An Interview With Jon Bellini of Space Capsule Games

"Million Monster Militia," launched on August 17th, 2023, by Space Capsule Games and Dejobaan Games, LLC, is a roguelike deckbuilder that throws a player into a world teeming with over 150 game units. It is an unconventional mix of procedural generation, turn-based strategy, and auto battler mechanics. Developer Jon Bellini's journey towards creating this spectacle wasn't linear. He initially started as a C programmer in the mid-90s, then studied film scoring at Berklee College before stepping firmly into the indie game development scene.

The striking feature of Million Monster Militia is its assortment of units - each one more unusual than the last, ranging from laser frogs and lawyers to mythical beasts. The diversity is strikingly apparent and forms a significant part of the game's appeal. Reflecting on the brainstorming sessions behind unit creation, Bellini remarks, "We would iterate on unit concepts over the course of many sessions... There would always be a unit that would make me chuckle when I thought of it, so I always knew that kind of unit was a keeper."

With a diverse array of units, balancing them in gameplay seems like a formidable task. Instead of imposing limitations, the development team focused on adjusting the game difficulty. Bellini shares, "It's FUN to break a game!" He underlines the importance of player feedback and its pivotal role in shaping the game. An example he cites is a significant update driven by player feedback for more synergies between unit types.

"It's FUN to break a game! We don't even try at any kind of coherence. Chaos is our method."

Narrative elements and lore wind through the strategic and humorous gameplay. The game gently nudges the player into a dystopian America, plagued with outlandish creatures. Through this chaos rises an assortment of heroes, each trying to prove their worth. Bellini acknowledges, "We don't even try at any kind of coherence. Chaos is our method." This seemingly spontaneous narrative charm interspersed with strategic gameplay keeps players engaged.

Player feedback has been paramount in the game's progress, particularly helping to unearth fun elements the developers didn't foresee. Open dialogue with the player base was pivotal, especially one instance leading to a player group-led demand for more unit synergies resulting in a major alpha update.

When asked which character Bellini would like to recruit from the larger gaming universe, he shared, "It would have to be a member from the Spathi race from the Star Control universe... I could picture them as a unit that would utilize some sort of fear mechanic where you needed to balance certain other scary units to keep them from fleeing in fear from the battle."

Through its strategic diversity and distinctive narrative style, Million Monster Militia has etched its presence in the roguelike deckbuilding landscape. Bellini's comprehensive role in its development has driven the game's success, while providing a roadmap for its future direction. Amid the ever-evolving dialogue between the game and its players, the game continues to provide players with opportunities to leverage synergies and creatively break the game. As the community awaits further updates and units, they can experiment, form new strategies, and immerse themselves wholly into saving a humorously imagined dystopia.

Disclosure: Ichiro's creating this website, right? He also helped make Million Monster Militia. He's writing this text into PyCharm right now, in fact.

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