Revolutionizing Story-Driven Shooters: Magic Hazard's Journey with Xsolla Accelerator

In a crowded gaming market, innovation is key to standing out. This is the driving force behind Magic Hazard's debut game, Memory Lost, a top-down action shooter set in a dystopian cyberpunk world. Players take on the role of an AI implanted in an assassin robot, fighting for freedom and destiny. What sets Memory Lost apart is its unique mechanic: capturing enemy memories to gain their abilities, allowing for diverse and adaptable gameplay without the need for character creation and leveling up. This concept was born out of a discussion between friends about the types of games they enjoyed playing as children and what was missing from them. Sergei Kuznetsov, the studio's founder and CEO, recounts how they wanted to play as the enemies they fought against, not just using their weapons but also their abilities. This idea evolved into the ability to shift and take over a defeated enemy's body, claiming their abilities for oneself. Kuznetsov was not only interested in the mechanical possibilities but also the narrative implications of inhabiting an enemy's body. This could change the player's perspective on the enemy, making them understand the motivation behind their actions. The game is balanced to ensure players are always adapting, with the game designer working to balance everything. The development of Memory Lost began in 2020 with a team of five, gradually growing to 19 members. Despite the passion for the concept, the team was inexperienced and faced numerous challenges. After a year of work, they presented their prototype to a panel of experts, receiving both criticism and constructive feedback. The team worked to improve the game, reworking it from scratch for half a year before presenting it again. The initial build was compared to the current version, showing a clearer structure in how combat and challenge evolve as players progress. The combat cycle includes training, omnipotence, and challenge phases, concluding with spaces for players to take a break and explore the environment. As development continued, it became clear that Magic Hazard needed more assistance to make Memory Lost competitive. The team decided to focus on narrative-driven gameplay with hand-crafted levels, aiming for six hours of gameplay. However, this added to the difficulty of development, with the team spending around two years developing just four hours of gameplay. Inspired by campaign-led games from the 1990s and early 2000s, the team concentrated on storytelling, with over 90,000 words of text capturing their love of dark humor. The narrative is delivered through lore drops, dialogue, and interactions with NPCs, affecting the story and leading to multiple endings. The external lifeline Magic Hazard needed came from Xsolla, which provided financial aid, lectures, and mentorship. Being on the year-long Accelerator program helped the team improve Magic Hazard as a game business. Kuznetsov learned the importance of effectively pitching the game to investors and publishers, creating beautiful presentations with gifs and videos. The extra guidance and resources led to new features being implemented in the game, improving the beginning in terms of onboarding and teaching players the mechanics. The decision to release a free Steam demo, subtitled Chapter One, received more than 90% positive feedback. Magic Hazard is now collaborating with ESDigital, who will be publishing Memory Lost later in 2024. The publisher will help deliver information about the game to players worldwide and is also assisting with porting the game to multiple platforms, localization, and QA. While there were many great ideas from Accelerator that the team couldn't implement due to time, Kuznetsov is hopeful they will be considered in Magic Hazard's future games. The team's future prospects look promising, with Accelerator's goal being to help studios thrive as a business. Memory Lost can be wishlisted on Steam now, and the free demo is available for download.