and as Gamers that just didn't make sense to us right we wanted to bring these things to life have them be customizable have them actually be 3D if you're making a 3D game so we're really trying to take the medium forward and do what makes sense to Gamers versus nft collectors I think your approach leading with games and then going where can we fit this and where does it make sense which adds value absolutely speaks to us because so many of the people be speak to it's all about the player experience the quality of that experience and and gaining and keeping the trust so my hat's off to you because it sounds like that's that's absolutely

the way to to approach this yeah and you know if I can I I like to explain also like our approach to digital collectibles in the game is we don't sell them in the game at all you know and We're working directly with Apple and Google on this we we treat it just like gamers are used to right purchasing in-app purchases unlocking things these are all Quote off-chain items initially and then if a player shows commitment and plays with it long enough essentially levels up their character to the max level then they have the ability if they want to claim it as a digital collectible so we're trying to like let people show put some commitment in don't just you know serve their secondary markets they can purchase them there which which is fine but for players in the game we didn't want to just give these things away let's say you have to in it that's such a smart idea that goes really really well with what it is about this you know when you're committed to something when it has value to you then

you start to understand the value of it so that was actually pretty smart as far as an education effort because it's so subtle I'm doing it you're not even really there telling me this very much Mike you're just letting the gameplay convince me of the value of what I'm doing what I'm building what I'm personalizing yep that's the idea many people most people who play our game may not even realize there's a web 3 component to it honestly that's how we wanted it so this approach might putting the player first building web 3 is right in the background it's up to the players whether or not they want to engage it sounds like you guys have put a lot of thought into this and making sure that it is a game first approach so do you think this is a model that or a prototype that would work for for other game studios out there who may not even be considering web 3 as yet look one thing we learned early on in this space and sort of my general advice I think also is you know to follow your gut Your Instinct and what makes logical sense and I think when this space blossomed

and was getting so much hype at the beginning a lot of people including us were following Play books that really had just been written you know that it didn't seem like they made sense and it didn't take long for us to realize this is the wild west everyone's making it up as they go and that's where we sort of ended up looking Inward and saying what makes sense what makes sense to a normal gamer right so I think that's that's how we created this plan and yeah I I think you know we're seeing other studios in this space do this you're seeing much much less emphasis on the web three parts of it but people realizing if we're going to bring this to the masses um it has to be about the game it's just I keep saying that again again it's so silly but it's just really the most important thing and um you know for us that's also why we chose mobile and cross-platform we felt

that was crucial for Mass adoption and you know with what happened this week with Google and apple before that um you know Google's new guidelines I think that's just proving we made the right decision because to us and it's still early interpreting these new guidelines but the general sentiment is this is a very positive thing right like they're officially like apple opening up the doors for these types of experiences so um yeah we're very we're excited to see how it evolves over time that's fantastic and I want to stay on that point just for a second if I may because we haven't actually touched um strongly on the fact that this is a cross-platform cross-play title so you know you guys are clearly going after the the widest possible audience so I'll be talking true cross play you know players on multiple platforms competing directly against each other regardless of the device yeah so first of all we're our the first version of it is on the PC

or Mac and it's browser based actually so it's a browser game made it with unity and webgl so it's very easy to get into had lots of people tell us it's one of the more accessible games just to get right into and play that's what we wanted um and then we also have the mobile app which is in open bait on Android and iOS coming right behind it and yes it is true cross play you can play with the same account you'll be playing people who either will be on mobile or desktop you won't know and yeah that's something that was just very important to us um one I'm a big believer in Cross play is a future of games and it is difficult to support as a small Indie Studio to be honest but we felt it was important and I'm also a big believer in browser-based games and that's why we decided to lead with webgl first and I feel that browser

based games have a bright future and we might be on the cusp of a Resurgence really of those types of games which will really bring a whole new dimension to cross play the easier for developers to maintain one code base than um yeah I think with webgl and other Technologies coming it's uh it's a very exciting time now that's interesting because for so many developers so many studios out there the browser is is a tool they're not looking at it as a platform but of course it's a hugely powerful platform um so yeah I I'm really um thrilled to hear that you think it could be a Resurgence because somebody who who goes back into the early days of flash gaming it was always my my first stop yep and I think it's it's been neglected for a long long time because as you see it gives you a simple easily maintained code base and you can reach

