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

In a crowded gaming market, innovation is key to standing out. For Magic Hazard, this means bringing a fresh perspective to the top-down shooter genre with their debut game, Memory Lost. Set in a dystopian cyberpunk city called Detraxis, 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 new abilities, resulting in diverse and adaptable gameplay. This concept was born out of a conversation between Kuznetsov and friends, discussing the types of games they enjoyed playing as children and what was missing. They wanted to play as the enemies they fought against, not just using their weapons but also experiencing their perspectives. While some games allow players to acquire enemy weapons, Magic Hazard aimed to take this idea further by allowing players to inhabit and control defeated enemies' bodies. This mechanic not only offers new possibilities for gameplay but also raises interesting narrative questions. By inhabiting an enemy's body, players experience their life, environment, and memories, potentially changing their perception of the enemy. The game's development began in 2020 with a small team of five people, including a programmer, game designer, and novice artists. As the project progressed, more members joined, and the team eventually grew to 19 people. Despite their passion for the concept, the team faced significant challenges, including a lack of experience and resources. After a year of development, they presented their prototype to a panel of experts, receiving constructive feedback that helped them improve the game. With the help of Xsolla's Accelerator program, Magic Hazard was able to secure funding, mentorship, and guidance, which greatly aided in the game's development. The program provided consultation hours with specialists in various areas, including game design, marketing, and publishing. One of the key takeaways for Kuznetsov was the importance of effectively pitching the game to investors and publishers. The team also released a free Steam demo, which received overwhelmingly positive feedback. Magic Hazard is now collaborating with ESDigital to publish Memory Lost in 2024, with plans to port the game to multiple platforms and ensure its quality through localization and QA. The future looks promising for Magic Hazard, with many ideas and concepts that couldn't be implemented in Memory Lost potentially being considered for future games.