Roleplay Design and Worldbuilding with Myzta transcript

Hello everyone. I'm Dan, also known as D Spav on Roblox, and it's my pleasure to welcome you all to our Level Up Roundtable featuring Myta of Full Flower Studios, the developer of Mermaid Life, and Roblox own game designer Aaron Jennings. Aaron, take it away. Hi everybody. Thank you so much for joining us, and thank you Myta for being here. So, to start us off, we heard some exciting news that you had been nominated for an award.

Do you want to tell us about that? Yeah, so there's this organization called The Gamers where they basically just highlight uh different women in the gaming industry, whether they're streamers or creators, influencers, that kind of stuff. Uh and they nominated me for the uh Standout Indie Game Dev Award, and it's pretty cool. That is very cool. Congratulations on your nomination. I think voting is going on through the 27th, so best of luck.

We all hope you win. It's always nice to hear our devs getting recognized for being awesome. So, we're here to talk about uh world building and Mermaid Life. So, what can you tell us about your role on the Mermaid Life team? So, I uh founded the game Mermaid Life along with my friend and fellow developer Evil Artist. Um and my role on the team is basically the game designer and also managing any updates or events that are going to be going on in the game.

Uh so, also project manager. That's a lot of hats to wear. I wear so many more than that. But they're very fashionable hats. Yes. Yeah. Oh, so um you've been on Roblox for a long time, is that right? Yeah, I've been on Roblox since 2011. All right, and how long have you been developing versus being a a player? So, I was a player for about 2 years while I was um playing different creative games like building games, uh but my favorite building game had broken after 2 years, I guess, uh because when Roblox makes updates to the platform, if a developer isn't keeping up with them, sometimes the game just stop working.

Um but I really enjoyed this game a lot and I wanted to play with my friends still, so I opened up Roblox Studio and I tried to recreate it. And it went really well after I had published it, me and my friends hopped in it and we were playing it for a bit, but then I noticed that a lot of other players were joining it and so it got me excited to start as a developer, which happened around 2012-2013. All right, cool. So, you then started developing your own like more original games, um including My Droplets.

Yeah, that actually came after high school. Uh after I graduated high school, I moved out to California to pursue a college degree as a game design artist and um I wanted to do something on Roblox still cuz I was missing out on just like kind of being a Roblox developer and how there was a lot of freedom with that, so I applied for the accelerator program. Initially, I didn't work on My Droplets, but my second accelerator program, I applied solo and yeah, I worked on My Droplets and shipped that after like 6 or 7 months.

All right, can you tell us a little bit about My Droplets as a game? How was it to create it? How was it to play it? It was a lot of work to create because I had to again wear a lot of hats and do the art and the programming and the game design and it was a lot of work. But basically it's an experience where you have a pet that resembles a gumdrop and they all have flavors and your goal is just to take care of it and bond with it and side things is a social roleplay game as well so you can do things like decorate your house and have families and that kind of stuff.

Very cool and super adorable by the way. Thank you. And so My Droplets, how was that experience for you as a developer and you know what you learned and the opportunities that it opened up for you? Well, it was my first big game. I had I before that I was very like obvious developer. I had never made a game that I guess had more than like 100 200 players. But after I released My Droplets, it was the first game where I had like 5,000 or 6,000 players hop in this experience and that was really crazy.

Um, but unfortunately because I was a solo developer, it burned me out a lot and so I kind of stopped working on it after that point for a year. But I definitely learned a lot from that experience onto making Mermaid Life. Mostly just in terms of trying to not limit a player in their roleplay experience because we can over gamify a lot of things and I think it really ruins just like the experience of hanging out with your friends and yeah.

Got it. Yeah, it's always great to you know have a project that's successful obviously but it's also really great to be able to learn from it and apply those learnings to your next game. So My Droplets was successful for you. Um Did that lead to anything in the future for you um going forward from that? Mostly just motivation to keep making games on Roblox because I saw the potential success that I could have on the platform.

Cool. So now you have Studio Full Flower. How did that come to be? Well, in I feel like for a while I always thought I wanted to start my own studio. I didn't know at that point that it was going to be Roblox-related, but then it was. After I joined the UGC program, it kind of was able to help fund me in starting that because I wanted to hire other people and work on bigger projects and more polished and cool projects like Mermaid Life came to be.

And so, in the beginning of 2020, I started Full Flower Studio and I hired my first developer, Adrian or Loler Wollerd on Roblox to help me work on Mermaid Life because we initially had other developers on the game, but they also wanted to start working on their own stuff and start their own studio. So, I had to kind of reform the team and figure out where I wanted to take Mermaid Life. So, it kind of was like Mermaid Life and Full Flower Studio helped each other come to be.

Awesome. So, how how different experience was it going from being a solo dev to suddenly having a team of people working on your game? It was a big change. It was definitely really helpful because it'll keep you accountable for your project and keep you going and getting work done because you have other people that are relying on you. Now, so it was it was good. I would say like the biggest thing for me is just being able to learn from other developers' experiences working on their own so we can kind of take all of our ideas and collectively try to make a better game.

So, that is really cool. Again, did it help with you know, the amount of responsibility and the burnout that you were facing before? Yeah, I would say that it was really helpful kind of giving up the tasks more and giving it to other people so that I could kind of like come out of my own burnout and problems that I was going through. Um but yeah, after I guess like 6 months of burnout, I was able to come back fully. Uh but for the most part, I was also kind of trying to figure out how to run a business.

There's a lot of side things that are involved in that that I wasn't prepared for. So, it definitely took a long time for me to get back into the developer side of things. Uh mostly, I would say in 2021 is when I really started getting back into game development uh from starting my company. Okay. So, when did the idea for Mermaid Life come to you? It was in 2000 and 18, I believe. I had just finished my Droplets and I was seeing other experiences on Roblox that were more catered towards the girl audience on the platform, which before that, like you didn't really see that.

You didn't see like fashion games or anything like that. I think there was like one fashion game that I remember that was like kind of catered towards the girl audience, Fashion Famous, but after seeing games like Royal High come to be, I was like, "Wow, this is incredible and I also want to be able to like work with this community on Roblox and create an experience for them." Um so, I created Mermaid Life as this like fashion open-world underwater experience because I also love mermaids and I wanted to create something that was more underwater and explorable because there wasn't really a lot of that in the gaming industry in general.

Like, I would go on Steam and I would try to find open-world underwater games and I think the only one that I found was like Azur and it still kind of felt closed off cuz they would kind of keep you into these different zones. Um also, it was kind of empty, which being on Roblox, you want to create something that's multiplayer and you want to be able to see other people and activities to do. So, yeah, I guess that was a lot of the inspiration behind starting Mermaid Life.

Got it. So, fashion, mermaids, underwater, open exploration. Um was this a game that you you really wanted to create for yourself? Has a lot of yourself in it? It was a very selfish decision to make Mermaid Life. That's not what I meant, but Yeah, so No, it's good. Like you do do have that spark of inspiration coming from yourself. Like the game that you want to play. Um So, you also did have that wider audience in mind.

You mentioned making games for for female players. Um so, what what was that wider audience that you were aiming for? And what about Mermaid Life appeals to them? So, on Twitter, there's this huge like virtual fashion community uh that I believe started from Royale High, but also just like the clothing designer community that you'll see. There's so many like 2D clothing designers on Roblox, and they all like they're really creative, and they make the cutest outfits.

And I follow all of them. They inspire me so much. Um but I wanted to I guess target that audience and reach them. And the thing about Mermaid Life is our character customization system, and we really tried to make it like really customizable, I guess. Uh between like being able to wear different tops with different sleeves and uh different types of fins and kind of like creating your own online persona and just making like really fashionable avatar.

