Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street is probably one of the few people who can get off calling his MMO project Ghost without coming off as screechingly arrogant (just gently barking levels of arrogance), but even so, long-jaded genre fans would probably prefer if his Fantastic Pixel Castle studio would do a bit more show and less tell. We’ll leave those folks to decide which side of the coin the studio’s plans fall after they read its development foci for 2024.
The next year will be focused entirely on prototyping efforts at Fantastic Pixel Castle, as the devs work out how to make player-owned “blue zones” that “feel distinct and fun while incorporating players’ preferences for the experience they want within their zone,” test approaches to both MMO classes and combat with an eye towards modernizing them yet making them feel familiar to genre vets, and shape Ghost’s art style and visual identity. Prototyping was also the subject of a studio podcast featuring Street, production director Lisa Ohanian, and VP of product Kristina Swanenberg.
The post closes with confirmation that none of this prototyping will involve outside playtesting, but the studio does state that it will continue to be communicating with players, including opening up an official Discord sometime in February or March, as well as a general promise to work on ways to “talk more directly with [players] instead of just talking at [them].”
