Introducing Rascal Games. We’re Hiring!
👋 I’m Rick, co-founder at Rascal Games, and I’m excited to share with you today the launch of our new studio!
We’ve raised $4.2M to build Project Wayward, a shared world group-based PvE action adventure game, inspired by games like Sea of Thieves and Valheim. Our goal is to authentically capture the dream of adventuring with friends in fantastical worlds.
We’re hiring! Learn more @ https://www.rascalgames.com/jobs
Magic of Shared Adventures
Growing up in suburban Texas, fantasy worlds were my escape. I often imagined myself flying through Alagaësia with Eragon and Saphira, seeing new sights. As I got older, RPGs allowed me to step into new worlds, not just imagine them. But what rewired me forever were the experiences of sharing these worlds with friends in multiplayer adventure games.
There is intrinsic magic to multiplayer adventure games. They have a rhythm of play that naturally knits player experiences into stories, and shared stories are what friendships are built on. “Hey, remember that time when…”
In high school, my friends and I spent days clearing out a giant mine in Minecraft. Each of us fully loaded up with diamonds, but it was a long way from home. After getting lost a few too many times, one of us suggested, “What if we just dig up?”
Little did we know, we were right below a lake. I can still hear the screams over voice as the water flooded in, and we all drowned one by one.
Games that are fights after fights, objectives after objectives create only fleeting memories. With Project Wayward, we aim to build a stage that enables shared stories every night. We’re crafting adventures designed specifically for groups of friends, weaving high-tension moments with opportunities to breathe, reflect, and go off-script to surprise each other.
About Rascal Games
This isn’t our first rodeo. My co-founder, Jon, and I have been squading up for over a decade. We founded Blitz.gg, a popular gaming app, and after selling Blitz to Discord, I became the Head of Product for Communities, with Jon leading engineering. Over the last few years, we played a key role in helping Discord scale from 100 to 1000, built a major org from the ground up, and connected tens of millions with their communities.
We’re bringing over our social expertise and startup experience to start Rascal Games, a studio dedicated to serving players who play games to bond with their friends.
We believe that great games are built by overdelivering for a specific player and not trying to serve everyone. Our players are driven by the desire to be part of a group, to matter to their friends, and to see each other laugh.
Here’s a peek at some of the principles that guide us:
- Unapologetically Multiplayer. Our games are meant to be played with a group. We ask “how can we make it even more fun when with friends?” even if it means sacrificing the solo player experience.
- Challenging Games > Easy Games. Just like team sports, adversity brings people together and makes teamwork meaningful.
- Let Players Be Heroes. We empower individuals to shine or fail spectacularly to make epic memories for their group. The best shared stories are ones where you played a major role.
Join Us on Our Journey (We’re hiring!)
This is an ambitious project, and we’re recruiting fellow art, design, and engineering adventurers to join us!
We believe that small teams with high trust, ownership, and empathy can build durable games. We’ve built many teams in the past, and the best teams we have been part of have always been made up of builders — people who love to craft with their own hands. It’s the small labors of love that add up to create a truly amazing experience for players.
If you’re a game dev and the idea of adventuring every night with friends excites you, we’d love to talk to you. Check out our available roles here.
We’re fortunate to be backed by some of the best game devs and game investors in the arena. Patron led our $4.2M Seed round. We’ve known Brian and Jason for years; they’re seasoned game operators and truly understand what it takes to build durable game companies.
We’re also supported by many other awesome folks, including Stephen Lim (co-founder of VALORANT & Raidbase), Mitch Lasky (early investor at Riot Games, thatgamecompany, Manticore Games), Stanislav Vishnevskiy (co-founder of Discord), Anjney Midha (GP at a16z), a16z SPEEDRUN (applications are open!), and more.
You can follow our adventure here. But games don’t build themselves, so we’ll probably be pretty quiet for a while. Catch y’all later.