Uh so, we were just really trying to hit that audience. And it sounds like there there just wasn't much there at the time for that audience. Is that correct? Besides Royale High, cuz obviously that game also does all of that. Okay, cool. So, how important is it when you're coming up with a new project to have a good idea of what audience you you to target? It really I would say it's super important, but it also depends like if you're creating an experience for yourself versus a larger audience cuz sometimes game developers do just have an idea that they want to mess around with without any intentions, but I would say yeah, if you're trying to hit a specific audience, you really got to research what they're into.

Obviously, I am might be in a different generation now. I don't know. I kind of feel like I still fit in with it cuz I think the things that people are creating are cute, too. But at the same time, sometimes you do have to do some research and be like, what is fashionable right now and what would your audience appreciate? And and part of that is knowing the kind of experience that they would enjoy that would appeal to them.

So what was your vision for that experience that you wanted to create for your players? You know, how they might feel the overall tone and experience of the game? Yeah, I guess I really wanted it to be up to them. I wanted We wanted to I guess define like what world building was and so when I was making Mermaid Life, I I would say world building. I wrote it down cuz I wanted to be like perfect and I didn't want to butcher it.

But I wrote down that I feel like world building is a developer providing a unique environment with tools that allow a player to tell a story. And so with Mermaid Life, I wanted to keep it pretty open to them to decide what they wanted to be on there. I guess also pushing them with the idea of like fantasy and it being underwater. So they're they're a little limited to that, but at the same time like you can really be anything in this world if you want to be like a sea rich mermaid or if you want to take care of animals in our world, if you want to just like go be a chef or if you want to be a high school student mermaid and role play like that, we we're just trying to provide like as many different experiences as we can.

I see. So when it comes to world building, you create this immersive space using lore and environment art and all the tools that you have at your disposal as a developer, but it it doesn't really come alive until your players are altering that space with their choices and telling their own stories in the world. Is that Is that accurate? Yes, I would say so. Like I think that's super insightful because that's an answer that can really only exist in games.

Mhm. Cuz our players have that agency and ultimately like the world what they want it to be as much as what the creator wants it to be, especially role-playing games. That's why the games are so great cuz you can just It's like you're watching a movie, but you're altering it and you're making it your own and it's really beautiful. So, there does need to be this this foundation that that you create that inspires them, um, you know, stemming from your vision for the game.

So, you know, what what steps do you take to actualize that vision that you have for them? So, we work together, uh, my team and I. I have an art team specifically for this and, uh, we'll have somebody kind of generate some lore for an area. If we have like an NPC in this area that we want to kind of guide like what the vibe is in this space, we'll have them design basically like their background and what they want to share about the space that they're in.

We also developed an art Bible to kind of keep us, uh, What am I trying to say? To kind of keep us, uh, aligned in our vision of what like all the different spaces should feel like. Um, so we'll have that and then we'll kind of discuss like, okay, what kind of interactions do we also want in this space to kind of help players tell a story or make the environment their own. Uh, with the recent school update that we did, we made sure that we put a bunch of different lockers that had props in it for different experiences.

Like if somebody wants to be a cheerleader, they'll take out some pom-poms, and we actually have some really cute like animations for that. I'm kind of sad we didn't provide those for you, but they're really fun. And then we also have this fashion studio area because again, we did want to put a big focus on a fashion-based experience. So in this space, we have different makeup and different props for like posing, and we have a runway.

Players can apply the makeup, and it's just it's really immersive and fun, and it allows players to kind of tell a story and see their story happening. So lots of different options, lots of different stories that can be told in that world. Mhm. Well, so I believe that we have some images to show and maybe from your art bible. Yeah. Thank you, Dan. Um should I explain this? Yes, please. Okay. Uh so this is just a little snippet from our art bible where we kind of wanted to establish what our plant life was going to look like underwater.

We wanted to put an emphasis on trying to match that classic like chunky Roblox aesthetic where like the characters, their bodies are kind of chunky. Different parts of like furniture and stuff are also kind of chunky. So with our plants, we wanted them to be chunky. Uh so we chose We also, I guess, want our environment to have kind of a fantasy style. So we we have some plant life that it is abnormally huge versus like what it would be like if you were an actual human looking down at a leaf.

So we wanted things to be big. We also wanted to avoid too much detail in certain areas so we could really put focus on the interactions and also your avatar in the world because sometimes you can over-clutter areas, and it just feels overwhelming and it distracts the player from the actual goal, which is uh the role play experience. So, we just kind of went over all of those things with the environment here. All right, there's a lot to unpack there.

A lot of considerations that went into even just leaves in the environment, right? Matching like you said, that chunky art style, um this lush beautiful environment that you want the players to enjoy, but also you know, not overpowering and taking away from, you know, their avatars and the stories that they're telling. Mhm. Very cool. And so, an art bible, um can you just explain like a high level what that is? Yeah, so it's just something where you kind of discuss, I guess, like the general vibe of the game uh through just like the love I don't know.

I won't I'm going to go into way too much detail in this, but like the different shapes of the environment, the colors of the environment, um you can also go into UI and that kind of stuff. The character design and how they should look and feel. Um sound design could I guess not really, cuz you can probably put sound design in there. It's really just like all of the art side of things and trying to make sure that everything feels good together.

Got it. So, a consistent vision for the entire game. Very cool. Thank you, Dan. All right. So, now you had mentioned My Droplets as one of your previous games and some of the lessons that you learned from that. Do you want to elaborate on that? Yeah, so I honestly feel like it's kind of the other way around. I worked on Mermaid Life and I kind of with my team, we had these different ideas for what a role play experience should be and I feel like what happened with Mermaid Life and Mermaid Life also taught me a lot of lessons about My Droplets and where I went wrong in that experience.

I would say it mostly where I went wrong with my droplets is over gamifying things and limiting a player on the content that they were provided in the environment. Um, we walled off a lot of the roleplay experience to their houses and kind of like dropping them into this empty world where they just had like a pet. And that was cool because we wanted them to engage with the pet, but at the same time they were put into an empty house and so it didn't feel homey.

It didn't feel like uh they were bringing their pet to this space where they could like have a cute little family and that kind of thing. So I really felt like where I went wrong with my droplets was just that it wasn't a friendly environment to really immerse yourself in an experience where you're having a pet and like it could have been cozier, I guess is what I'm saying. And I I think with Mermaid Life we definitely changed that and we provided everybody with so much more content and possibilities of what they could do straight out of the gate and obviously need some gamification, but not too much to the point where it makes players feel like what can I really do in this experience?

Interesting. Okay, so lighter touch and getting more freedom to the players. Yes. Cool. And is cozy something that you're going for in Mermaid Life then? Yeah, I feel like it's a pretty cozy experience, but um I don't know, it's kind of interesting cuz it's underwater and it can feel a little bit colder and darker cuz we yeah. It's interesting. It depends on the experience that you're going for, I guess. So what contributes to that cozy experience?

I would say kind of more compacting the world uh where you can see other players. We we went with more warmer tones cuz when you think about the underwater environment, you're kind of uh seeing something that is kind of dark and cold because, you know, like there's no real sunlight unless you're like really close to the surface. And obviously in the mermaid world, like you're pretty deep in there. Uh but for like the main environments, we really wanted to make sure that we tried hard to make it feel warm and colorful um and just like making it feel more of like a city but an overgrown city, so it feels a little bit more natural and more like utopia uh rather than dystopian.

Um but yeah, so that's kind of how we were able to make it a little bit more cozy. Some inspiration from that is I guess like in Finding Nemo from the beginning of the movie where it's kind of like like there's the school kids and they're like hopping around and they're having a good time. And it just feels like a cute cozy world. Yeah. Bright, warm colors and nice like soft, organic shapes. Yeah. That's a really interesting observation too about the size of the world impacting that that you Yeah. you know, be very easy to feel lonely underwater, I guess.

