“It’s a small planet, but someone’s gotta make the deliveries.”

Messenger started because we wanted to build something that felt calm but also a little bit… weird. Having recently visited spots in Asia with a very specific vibe, a mix of total tranquility and a subtle sense of "oddness", we wanted to see if we could capture that in a game.

On the technical side, we also wanted to keep pushing our multiplayer environment tech, specifically in some areas we’d been researching lately. We figured a free, 15-minute experimental game was the perfect way to play around with these ideas.

The Early Days: tech and environment

From the start, we imagined the world as a tiny sphere where you could walk in any direction and eventually end up right back where you started, much like King Kai’s planet.…