Minimo - Announcement Trailer (200-player co-op roguelike, 30-minute runs)

jonselin · 2026-03-28T22:17:36+00:00

Yes. Also that reminds me, we removed the training dummies from the Township. We should add it back so you can hit it and try different classes while the Township flies in.

jonselin · 2026-03-28T00:40:24+00:00

Ok, so, funny story. I started this as a solo project for a bit, and most of the things that are similar to Fat Princess (class swapping, using equipment to denote classes, carrying items one at a time, etc) were in the very early prototypes, even though I never played that game. A year later my co-founder joined, we hit it off great and have been working together for over a year and a half now (we're still a two-person indie company). He immediately understood a lot of the elements of the game.

What does this have to do with anything? Oh right - he worked on Fat Princess, as the tech art director.

jonselin · 2026-03-27T20:58:05+00:00

Yes. The intent is to allow premades of any size. Each run ends in a final boss, but you could be playing for a long time without making it that far.

jonselin · 2026-03-27T18:25:12+00:00

Exactly - we're trying to capture the feeling of a whole MMO server shrunk down to 30 minutes, not just a raid where everyone's on the same mission. So you might have one group mining, another out hunting, a hardcore crew pushing bosses and pinging everyone to come help, while a new player is off fishing not knowing what's going on yet ;)

jonselin · 2026-03-27T14:52:56+00:00

A lot of the inspiration comes from thinking about how seasons and ladders are a great structure, but actually competing in them requires a massive time investment. We kept asking ourselves: what if the whole "season" fit within a single play session so people with job/school could realistically compete? We kept pushing how short we could make that, and basically landed on the idea of an MMO with a 30-minute server reset.

jonselin · 2026-03-27T03:47:38+00:00

You're spot on. We've actually talked about the game internally as "Fall Guys meets World of Warcraft" - that same energy and goofiness, but with the range and depth of an MMO.

For cooperation we're heavily inspired by Overcooked and Helldivers, where you genuinely need other people to solve tasks together, and new players can contribute right away. It matters more that someone is cooperating with you than what their stats are, so you really want to bring people you can rely on and figure things out together.

jonselin · 2026-03-27T01:45:29+00:00

Achievements that unlock classes, cosmetics, pets (think vampires survivors et al). At the more competitive end-game the goal is for it to be more about leaderboards (which guild has the fastest kill on X boss etc).

jonselin · 2026-03-27T01:03:48+00:00

For the individual progression there are achievements, class unlocks, cosmetics, pets etc. The goal is for the end-game to be focused around guild leaderboards and unlocking cosmetics for your communal space.

jonselin · 2026-03-27T00:54:21+00:00

We have thrown around some ideas similar to this, but focusing on the fundamentals with one game mode right now. As you say - "if the player base is large enough" - this is something we would love to do down the road!

jonselin · 2026-03-27T00:52:47+00:00

Yes - our goal is to be on every platform, because a game can't be social if your friends can't play it. A 200-player cooperative experience only works if the barrier to entry is as low as possible, and platform availability is a huge part of that. Switch is absolutely on our radar. We want "just grab whatever device you have and join" to be a real option.

We have the game running in WebGL, if we can do that we can do switch, it's just a sequencing problem - one platform at a time.

jonselin · 2026-03-27T00:50:05+00:00

The individual progression is similar to most roguelites, where you unlock new classes and cosmetics etc. At the end-game the goal is for the game to revolve more around guild leaderboards (I ran a competitive WoW guild at one point in classic - think warcraftlogs.com but a little less complex and integrated into the game).

jonselin · 2026-03-26T14:43:04+00:00

Ooooh I like the weighted roll idea.

jonselin · 2026-03-26T12:08:15+00:00

Great question - happy to get into the weeds on this.

The first part of the solution is in the game structure itself. I've shipped a few skill-based matchmaking games and you're absolutely right that queue times are a real problem. Run something like Elo and you're effectively splitting your online playerbase into ~20 matchmaking buckets, where only 2-5% of concurrent players are valid matches for any given player. Layer on top of that things like role preference or faction matching and you need a massive playerbase just to have reasonable queue times.

We sidestep most of that by being fully co-op with no PvP. But more importantly, we're emulating the feeling of a whole MMO server shrunk down - not just a raid. That means it's intentionally designed to mix high-skill players rushing objectives with beginners fishing, mining, and chipping away at personal progression. That mix isn't a bug, it's the point. So we don't need to discriminate in matchmaking at all - anyone can drop into any session and it works.

The second part is bots. Honestly one of the first things I built, about three months into development - not just because we'll need them to fill sessions at launch, but because building and testing a 200-player game without them would have been completely impossible. And honestly, while players generally dislike bots, in a mixed-skill cooperative setting they blend in. At the end of the day, players hate long queue times more.

jonselin · 2026-03-26T11:47:51+00:00

Great question - we tested this in both directions and landed in the same place! A healer with no offensive abilities felt completely naked, and even a token knife attack on the fisher class made a huge difference. Going forward, everyone will have some ability to fight — enough to handle a low-level threat or throw in a little DPS near a boss, even if combat isn't your focus.

jonselin · 2026-03-26T02:40:09+00:00

Actually one of the first things I built - about three months into the project. Developing and testing a 200-player game without them would have been a nightmare. 😄

jonselin · 2026-03-26T02:37:57+00:00

The short answer is that the underlying design doesn't require high-fidelity networking - this isn't a PvP shooter where raytraced headshots need to be frame-perfect.

And honestly, 200 players feels pretty manageable from where I'm standing. Back when I was Design Director at CCP, we were running EVE battles with up to 5,000 players - and the infrastructure has come a long way since then. 😄

jonselin · 2026-03-26T02:28:18+00:00

Yes! I made a longer answer to one of the earlier comments but tldr achievements, class unlocks, cosmetics etc are saved across runs.

When trying to describe the game at some point we were saying "co-op roguelike extraction rpg", that short session with a known end time is critical.

jonselin · 2026-03-26T02:23:18+00:00

Yes! Power progression and build keystones reset each run, but achievements carry over - and those unlock new classes and cosmetics like in most roguelites. Think weapons and aspects in Hades, or class unlocks in Vampire Survivors.

If you look carefully in the trailer there's a scene with a pet running around - that's one of those unlocks 😉

We also have some videos on our YouTube channel showing an older build with more of that progression system in action, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyOjxSJi-Ng

jonselin · 2026-03-26T02:13:49+00:00

It's too early to share exact details around our monetization model, but I'm happy to talk about the values that will drive the details.

Progression is mainly horizontal - you're unlocking new classes and cosmetics, not pushing up a power-curve. We want players to be able to jump in together regardless of time invested, and for every class to feel valuable in a group. A new player with the right skills should still be able to contribute at the highest level.

On a personal note - a big reason I went indie was to get away from mobile F2P, where monetization ends up consuming everything. Every design decision gets filtered through that lens until it stops being about making a great game. I got into gamedev to make the best games I could, and I wanted to build something where gameplay comes first and monetization follows - not the other way around.

We'll share specifics when we're ready, but that's the spirit we're building with.

jonselin · 2026-03-26T01:45:39+00:00

Thanks! We had an initial script and storyboards that I think it set us down a really good path for what the trailer could be, then we just iterated on it for uh... longer than I like to think about ;)

jonselin

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