Interview: Mullet Madjack Was Developed By 3 Developers During Pandemic

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Mullet Madjack - via HAMMER95

Mullet Madjack is a unique fast-paced first-person shooter game that is the massive center of attention because of the anime theme and unique gameplay. In the game, each kill resets the counter for your character, which is why you must kill everything in sight to progress throughout the campaign.

Plus, a brutal theme, cyberpunk world, and unique story combined with great humor make Mullet Madjack a must-try in the community. The level design choice is extremely brutal and allows players to utilize a variety of weapons to cater to the fast-paced gameplay. With so much more to talk about, today, we have Alex Martinello, the Game Director of Mullet Madjack, to expand on the design inspiration and future of the game. 

Unique art design of Mullet Madjack
Mullet Madjack – via HAMMER95

Please introduce yourself and tell us about your work on Mullet Madjack.

Alex: I’m Alex Martinello, I’m the Director of Mullet Madjack, also the Lead Artist and Writer.

From the initial looks, the game looks very exciting and engaging, given the fast-paced FPS action combined with music. What was the design approach behind such a shooter experience, and how did it fit into the genre?

Alex: We see a wave of faster FPS shooters, which are more focused on speed and fast responses. Here, we try to make a definitive format for the speed arcade shooter experience.

Mullet Madjack - via HAMMER95
Mullet Madjack – via HAMMER95

The game introduces a unique twist where health is represented by time, and players must kill enemies to gain more time. How did you come up with this innovative mechanic, and how does it impact the player experience?

Alex: A really awesome game came before me, it’s called POST VOID. It is very cheap and fun. When I saw it, I knew exactly that the fast-paced arcade shooter that I wanted to do must use a similar mechanic. So we expanded all the concepts to a new level and met with the devs at the last gamescom, they loved it!

As mentioned, the game features randomly generated stages with exciting obstacles in each chapter. Can you elaborate on how you designed these stages to keep the gameplay fresh and challenging for players?

Alex: It is an arcade game, so it’s repetitive by nature, so we aim to do the repetition part of the fun of memorizing it. MMJ is like a racing game, and the floors are the tracks. So you memorize the stages to be better, but we also introduce new elements, enemies, and obstacles to ramp up the difficulty.

Mullet Madjack - via HAMMER95
Mullet Madjack – via HAMMER95

Mullet Madjack's gameplay ensures a higher adrenaline rush because of the fast and frenetic gameplay. How did you achieve this level of intensity, and what design decisions contributed to the adrenaline-fueled experience?

Alex: We take as reference the finishes of the famous mod Brutal Doom and merge it with the frantic base gameplay in 10 seconds. On top of that, we imagined the best power-ups possible to make the experience more awesome.

What led to the decision to develop MULLET MADJACK using the Unity engine rather than the Unreal Engine, and how do Unity's toolset and capabilities align with the vision and requirements of the game?

Alex: We always worked with Unity and considered the game the right size to do it there. 

Mullet Madjack - via HAMMER95
Mullet Madjack – via HAMMER95

How long has the game been under development, and how many developers are actively working on the project?

Alex: We are 3 devs, and we started working during  the pandemic. I drew almost all of the game assets before finding a coder to help me out. haha

In terms of game design, what challenges did you encounter in creating a game that balances fast-paced action with strategic decision-making, especially in the context of randomly generated levels?

Alex: Not many. The initial concept already worked very well. I think our arcade approach contributes to it. We never find the need to go deeper and make it more roguelike than it needs to be.

combat of Mullet Madjack
Mullet Madjack – via HAMMER95

With the availability of the game's demo, how has the community response been so far, and what insights or feedback have you gathered from players that have influenced the development or direction of MULLET MADJACK?

Alex: We picked a lot of feedback from the community, they helped us to really balance out the weapons and ways to make the difficulty modes more engaging and fun. Almost 30% of this game design is tweaks that we made based on community feedback.

Anything else you would like to share with the readers?

Alex: That our game was launched! We hit far beyond our expectations, paid for its development in the first 10 hours, and were overwhelmingly positive on steam in just 24 hours. It’s 3 days since launch, and the game is at 1000 reviews with 98%. So check it out!!!

Mullet Madjack is an arcade FPS game, developed by HAMMER95. The game was released on May 15, 2024, for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. 

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