Mhm. All right. Uh so, Dan, do we have any questions for Q&A? We have a couple questions for you, Maista. Uh the first one is how did you go about finding and recruiting other developers for your studio? I would say it's mostly through connection. I started off with Adrian and he knew a lot of developers, honestly. So, I would be like, "Hey, I need I need this person." And then he would say, "I know this person." And that would kind of help us start forming our team.

But also, we utilized the dev forum a lot and kind of just said, "Hey, we're looking for this." And we would provide them with like a Google form post and they would send in their resumes and different uh talents that they had. You have to be pretty explicit on like I need to see your work cuz sometimes you'll put it out and you'll just get a DM that says, "Hey, I would love to make a game with you." But they don't really provide anything for you to go off.

So, you have to be like pretty strict about what you're looking for when you're reaching out to other developers. All right. And our next question, do you plan on expanding the world of Mermaid Life into multiple games related to Mermaid Life? No. I would say we are planning on expanding our world, adding new environments to live in and explore in, but we wouldn't, I guess, like expand into other games now. All right.

Have you used anything like LinkedIn or platforms such as the Roblox Talent Hub when recruiting? The Talent Hub just came out, so I haven't really gotten a chance to use it. I haven't had a need to hire anybody else recently, but I would love to use it. It's pretty cool. With LinkedIn, I wouldn't really say I use that for other developers. It's mostly, I guess, like Honestly, I don't really use LinkedIn. I'm on it, but it's just kind of there.

All right. Um and next, we have, how do you go about finding a backstory for your world? Um that's a good question. It mostly just comes from my head, I guess, or it comes from one of my teammates' heads. We kind of will think like, okay, we want to have this space. I don't want to put any spoilers because I have a very specific story that I could share, but I don't want to announce like some new feature that I'm implementing into Mermaid Life.

Um Hm. Okay, I guess I could go off of Misfortune, which we recently added. I think there's like an image of that with the slides, but basically, she's this person who's supposed to provide currency to you daily. It's like a daily reward system, and we wanted it to feel friendly. Something that we think about in all of our games is kind of like providing a meaningful experience. And so, with Misfortune, we wanted to have her share like a positive message along with giving you some money every day.

Uh so, with that, we kind of tried to develop a story for her behind that. And in the end, we decided to go off of she's this she's royalty in the kingdom, and she really loves her kingdom. And so, she goes down into the abyss and disguises herself as a fortune teller and gives out the currency to the kingdom that she loves. Which we need to put back in the future where she gives you a positive message because we kind of took that out uh for a moment, but yeah.

All right. Uh and the next question is, uh you mentioned you were developing games while still in high school. How do you mix school and game development well? Well, I was homeschooled, so I had way too much freedom to do whatever I wanted. Um I can't speak for people who have to go to public school. All right. And our final question for now, uh how do you go about finding a specific audience for your game? Um that's a good question.

I would say it's the other way around. Uh I'm not finding an audience. I'm making a game, uh and then the audience Well, I don't know. I guess for Mermaid Life, it was more so like I saw this audience that existed, and I wanted to make a game for them. But I wouldn't say like I'm out seeking certain audiences. It's mostly like I want to create this experience, and maybe there's an audience for it that I'll find on Roblox, and maybe there isn't.

I've created games where I thought there might be an audience, and I was dead wrong. It was like my first game, Bitter Sweet, I was trying to cater to like uh multiplayer online ballerinas, and that just did not work on Roblox at all. Um but yeah. All right. Aaron, back to you. Uh I will say I bet it helps to have been on the platform for a long time and have an understanding of the kinds of players and things that they're looking for, the popular experiences.

That is also very helpful, yes. Well, so talk a little bit about the setting of your game, Underwater Kingdom. Um I touched a little bit on your characters. So Dan, could you bring up our picture of Miss Portie? And so what what is the setting of the game? Do you want to elaborate on kind of lore and overall back story? Um I would say we kind of develop the lore as we go. Mostly it just started off as like a generic underwater mermaid kingdom and then we tried to decide like what do these mermaids in our world do?

What is important to them? Uh we wanted to put an importance on the environment and ocean preservation. And so we in our school we have a uh environmental science lab that we want to do more with and kind of share information about like ocean preservation through that. We're implementing recycling systems where players can like pick up trash and put them in the recycling bin and earn rewards for it. Uh What was what was the question again?

What was part of it? Um yeah, just general lore and back story about this kingdom that you created. Yeah, so going forward with the way mermaids to kind of have a focus on the environment again, we tried to make our general city more overgrown in a way where we allow like some messy plants to just exist because we felt like that's what these mermaids would have wanted for their kingdom. Um and then through that we kind of just start adding our NPCs and they all have their own Well, we have a toy uh for Mermaid Life actually for our pets that we have in our game.

She's like a animal sea goddess and she cares for animals and something we're looking into is bringing her back into the game because again, we've had to basically revamp the whole thing and we lost a lot of our NPCs and we're just trying to bring them all back slowly. Um, but once we bring her back, she's going to have like a big focus on sea animals and that kind of stuff and I don't want to go too much into detail because I wanted to partially be a surprise if I can.

Um, but yeah, so we we mostly just, I guess, take full flowers full creating meaningful experiences that will make a positive impact on the world, uh, where we do that slowly in like all of our experiences. But yeah, so we take that and then we're putting it in this world and we're trying to, uh, make this environment where that's really important and then that kind of makes the decisions on like where we take certain lore in the game and where we take, uh, the design of different levels and that kind of stuff.

But yeah, that's a lot of rambling. No, it's amazing. So, you you have this core concept of wanting to bring positivity into the world Mhm. and that kind of guides the development for It guides the development of all of our games, yes. Fantastic. How many NPCs do you have? At the moment, we have a librarian, we have Miss Fortune, we have a potion shop guy, um, and more to come. We're bringing them back slowly. Got it.

And so, they they all have some specialization or some message they're trying to share? Yes, they will. Again, we are still in development. We are in alpha. We have lots of content to add, but they will all have that. That's super exciting. So, yeah, that gives them a a purpose in the world. Mhm. Cool. All right, thank you, Dan. So, I see a lot of parallels between this underwater community and the real world. What are some of the ways that Mermaid Life does mimic that real world even though it's it's so fantasy oriented as well?

Yeah, so it was actually really interesting trying to develop a world in a 3D space versus a 2D space which is your general Roblox experience where you just walking on the ground. We wanted to make sure that like the different paths were still understandable because we're not mermaids. We can't We don't generally like think about like oh we're swimming up there to go to something or whatever. So we still try to incorporate like human types of guidance.

We provide bridges in our world where people can walk over things and staircases to like go up into buildings and while it may not really make sense because mermaids can just swim over things and like beeline it to whatever they're doing. Like we still try to provide a lot of things in the environment that feel very human-like and on land so that players will make the connections and understand how the game works cuz you can overdo it and then it might ruin the experience.

So we try to not do that. Got it. So bridges and stairs, that's really fascinating. Is that the kind of lead the player around the environment? Yeah. Cool cuz we're we're just all so grounded and used to to having those visual cues. Mhm. Is that something that you discovered in play testing or It's something that I kind of just thought of from the beginning because like obviously the general audience on Roblox is pretty young so I feel like they're going to feel more comfortable with like human-like things on the platform.

But yeah. All right. Have you ever gone too far with the fantasy side and had to pull back? I think initially we wanted to make it super like vertical and less like kind of outward. And then we ended up going with something that was super outward and really flat and then it didn't feel very good and so we kind of found this like medium point where it's like like it's an oval and you can you can swim a little bit up and a little bit down but it's like still human-like and you can see all of the different buildings and it feels very comfortable.

