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Rascal Games raises $4.2M to create shared world adventure game
13.09.2023 - 14:27 / venturebeat.com
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Rascal Games has raised $4.2 million to create a shared world adventure game dubbed Project Wayward.
Founded by the creators of Blitz.gg, Rascal Games has a team of just two people — Rick Ling and Jonathan Lin — and it was part of the first class of A16z’s new game accelerator Speedrun earlier this summer.
The money comes game venture capital firm Patron, as well as a number of other investors including Stephen Lim (co-creator of Valorant and Raidbase), Mitch Lasky (early investor at Riot Games, Thatgamecompany and Manticore Games), Stanislav Vishnevskiy (Discord), Anjney Midha (general partner at A16z), and a16z Speedrun.
In an interview with GamesBeat, Ling said the company is on an ambitious journey to develop Project Wayward, a cooperative action adventure game designed for group play. It’s a player-versus-environment multiplayer game, inspired by titles like Sea of Thieves and Valheim.
“Our goal is to authentically capture the dream of adventuring with friends in fantastical worlds,” Ling said. “We are a studio dedicated to serving players who play games at home with their friends. We’re building games that are meant to be unapologetically multiplayer, and social is really our guiding light. We play in a group, and we’re willing to sacrifice a single-player experience. It’s more fun to play with your friends.”
Ling said he knew Brian Cho and Jason Yeh, the founders of the game venture fund Patron, for a long time. They had operated games and worked at places like Riot Games, and that was a key requirement for funding, Ling said. Patron was willing to back the fledgling company because it knew the founders well.
“At Patron, we envision the most engaging future online communities will resemble games rather than traditional text-based chat platforms. Rick and Jon possess extensive experience in scaling Discord and building products from 0 to 1 that gamers love,” said Patron’s Cho, in an email to GamesBeat. “They are uniquely positioned to merge generative AI potential with their expertise in social consumer experiences, forging a path toward something new and special. We couldn’t be more excited to be backing them.”
As for the A16z Speedrun accelerator, Ling said that if you’re starting a game studio and aren’t sure how to build startups, the program is a big help for sharpening your ideas.
Ling said the company seeks to capture the essence of embarking on fantastical adventures
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