out across multiple devices because pretty much everything whether it's on your desk or in your pocket has a browser of some form and they tend to be pretty powerful so I'm I'm delighted yes some of us remember if we're old enough it wasn't that long ago really but new grounds and addicting games and mini clip right and what put an end to that their dominance let's say or their you know that era I think was Mobile in the App Stores but I think things can come full circle right and now we see app store fatigue and things like that you know and there's there is those games that still exist and they're played by a lot of kids and played at school on Chromebooks and these sites still exist and it seems potential that the next era of these games can sort of begin to emerge and that that's what we tried to do it's also very significant well we're talking about sort of emerging platforms you know we're talking about mini games we're getting very excited about what's coming next

but exercise like an element of re-emerging platforms Brian if you think about it you know it's very bullish about this and that this could be the future you know of of the Cross play of of cross-platform that we're going to go to browser as much as we are also excited about mobile I mean it might finally come together that would be something we can dream I love it I love that that is that is something that I I think we can we can be confident about is we're not entirely sure where we'll be in the next five years ten years down the line we can probably guess more easily well we're talking about cool Trends I'm excited because you're so bullish about this Mike and it fits Mike because your colleagues call you quote a Fearless entrepreneur with outstanding Drive vision and resourcefulness from the start you have defied the odds maybe you can spare something that you would tell them they're doing right or

doing wrong or missing completely as an indie startup I think you know sort of contrary to what I was saying earlier about trusting your gut you also always have to remember you're running a business and you're employing people who are going to depend on your decisions right and the risks and the decisions you make um are really critical right to everyone's future I think and I think also as an indie and a startup in general one thing I've realized also is time is your most precious commodity right and every decision you make like you know we don't have a company of 150 people right so it's very critical where we spend our time and the things that we do and um it's it's really I think important to think those things through because it's very easy to get caught up chasing rabbit holes wormholes in this space that in the end you're like why am I doing this like where is this going to lead us and so timing is everything

right it's like comedy and so with a lot of Technology you see these these waves happen and the you know as people say the trough of disillusionment but things always come back and they come full circle so Mike we know that you've worked in AR we know that you've done the augmented reality the immersive take so um what where are you coming from with this what have you found that works and and you know how how are you feeling um are you equally as bullish on the on the future of immersive Tech in ER as you are on browsers and cross-platform you know so my long-term view is I'm very bullish you know I I think we're seeing the beginnings of a tech Revolution right with ar XR AI all these things like you have these different people in these different camps and even blockchain it's all going I think coalesce into this amazing future short term however I I'm much more guarded and we really we made a decision

you know about I guess three plus years ago to sort of pull back from mobile AR gaming we had apples AR game of the day I think the first one they gave that to we worked with Phil Tippett we worked with every major company in the space and did Big projects for for big companies that were games and stuff for the Super Bowl and in the end just I realized that as a form factor on the phone is very limiting right like people you can only hold up your phone for about 30 to 60 seconds and that's why you're seeing the most successful AR things on mobile be Snapchat and eighth wall these little campaigns that are done and just as a gaming platform we realized it was very limiting right and so we developed also for the hololens we lived through that and so you know I I sort of realized that it's going to take at least in my opinion about 10 years for this to become sort of mass Market

this is something that was drilled into me at a very young age when I worked at Lucas Arch you know they used to call it LCD back then lowest common denominator you know how do we get this these games into most you remember that term no one says it anymore but and so that's that's one thing with with the Vision Pro and I think now we're hearing they're only going to make you know 150 000 initially it's really going to take years and and I I I'm so excited to see what people build on it but um we're gonna be probably waiting for a little bit just to see how it evolves this time you know we started with the news we started talking about your game we've gone through the game and I think it's great to go full circle and end there because you've just launched the beta what's next Mike um well we're really excited for the future bringing this game out full launch both platforms and mobile keeping the web up we have some really exciting Partnerships that uh coming up and other

exciting announcements that are going to help us bring this game to the masses and I think really just excited to see what people think about a new take on this genre really that can hopefully move it forward and just continued improvements we're going to be making listening to our community we have a very active Discord so love people to come on and join in the conversation because we really do listen and we've been developing this game really with our community you know in beta for the last nine to 12 months and so all their feedback really is something that we have listened to quite a bit and has gone into this game and I'm also excited about how you approach sort of the user education side of this the player education side um you know letting them discover what they want to do with the game and also letting them become more committed with the whole idea of personalizing their Avatar I mean that's going to be exciting to watch as well because you