Right. And I guess kind of building it in that that circular sort of way does keep everything contained like you were talking about keeping it close and and comfy. Yeah. Nice. So you mentioned um kind of the the overgrown nature of the environment and that that got me thinking that that does kind of mirror your your overall concept for the game as well that you it's not this highly controlled place that kind of runs wild.

Yeah. Sorry, I was going to say sorry. It's fine. So yeah, it seems like that that kind of um that feeling that you wanted to create does just seep into everything and and inform those that you make. Mhm. So all those elements provide a level of like authenticity and familiarity to the world. Um do you think that's important for role play? I really do because again you don't want to limit a player. You want things to be pretty smooth flowing and you want them to be able to get into the events of the game which is being able to tell a story.

So you want to make sure that all the tools in the environment are just really like smooth to use I guess and understand. Um so we also tried to make our interactions super easy to mess with and again just providing like more guidance through our architecture and making it human-like and understandable. Got it. So is it really about reducing friction for the players so that's Okay. You get out of their way so they can do what they want.

Got it. Yeah, it's so we can move on. That's fine. Um Uh you've created this like rich immersive world for the players to inhabit. Um there's kingdom, there's like multiple levels to it. What is the player's place in that world? I really wanted it to be up to the player. So uh in this world I want people to be able to feel like they could be an evil queen or a a nice queen or witch or a chef or anything like that. So I kind of I guess just provide as many like different scenarios and different contents so that they can really kind of be who they want to be in the world rather than limiting them to like very specific things.

Again, like you could over gamify it and you could say like, "Okay, everybody who joins this world starts off as this mermaid that, you know, they don't really have much. They're just kind of like a mermaid citizen." But I I wanted players to be able to hop in the game and say, "No, I want to be this uh royalty like right off the bat, right now. Um make me a queen." And so we kind of just tried to make sure that we're not providing any friction in letting players do that from the start and be whoever they want.

Got it. Very cool. So how is that reflected in the environment? Um well, we don't like block off anything, I would say, and through that it allows players to be whoever they want to be. Uh we also provide them with a lot of really awesome starting character customization, like we have different crowns and different uh tops that they can wear and we provide them with multiple different caudal fins and dorsal fins if like caudal fins being like the bottom of the tail and then the side tail and then the back and we try to make sure that like they can have like kind of a big tail and then a small tail if they want, just like whatever they want.

Uh so that they can be who they want in the game. Very cool. And you mentioned that, you know, you can be a sea witch, you can be a a nice fancy happy queen. Um, is there anything in this space that kind of allows players to express themselves, you know, with their avatars, but like in the world? Um, related to those. We have talents, and these talents allow players to earn currency in the game. Uh, so we kind of try to hit those different uh, personas.

So we have this potion shop where players can go in and they can bring ingredients in and make potions and sell them. Uh, we also have animals you can take care of. And with that, we're kind of aiming for like people who care more about animals and nature and that kind of stuff. And if you want to be like a chef mermaid, we have a little cafe and you can make cups of coffee and be a barista if you want. Uh, and soon we're going to be adding more things into the world.

I mean, we have a school, too, so you can be a cheerleader mermaid if you wanted to be a cheerleader mermaid. Um, but yeah, we're just trying to, I guess, provide like a lots of different elements to be who you want. Well, uh, I think we do have a picture of the avatar catalog. Yeah. Yeah, you want to talk about this? Um, sure. We have this customizer and we try to, again, provide as many things as possible that a player can use to be who they want in the world.

This is one of our outfits that was inspired by the overseer on Roblox with the different eyes and stuff. So, with this, it's kind of like, you know, you want to be that cool evil queen vibe and through this outfit, you could be that cool evil queen if you wanted to be. Um, and we try to provide we again with this, we try to make it very like little friction, so we have redeveloped the customizer like seven different times until we perfected it and it felt really nice and really smooth to like make an avatar.

Um, so this is kind of where we're happiest with our customizer, the way we like position all the different buttons and the different categories, uh how you edit things, how you color things. We We went really into detail with this. Like it was like a 3-month thing where I was like very closely working with the UI artist and developer and every change that they made we had like an like a 30-minute discussion of like, "This works.

This doesn't work." Yeah, it was just like the customizer was really important. It was like one of the most important features of our game to really nail down. And then you have so many different items. Do you have any idea how many items you have at this point? I have no idea. We have a lot. Yeah, that makes it really tricky to come up with a UI that that functions as well as you add more items, right? Like it's very tricky.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, so what are What are some of the options that you can, you know, customize? Oh, yeah. Uh so, we obviously have like all of the basics that Roblox provides um on their platform, which is hats, back accessories, wrist accessories, skirts, uh like waist accessories, that kind of stuff. Um but we also have 3D tops versus using 2D tops because we wanted to uh push the platform a little bit more. We're really excited for layered clothing because it's going to make our lives so much easier.

As you can see here, we kind of have to like force body types on people um with different tops just so that things are like always appropriate. So, like with some outfits you have to be the the blocky character and with some outfits you can be the other characters. Um yeah, and then we also have different tails. We have our caudal fin, which is the bottom fin on the base of the tail, and then we have the dorsal fin and the side fins.

I could be getting the fins wrong. I don't remember what it's called, but yeah, we have like lots of different fin types. Uh we have the ability to customize your tail color, uh body color, your hair color, And then we have so many different faces as well. There's a lot going on here and you can do a lot. We also want to add more body types and again with layered clothing, that's going to make things a lot easier cuz we just want players to be whoever they want and we think that it's going to be great to be able to provide like so many different more body types.

So, it sounds like you have you have thousands of combinations that are possible and Literally anything. It's so cool. And so, how into this system do your players get? It's a pretty big deal. Anytime like anything is broken with this system, we get we get so many complaints. So, it's really important that this system works and performs the best because half of our game is based around the ability to like be this very specific person that you want to be in our world.

And so, it's important. Got it. Awesome. Well, thank you and Dan. Thanks. All right. So, you clearly have this this vision of what's going on to the world and you've touched on this some, but you know, how do you go about balancing that versus getting players the freedom to do what they want? Like, how do you make those decisions? I would say it really depends on which decision we're making. Uh we want to reach more and more people on Roblox.

So, we're not always listening to our specific audience. We're trying to look at other experiences as well and we're trying to see, okay, what do these players want? Uh and then we are also looking into adding those features into our game so that we can expand our audience cuz right now we're kind of like a smaller game on the platform. Uh but also we have our Discord community and our group wall and we listen to the people through there and there's some things that players have been wanting forever.

One thing that's like very particular is that people want to have land and they want to be able to be a person and then go into the ocean. And that would be a really big project to bring into our game. So, it's something that we're kind of battling with right now and deciding if it's important to the game. Uh cuz we don't know. I mean, we're a mermaid experience and I'm not really sure if that's something that we really want the game to be at this point.

Um also kind of feels like spoilers. I I don't know, but um beyond that, yeah, it really just depends on the different thing that players want versus what we want and we kind of just have to balance it, I guess, the best we can. And, you know, when you have an idea for a new feature, how do you go about like doing that that balance between, you know, this is the vision that we have for it and yet we we also want to give players agency and and freedom as well.

Is there you know, any kind of discussion that happens, you know, you've had you had people on your team pitch things and you've had that that conversation like, "Well, you know, we really, you know, don't want to over-gamify, for example." Yeah, so I would say we kind of have these pillars that we all are aware of. And so, if somebody comes to me and they say, "I want to add this feature, but I want it to be earnable in this specific way," then I can say, "I really like this feature, but we shouldn't wall it off to the player because this is something that probably is going to aggravate and create friction between the player and the experience." And so, we'll have to like go back and change how you might get whatever we're implementing into our world.

Um so, yeah, it's really just about like having your pillars and making sure that with each feature you're adding, it's going to hit this uh in the right way and not kind of divert like what the is and change things in a bad way. So, can you tell us about those pillars? Can you elaborate? Yeah. Well, um I feel like I kind of think about Roblox as a whole when I have pillars uh for my game, but also I think about Full Flower Studio.

And so, first off, are we providing a message that is positive or are we sharing something that might not be so positive? Are we making sure that what we're implementing is going to be social? Or is it going to draw players away from each other and make it kind of a more solo experience, which is not something that I feel like Roblox experience should be, um personally. And then, another thing is What was the other one?

The other one is are we restricting the player, I guess, from being able to have like a good roleplay experience? Like if we're trying to over-gamify something, um I don't want that in the game. I want it to be again, frictionless and let the player explore things and have this content that they want. Um we can obviously implement like some things that are like, "This is a really cool feature, but you can only have it if you like spend a little bit of Robux." Um but, for the most part, we don't want to make players hate our experience.

So, we try to give them things and make them feel good uh when we can. Got it. Makes a lot of sense. Thank you. Um yeah, do you think it's important for developers to establish pillars, you know, as they're working on their games? I do. I also think it's totally acceptable if you want to change your pillars halfway through game development uh because you're learning different new things that uh from your player base and what they want.

So, it's like you create pillars, but you shouldn't restrict yourself to those pillars if they're not what your game should be, I guess. Okay, so they're not set in stone if the game and the player base start moving a different direction. Yeah. Has has that happened on Mermaid Life? Have you had to shift some of your pillars before? Yeah, I feel like Mermaid Life was a totally different experience from the beginning than what it is now.

Ooh, all right. We'll have to get into that. Um Okay, so for now, um you know, it takes a lot of conscious effort it sounds like to make a world feel authentic and immersive for players and you've touched on some of the ways that you do that. Um so, like what kind of elements contribute to that immersion for players? Kind of elements like mechanic-wise or Um yeah, just animations, um interactives, things like that that you've got in the world.

I think we have some pictures. Yeah. So, we try to provide lots of different tools and we want to make sure that the tools, I guess, feel really immersive. So, we go into details of like how something should feel while you're using it. Um in the fashion studio, we have these props where you can put on makeup. And so, with that, we wanted to make sure that the animations were like pretty nice like you can like apply your blush and you can apply your eyeshadow and just feel like pretty and sit in the nice little vanity seat.

Um yeah. There's the video. You want to talk us through this? Yeah, so I worked with my prop artist and he basically just developed some cute little palettes that we were able to use for this particular prop. And then, I worked with our animator as well and I said that I want this to look very right. Um we kind of made a mistake and used a different avatar when we were animating it. So, it's like offset very slightly and it bothers me.

Um but for the most part it feels pretty immersive I would say. Um it's just like it could be a little better uh in the future. But yeah, we we tried to make sure that it was exact, I guess. And that's important for immersion. All right. So, this is one of those elements of of a realism that you bring in. Like this is how it works when you put on makeup. Yeah. Cuz you could you could just like put in this tool and like they can hold it and they can like type in the chat applies makeup.

But it's just so much more immersive when you can just click and then you just start applying the makeup. Uh and it just again creates less friction cuz then you don't need to chat that. You can just be like, "Okay, see you guys. I'm going to go to the vanity and I'm going to get ready." and then you just start like sitting there and doing your stuff and yeah. Yeah, that that feel very real. A lot of stuff in there. So.

Cool. So, you know, you you've created this very immersive world. There's got to be a lot of inspiration behind it. Are there any outside references that you drew on as you were building it out? Well, like I mentioned earlier, we used Well, I was inspired by Finding Nemo in creating the um like creating like a warm feeling environment when the ocean can can kind of feel cold. Uh I played a little bit of Azul on Steam, which I really enjoyed.

Um we're taking some inspiration in terms of like the overall design of the world and trying to make it again not as overwhelming to look at cuz you can get really into details. Uh Sea of Thieves I think is the name of the game. But we were really inspired by that game because they they have like this really beautiful environment, but it's not like overwhelming and too sharp on the eyes. Uh so, we're taking inspiration from that in the further development of our world.

Uh but beyond that I feel like with the overall like idea of the game, it was just like me thinking of different things that I wanted to do on Roblox and kind of merging them together, like being a mermaid or exploring an underwater world or or fashion-related stuff. All right, cool. So, I think we are ready for Q&A. All right, so we have several questions for you here. Uh the first comes from Corey. Corey, do you want to unmute yourself and ask your question?

Um hello. Yeah, it's working. There we go. Fantastic. Um yeah, so I just wanted to know uh really quick, um do you tend to take inspiration from other games and then incorporate those ideas into your own games um and uh your sort of game mechanics as well. Yeah, especially other Roblox games. I am really really inspired by this one game, Livetopia, right now, cuz they just provide you with like so much different content in the world like right off the bat, and it's just like this open-world playground that's so much fun.

And yeah, I would say like I am very heavily inspired by other Roblox games, and they always like I don't know. I feel like if you're just like in your own head, you're you're not learning a lot, so you should always be like playing other games and trying to figure out like what is working in these different games and what you can incorporate in your own to make them better. Fantastic. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Corey.

Next question for you here. Uh do you have any tips you can share for creating an engaging fictional world? Well, I feel like a lot of what we've been talking about, I guess, is the tips to do that. Um I would say just, you know, really really write things down, think about it beyond like what we've been talking about, cuz you can kind of like hop into creating a game and just kind of like start throwing things together and not really put too much thought into it, which I've done a lot before and then I get like halfway through and I'm like, "Oh, no, this is not working in the right way.

It's There's a lot of friction here. This isn't immersive." And so, yeah, I just I guess putting a lot of planning into it and really thinking about what you're doing before you do it is a good tip. Great. All right, this is a fun one. Uh is there something more Roblox can be implementing in the helping developers to produce an immersive experience? I feel like they are always kind of implementing the thing that I need at the right time, so I'm having a hard time thinking about what I would want them to add like right now.

Something really important is the layered clothing. Uh other things um I don't know. I feel like maybe they can improve the collision uh for different parts so that we can make better uh mesh worlds over using terrain because you have a lot more freedom with that and MeepCity is made with like entirely mesh terrain and we have a lot of problems with it all the time, to be honest. We have to like cut things up a lot and it just delays a lot of map development.

And so, I guess like with that, better mesh tools. All right. Uh next up, uh what is the purpose of world building? Should developers who have games not as immersive be looking to engage in world building? Are there types of games who can be excluded from using world building? I actually had this conversation the other day with my fiance cuz he's also a game developer and we talk a lot about games all the time. Um and it was interesting cuz I initially was going to take out the idea that your unique in order to uh create an immersive environment.

I thought maybe like you could just create literally like a generic town and try to make it immersive, but I think it is kind of important, like that your world has some uniqueness to it, especially with it being a virtual thing, you can really do like so much with your games. You're not limited to like what the real world has to offer. So, I would say maybe there's restrictions to like what you could world build in.

Okay. Uh we have another question from Corey here. Corey, do you want to unmute and ask your other questions? Hello again. Um yeah, so players spend hours each week customizing their own avatars to build their personal identity on Roblox. I was just wondering is there any player appearance features which you will use from the player's avatar in your own games? Like that on Roblox? Like they Yeah, so like hats or faces that the player already has equipped and then will you incorporate that in into your game?

So, like on the player's avatar. With Mermaid Life particularly, I we chose to not do that because we felt like it would take away from the immersion of an underwater mermaid environment. So, instead what we did was we provided like eight different base characters so that players could find someone that might feel like them in the moment, but then we also say, "Hey, you can do so much more customization directly after this." So, for this particular experience, no.