aren't telling them you're just sort of letting them Discover it yeah yeah absolutely I mean you know one example of this I think and you know look again I'm not saying we we have the answers this is all new we I remind my team of that all the time when we're we're having vigorous discussions about it it's like no one's right here guys right because this is all new right and we're trying to figure it out so I think that's something that we all have to remember but one thing we had a lot of talks about recently we just did a big overall to our Discord and we sort of preparing ourselves for you know people coming in who know nothing about the web free side of things we didn't want them to be intimidated or so you know Discord has a new feature where you can onboard people and ask them questions so we're using that in roles and it's like if you're just a gamer and you don't want to hear about that stuff you come in make a few simple choices you won't see any of that stuff but we also have like a channel we call digital Collectibles 101 and that's for people who are just

let's say curious and want to learn more and keep the conversation just on a sort of educational level and then if you are hardcore web3 person you can choose that role and we have a special place where you can talk about those kind of things and you know not scare off just Gamers who are here for the game and that's how we're approaching it we'll see how it works um but we're you know and and people can move around nothing's gated you know it's really up to them when they want to take that step If Ever I love that approach Mike because again it's exactly what we're finding in so many other platforms and so many other types of game quiz you let the player choose their level of participation you recognize there are different types of player who are looking for different experiences or to get something out of the game so um our fingers are crossed we hope that works out as well as it possibly can for you and again we will see if we can get you back further down the road and you can tell us from the heights of stardom exactly how well it is done obviously you know if you still talk to us after

the you know millions of players and billions of dollars have rolled in thanks for the well wishes oh we'll come back either way don't worry about that don't worry about that part excellent It's it was not a conditional offer you know so it's not as you have to have millions of players and billions of dollars before you can come back we'd be delighted to see you regardless so before we let you go we have a couple of questions that we ask every one of our guests the first one is what game are you playing right now what's you know in your pocket or on your on your laptop that you're you're um obsessing over and secondly favorite game of all time so no pressure but uh we'd love to a find something new and B see what's your fave um so my favorite game I'm playing right now um is this little thing called chat GPT oh yeah I've heard of it I I consider it a game yeah well you know it's something that yeah you you you constantly are getting I'm trying to get better at and learning

how to get more out of it so I do feel like there's a little bit of gamesmanship going on in that um yeah I mean the other games I'm playing I'm usually playing games honestly to educate myself at this point because you know it should be more for fun but it is fun of course but I'm like oh this is how they do that you can't help it I make games so I've been playing like we play a lot of brawl Stars you'll see a lot of brawl Stars I I and um also AFK Arena um Hero Wars games like that I've been checking out a lot my favorite game of all time I guess I'm gonna just be heavily biased and go old school from my past but probably I'm going to say Day of the tentacle um I feel like that was such a seminal moment in games um it was really the beginning of CD-ROMs it was the first time we've seen that level of Animation in Games characters voice over

the time travel puzzles are just genius and mind-bending and I just feel like you know that was a I have just incredible memories of that I actually didn't really work on it I tested it some at Lucas but it's something I'm always going back to I guess going back to the mansion and uh hopefully there'll be a sequel I'm crossing my fingers with the success of monkey the new monkey that would be phenomenal that would be phenomenal it's the the whole point-and-click in the whole Choose Your Own Adventure one of my favorites of all time so I am very much with you and yes it's if if you're listening out there a sequel would be we're very warmly received for sure long overdue well there we go folks what an incredible chat with a great conversation what a lot of stuff to unpack Mike we can't thank you enough it's been an absolute joy we appreciate you coming on especially it's such a busy time for you um so you know please don't be a stranger come back again I would love to

have you back and thank you so much for telling us more about Mojo Meli thanks so much for having me thanks for giving us the time to talk about the game really great conversation in general so yeah love to come back anytime well I will be booking you Mike that's for sure and thank you also for sharing your lessons I think that's really important with our audience as well and the role of choice in all of this it's going to be exciting to see how your game evolves and yes we will have you back so thank you foreign this show is all about how to do your job better how to make an amazing game how to Market it and you have a say so if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on then we would love to hear from you we want to hear from you we want to reflect the reality of the mobile games market and all its wonderful complexity and strangeness so if you have any suggestions for us if you have any feedback for us you can always get in touch you can email us at

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