But, in other games, I do think it's nice because Roblox is a metaverse and you want to be able to have your avatar exist in different worlds. So, I think it's definitely important for certain experiences to allow the player to still be them when they hop into your game. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Thank you. Mhm. All right, that is all the time we have for questions now. Back to you, Erin. All right, thanks, Dan.

So, let me see. You you mentioned that the game mechanics in Mermaid Life allow players to feel like they are part of the society in Mermaid world in Mermaid world. Um So, Stan, can we get that video up? We wanted to specifically talk about gameplay and mechanics, um which we've touched on a little bit already. So, this is stunning. Do you want to tell us about how much like R&D and thought went into this? So, yeah, we thought that the tail, obviously, is the most I don't know, I guess yeah, the most important part of our mermaids because it's your avatar, it's the thing you're seeing all the time, it's the thing that you're going to be looking at cuz you're obviously swimming from behind.

Um so, we wanted to make sure that the tail itself was super immersive and our main engineer, Adrian, he was he just like went above and beyond and like added wiggly tail physics and bones and just made our tail like move with you as you're swimming around. Like it's not just an animation, like there's a lot of math behind it as well. Um so, really, it's all him. He like he like he did it. I I have nothing to say. He just made it all really great and I was like, "Hell yeah." Sorry, "Heck yeah." Um It was good.

Um and and there's some physics there as well that's at work. Yeah. I'll just like I I couldn't tell you how it works. It's very math heavy. I'm not I'm not great with math, so yeah. Well, it really does feel like you are swimming through the world. You kind of if you stop swimming, you sort of start to sink. Yeah. It's so beautiful. It is. It is. And that's that's a very like subtle way to kind of immerse your players as well.

Mhm. So, um you know, we talked a little bit about all of the activities that players can do in the game. Do you think that like how important it is it is it for them to have a sense of agency in the world, of choice? I think it's super important. Uh I really love that you can create an experience where a player can alter the environment. So, it's really cool to be able to incorporate different features like being able to In the future, I want to just have like random planters around the map and you can pick up a flower and put it in the planter and like provide your own flavor and style to the world.

Like little things like that that just make a player feel good and make them feel like they're part of the world uh is really important. And also, I don't know. Like it would be cute to just you you're like, "Hey, I just planted this flower in the central area and come check it out." And I don't know. Just little things like that are important. And so, it's not just control over their own stories, but control of the environment as well.

Yes. That's exciting. So, you know, as as part of all of that, you know, these players are telling their stories, they're engaging in role play. What kind of role play scenarios do they tend to go for? It I I feel like I've joined the game and it's always for some reason like somebody's like an evil queen and and they're like uh fighting with like a nice queen and it's just like something like that where there's like a lot of drama involved and I think that's really cute and I I love that players love to engage in like such drama in the game.

Um but also just like the general thing like I just want to be a mermaid and have a little mermaid family and we swim around together and we go to the coffee shop and that kind of stuff. So, there's really a lot of different scenarios that you could do in mermaid life and I'm excited to provide more environments so that like we don't have a castle right now, but they're still like pretending to be an evil queen. So, I can't wait to add a castle to our game and allow players to role play in there.

Oh, that sounds awesome. I think we do have a picture of the school. Oh, yeah. The school just released and it's so pretty. I'm in love with it. And what is like there's a library? Yeah, there's a library, there's a commons, there's the environmental science lab, and then there's also a fashion studio, and the outside environment as well. Again, we like added these bridges and things, and the PVR that we were doing in the world, just like look at the little the shell on the ground, it's shiny.

It's so pretty. They're just And then like the plants, I really love my art team. They just make everything so pretty. That is beautiful. Thank you, Dan. All right, so Yeah, you have all these locations for players. You know, what what part does your team play in, you know, creating opportunities for players to have ideas for the stories that they tell? Well, we have our art team, which has an a 3D architect, I would say.

She does like all of like the building design and that kind of stuff. And then I also have the environment artist, and they handle the environment and setting up the scenes. And then I also have some prop artists, uh who kind of create all of the little objects that the players are interacting with in the world. And then on the engineer side of things, I have a person who is really great. His name is Anagorn, and he's just always like creating these really cool interactions and really thinking about all the different details.

And so, they kind of just like work together to like provide our assets and animation and functionality to create like different scenarios that players can role play in. Um and then I also have more engineers, too, who handle like more of the bigger things like the different UI elements that we're implementing into our game, um different events. We recently added a racing event that's really fun. We can swim around the school, and it's just like get some extra currency for that.

Uh but yeah, we we have a big team, and they're all doing cool things. Very nice. So, I think we do have some slides of some of those cool places. The word that you used uh when we were just I discussed it earlier was byebye. I thought that was really cool. Yeah. Um so, this is the comments area where you can like go to the cafeteria, and and you can put different kinds of food. It's like everything like that. Like, you have little customization.

You you bring your tray over there, and you're like, "Okay, I want to put a burger here. I want to have like a smoothie bowl. I want to have some ice cream." And you can bring it to your table, and you can eat it at the table, and then the food disappears. And then you can go throw away your tray. You can go into those lockers and grab different books from the different locations. We have our environmental science book, our fashion book.

And then we just have like a general library book. Um you can go into the back where there's a kitchen, and you can chop food. Um and you can like use a pan and like and do things with it. Um but yeah, there's there's a lot to do just in like this one space, which is what we're trying to provide in like every different environment. Have your players surprised you with some of the things that they've come up with in those spaces?

I don't know. We just released this, so I'm still like checking it out. Uh I'm excited to see how people use everything. There's some funny things that we noticed, but I don't know. I don't want to share it. It's something that yeah. Um There's some fun things that you can do just like messing with different animations and um I don't know. Yeah, it's fun. I think we have some more pictures that we can share of just different spaces.

Yeah, you can flip pages in this book. Like, you can just be holding the book, and then the page flips, and you're like reading it. And you can just be like a scholar in the library Uh uh with this environment um our environment artists put like a lot of messes all around and they're and they were like, "Yeah, the seniors at the high school are just being chaotic and they like knocked their coffee over and all the books are everywhere and they took all the pillows and they put them in the space." And they just like really thought about like what the story is in this area and I really appreciate that.

Got it. So, that that's more realism that just grounds a player and it's like, "Oh, I must be studying really hard right now. I have got a test coming up." Something like that. Yeah. And so, in this space uh we went with an underground mining space uh that was repurposed by the mermaids because again, they like their natural environment. And so, with this they repurposed it into a really cool fashion studio and we made it vibey.

Uh and we tried to make it feel more dramatic because when you're thinking about artists and fashion majors and that kind of stuff, you think like, "Yeah, we're dramatic and we make like dark and vibey spaces." And so, we added darkness and neon and yeah. And we also made it so that you can like turn on and off the lights and this affects the game for the whole player. So, that allows for that uh way that you can affect the world for everybody else.

Um social engagement is really good. Like, I didn't want you to turn off that light, but I did it anyway. So, haha. And yeah, this is also a space where you can apply makeup and grab different props and pose and yeah. Cool. So, when you're creating a space like this, do you have a a goal in mind? Uh yeah. So, this goes back to the pillars. Just making it a social space. Uh trying to provide as many interactions as we can to allow for a lot of different role play scenarios.

And then also establishing like what the vibe is because obviously not every area in our role-play game we want to be like dark and and mysterious and that kind of stuff. Like we want the main areas to feel very bright and happy and friendly. So it's just about thinking like what we want the players to feel like in the space before we like get started on it. Well, there's no game-ified fashion show here, is there? It's just Yeah, it's purely like I want to go walk down the runway with my friends and yeah, there's no there ain't nothing in there.

All right, thank you. I think that was yeah, our last example for that. So Yeah, we've we've touched on this as well about you know, how easy it is to overemphasize gameplay systems at the expense of player freedom. And yeah, I'm I'm really curious. Like do you hear from your players when they feel like you've gone too far one direction or another? Yeah, I I mean like I feel like in every experience your player base is going to be like this item is too expensive.

Make it cheaper. I want to buy it right now. But you kind of it's not always the case. Like obviously there's some exceptions where you're like, yeah, you would say that at any price. So you kind of just have to think about it before you do it. But it definitely happens. I would say with this experience it happens very little because I feel like we are providing players with so much to do and we give them little gifts.

I mean we give them gifts for playing with each other. So like if your friend joins our game, you get a one-time bonus of like 500 clams and it says, "Hey, because your friend is playing with you, here's a gift." And yeah, so we just try to like do little feel good things like that so that generally they are happy. Mostly they just complain about we don't have land yet and they want to have mermaid houses and that's something that we're working on, but we're just a team of seven, so give us a minute.

All All so how do you respond to player feedback if it's you know, negative like that? How do you address that? Generally, um we don't really respond to it unless it's like your game is actually broken and then we will obviously put out an announcement like, "Okay, yes, we are aware of this issue and we're going to fix it for you." But, generally it's pretty positive if if we feel like somebody's just being really negative and kind of hateful in our in like our Discord servers or anything, we generally just remove them because it's not good for the community at in my opinion to like have that kind of negativity in the game.

But, if they're just like providing feedback, then that's really useful and we'll write it down and we'll do things that will make the game better. All right, cool. I think we are ready for Q&A again. Okay, we have a few more questions for you here. Uh the first one is, "How do you tailor your experience for older audiences without alienating younger players?" I feel like with that, you need to make things very frictionless in your world.

Um with an open world environment, I feel like you can provide things for both audiences. You can kind of I guess separate it, but for the most part I feel like we created an experience that can be enjoyed by both audiences cuz we have like the higher level of like customizing your avatar, which I feel like tweens really enjoy. And then we also just you can just swim around and I think that in itself is a fun experience.

I've And then also I think something else is that I feel like the younger audience also really enjoys customizing their character. I remember when I first released Mermaid Life, we had like this uh in Roblox playtest and there was this little girl, she was like four, and she got on my computer to test out Mermaid Life, and we couldn't get her off for like 10 minutes. And her daughter was like, "Okay, we got to go." And she's like, "No, I want to customize my mermaid." And she did that for like so long.

So, I feel like it kind of provided this experience that literally anybody can enjoy. Like, I want to customize a mermaid for 10 minutes on the computer uh without distraction as well. So. Great. Our next question comes from Kelsey. Kelsey, do you want to unmute and ask your question? Hi, perfect. Okay. So, I actually have a couple questions. I don't see anybody else submitting any right now, so I can I guess ask mine.

Um first one is, how do you not limit a player's experience? I know you talked a little bit uh specifically about the limitations. I'm guessing you're meaning more towards like character customizations and all that stuff. Um how would you go about like not limiting their experience? So, for the particular experience that we're going for, it's role-play oriented and it's character customization oriented. So, from the moment that they hop into the game, I want to make sure that they have access to different role-play experiences and that also they have access to creating a mermaid that feels like them.

So, I guess through that is what we're aiming for. And then also in the future, once we do provide things like housing, we want to make sure that we allow them to not have any friction with that. Uh so, we want them to start off again with like a non-empty house. We want there to be furniture in there. Kind of like what Livetopia does. Again, they have like you just hop into your game and you plop the house down and like you have literally endless amounts of fun things that you can do inside of it.

And it just keeps the player engaged and keeps them in your game. Uh so, really just like providing them things from the start. You can add things later that are cooler and have players purchase those things, but as long as you're like not putting them into something that feels empty, then I think you're hitting that goal. Thank you. Next question is, how do you know what style to go for for a game? Uh like whether it's low poly, realistic, cartoony.

I guess what's like your inspiration on that and like how do you know specifically like what style that like an audience is going to like? I feel like I have developed a style for myself that I like to put in all games and so I just kind of do that for every experience. I really love like hand-drawn textures and chunkier shapes and so with every experience I kind of try to make sure that things are like that. So it's not necessarily I'm trying to like hit an audience.

I'm just like trying to go off of like what my personal preference of aesthetic is for a game. Awesome. Okay. My next question is, uh you spoke a bit earlier about hiring people but um how do you know like when you're hiring somebody if they're uh true like experienced developer and that like they would work well with your team? It can be a hit or miss. I say that I get really lucky somehow. Um I kind of try to look at it like if they're providing you with enough information on what they're able to do, that's really great.

Uh if they seem like really positive and they have a lot of energy, I love people like that. I've experienced working with some developers who just don't get inspired by the product that you're working on. You can really tell and so it just kind of you just kind of have to be like I this wasn't working out and I don't really guess we can do this anymore. But other than that um I like to look in the details of what they're creating.

Like I recently hired somebody, their name is Valkins, and something that I really appreciated was like the amount of detail that they put in each of their experiences. Like you you can just like create a game but then you can create a game and like go into it and like he really like went into it and after I hired him I like literally did not regret it because he put the same amount of thought and detail into all of the different features that I implemented into my experience and just like if you can see those little details then that can help you kind of figure out like yeah, this person is going to be great to work with.

Awesome. Okay, that's really useful. My last question for you is what sets your game apart from like other fashion or like girl inspired games? I don't I don't know. I would say like I guess the the theme that we went for with it. I don't really see other mermaid games. I mean there are other mermaid games on Roblox and I have played them, but we kind of just like went into more details of the different mechanics that we applied.

Like they there's some customization in the other mermaid games, but I feel like we just like really took it to the next level. Um This is called the bubble up. I think that's funny. But yeah, so we kind of just tried to go really really hard into like what these other games were missing and I think that's kind of what you do if you are making an experience that an audience or or like there's a game already out there that the audience is there for.

You just kind of like learn from that experience and you build on it and you see what is missing, I guess I would say. Awesome. Okay, thank you. All right, that is all the time we have for questions now. Back to you Erin. Great, thank you for all those awesome questions. So getting back into some of those details that you were mentioning just now um when it comes to art, how do you go about you know, planning out that space and concepting it?

I think we have some images to show for that as well. Yeah, so this I think for the most part we go on Google and we look up uh so many images of just like underwater environments, different movies and things like that and we grab things that we like and we write notes about what we like about them. And so when we hired this concept artist, we kind of provided them with like, "This is the stuff that we really appreciate about this image here, and the things that we want to incorporate in our world." Um and so, with that, they kind of took those ideas and because they are the artists and they can kind of envision it and like bring it to life, they were able to create things like this image uh to kind of show us like, "Yeah, we want we want this for our environment." And I think we have one more concept art.

Yeah. So, this is going to be a fun environment one day. Uh we again, we like to wanted to we want an abyss eventually where you can like find really cool things for like making potions and stuff, cuz we want to expand on like the sea witch vibe that we want to go for. And so, like here's some really cool like neon like uh lava type stuff that we want to put in this space and just make it feel really cool and edgy and fun for the sea witch.

Didn't realize we were getting a sneak peek. Yeah, sorry. I My team's going to hate me for all the spoilers that I'm sharing today. Uh this is all fantastic. Just stunning art, first of all, but Yeah. I know, it's it's really clear the distinction being made between the different spaces and how they feel different. Mhm. All right. Thanks, Dan. So, yeah, it really seems like every aspect of the game has to work together in order to create a consistent and immersive feeling for the players.

And you know, that extends to all the art. It also extends into the user interface. So, how do how does user interface kind of fit into that whole equation? Yeah, so with our interface, I think when when you're trying to make something feel really immersive, you don't want to clutter up the screen with a lot of 2D things if your experience is meant to be 3D and you want to draw them into the 3D world. So, what we were going for with our UI is making it as minimalist as possible.

We also tried to match like what the Roblox core UI had as well, so that it didn't feel too different and it didn't distract the eye from the 3D world. Um I don't know if we had any images for that, but basically they're just like a few different like things. Yeah, there you go. So, it's like very simple. There's like not much going on on there. Um and it really just allows the player to like get into the game and immerse themselves in that have to worry about like random UI cluttering up their screen.

Yeah, for sure. I mean it's all kind of pushed to the side. It's very minimalist. It allows you to really enjoy this whole beautiful world with, you know, the maximum screen possible. So, how how selective are you when you're deciding what to put on your HUD since it is so important to you to keep it minimal? I feel like yeah, we wouldn't want to put any more on the screen at this point. Uh if we wanted to maybe add something that was a new functionality and we did want something to pop up on the screen, we mostly think about how can we fit it into the 3D space.

So, if like there is a specific thing that had to do with a specific area, that might need UI like maybe you walk up to it and then it pops up on your screen in the moment, but then you walk away from that area and then it goes away and that kind of thing. So, we really think about like how can we put this in the 3D space versus putting it on the screen since this is a 3D environment. Got it. Which kind of, you know, makes that environment more immersive as well because it's like you're not hitting a button off on your screen, you're hitting that item itself.

All right, so can you just tell us like what did you think was important to go on the HUD? So, mostly just like the things that would help with the role-play experience, um which is the emote system that we have. We also wanted to provide them with a map because players can get lost in the world and we want to create as little friction as possible. So we created a map so they can open up and go to different areas that are important to them.

We also wanted to provide them with a camera so that they could like get really cute screenshots of their outfits. Uh because we felt like that was important as a fashion game and hitting that like Twitter fashion market and allowing players to do that. Uh and then obviously also the character customizer you want access to at all times and then our premium shop where they can purchase full outfit sets immediately versus waiting for them to pop up in our shop.

Um and then the controls as well. We have a button that allows you to kind of anchor yourself in place so that instead of like floating down to the bottom, it allows you to kind of stay up in the air and not have to worry about like continuously like floating back up. So the control system is was important and then like every game has a backpack so you want to be able like have your roleplay tools pop up on the screen as well.

But we don't want to make it like too much so we kind of limit them to how many slots they have and what they can put on your screen at a time. And then is that backpack the treasure chest at the bottom? Yes. So yeah, there's really theming just everywhere. Yeah. Awesome. So yeah, it sounds like even your choices on on your head and with your UI just all fall back to those pillars that you mentioned, that vision that you had.

Mhm. All right, thank you Dan. Oh, so with all of your effort to craft this experience, how do you keep the world feeling fresh and engaging for your players? Content cadence. We're always I guess like adding new areas in our world. Um we also we're discussing a lot about like advancing the tech in our game and thinking about ways that we can do that. Uh we want to like do more with our tails than what we have now. So we're kind of like thinking about that as well and like each update, like how can we advance our tech and make people go when they hop into the game.

Um, yeah. Cool. All right, so you have these frequent like new releases of clothing and avatar options, things like that. And you also have you know, larger maybe expansions with new parts of the map like the school that you mentioned earlier. Yeah, so we generally need like a month or two for the bigger items in the game. Like when we made the school, that was a pretty long process. And the next area that we're releasing is also not coming out until later this year.

But in between those we try to find like little things we can do, which right now the easiest thing for us is releasing new outfits for players. Also, we release like obviously bug fixes and new hairs, accessories. Just as long as like every week you're telling your players we did something to our game, they're going to be happy and they're going to keep coming back. But if you wait too long then everything just kind of like goes down.

So you you try to release every week something? I'd say every two weeks. We would like to do every week, but we also want to sleep sometimes. I would. Yeah. So how far ahead do you plan on your releases? I literally have the rest of the year planned and part of next year planned at this point. So we have a lot going on right now. Great. And like how useful is that planning to know that far in advance? It's really useful.

It like puts less stress on the team cuz they know what they should be working on and the kinds of things that we're going to be releasing. It It keeps everybody excited as well. Every time I plan something, I'm like can it be this time now because I really want to see this in action. Cuz I just Yeah, it's it's really useful to just like plan ahead. It gets everybody excited. you know what's going on, you know like what you can do in the future and you just have like this sense of like calmness cuz you're like I know what this game is going to be like for this period of time and it's just yeah, it feels good.

Good to have a plan. Yeah. Um so how how often do you kind of tease things to players like something's coming? Do you do any of that? Every time I finish writing a document, I go on Twitter and I'm like Oh boy guys, I cannot wait for the next few months and so pretty much just like every time. Uh but for the most part we try to keep everything pretty secret. We actually implemented this thing where we have this crab Mr.

Crabson. Uh he is a construction crab and he goes around and he like hammers away at things and it kind of allows the players know we're working on different areas in the game and it's really cute. I wish I provided images for that now that I think about it cuz you can like see him like hammering away at this one uh space that we're building off in the corner and everyone's like what's this going to be? Um but yeah, so I guess we're we're getting better at like teasing like within the world and like having these things that like hint at things like yeah, we're working on things and we can't wait to show it to you.

Well, that sounds adorable and we will all just have to go into Mermaid Life to check him out. Go play my game. Um so we're going to start wrapping up cuz we're almost out of time. Um in the process of developing Mermaid Life, is there anything that you've learned that you wish you knew going into it? I would say everything that I've been talking about about just like creating very little friction in your games and providing players with a lot of content straight out of the gate because that's what players are looking for when they hop into a social role play experience.

They want to experience something and if you're going to wall it off like from the beginning, then it's just not going to be fun. And I think that's just something that I learned after working on games for a very long time, and it's been very tiring, but I'm really happy to have this realization now cuz I'm so excited to like just continue making games and providing players with like these fun playgrounds to do things in.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing what you do in the future. Um giving final parting advice for audience. Drink water. Fair enough. Fair enough. Um all right, cool. Well, then I think we're ready for Q&A. All right, our final Q&A of the day. Uh hydro homies will be very, you know, pleased to have found your endorsement of water. Um we have just a few questions for you here. Uh the first is, do you ever take feedback from your audience on what they want to see in terms of art and design?

Have you ever disagreed with what players wanted to see in your experience? Um yeah, I have disagreed, and I've also gotten really excited from some of the feedback that I've gotten from players, and we have implemented things that were player provided. Sometimes people will just send us like a concept art of like us an outfit set that they'll want to see in Royale High, and if we really like it, then we'll buy it from them, and we'll put it in Royale High.

Um so yeah, it just depends on what the thing is. All right. Well, our final question of the day comes to you from Kelsey. Kelsey, do you want to unmute and ask the last question of this level up? That is amazing. Perfect. I love being the last one. Um quick question for you. How do you come up with updates to keep uh players to return to your game? Well, we kind of think about the things that they enjoy about our game.

Uh one of them is the character customization and other things being that we want to provide more like role-play experiences. So, we kind of like already have this idea of like we want to provide these spaces. I kind of just have like a lot going on in my head and I have like a thousand things in the backlog and I want to implement all of them right now, but I can't. So, I kind of have to space them out. Uh so, it's really just like my head coming up with ideas, but also we do listen to the audience and they have some requests and we are implementing them as we see necessary.

Yay, thank you. I appreciate that. All right. So, it looks like that's all the time we have. Thank you all for attending and asking such awesome questions. I'd like to also thank Myzta and Erin for their great round table conversation, as well as Missimo, DinoS'more for their support for this event. Uh and for everyone watching on YouTube, thank you for tuning in. Drop your questions in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you and don't forget to like and subscribe to the Roblox Developer Relations channel.

More level up videos are coming soon.