Popularium Blog
Popularium Blog
Game development is a journey…
… and we’d like to share the journey with you. A core part of our philosophy at Popularium is that games get better when they get feedback as early in the process and as frequently as possible. We constructed our initial pre-alpha and playtest phases specifically to get this feedback from passionate gamers well before most other games would have been judged ‘ready’ for testing.
It’s always fun to reminisce with some of our earliest playtesters about the days when we’d all huddle together in a Discord call and go around the call, asking each specific player what their next actions would be, then manually inputting them into our earliest versions of Chaos Agents. And, honestly — it’s been incredibly helpful, allowing us to more easily prioritize development and “find the fun” very quickly.
In that vein, we like to pull back the curtain as much as possible, explain some of our design philosophies, celebrate our successes, share some of our struggles, and highlight some voices from our community as they work through some of the strategies they’ve discovered over the course of the playtest.
Thanks for joining us as we strive to make Chaos Agents the best game we can — and Let Chaos Reign!
— The Popularium Team
Chaos Agents Events Highlights
We are building Chaos Agents with the help and input of our player community, so keeping our community informed and engaged is very important to us. Below are highlights from some of our community events, with a lot more available to stream on our YouTube page.
World Invitational Finals: Highlights
The first Chaos Agents World Championship took place at Gen Con in August 2024 - see the highlights here!
World Invitational Special Qualifiers #5
Follow the exciting action from the Special Qualifiers for the World Invitational where top Chaos Agents playtesters battle it out for a shortcut to the GOLD Finals.
Chaos Agents Pre-Alpha Launch Event
On a cozy fall night in 2023, Wizards of the Coast founder Peter Adkison gets summoned by his old friend…
Featured Blogs
Chaos Agents at Gen Con 2024: A Recap
We had a two part plan for the Gen Con event and World Championship: First, we would introduce Gen Con attendees to Chaos Agents through hands-on tutorial matches at the Gen Con show floor. Those who enjoyed the experience would then be able to sign up to play in a World Championship Qualifier Tournament. Those who won a Qualifier Tournament would be qualified for the Gold Finals of the Championship, which would crown the first Chaos World Champions.
First World Championship Report: Schumaniac, The Marshal, and a Tale of Woe
This however, is not a story of glorious victory, but rather one about a terrible performance in the first Gold Chaos Agents Tournament. It’s also a story about how trying to play fair is not always the best strategy—so the main moral of the story is that if you have an unfair advantage (such as being the President of the company building the game), you’d better press that advantage before it’s too late.
It’s too late for me and The Marshall now, kids, but it’s not too late for you. Read on to hear my tale of woe…
The First Chaos World Invitational: A Champion’s Tale
One aspect of this tournament stood out to me so much that I feel like I can focus on it to the exclusion of all else; namely, the implications of the improved survival movement algorithm.
For those who haven’t been play testers for the last several months: until quite recently—less than a month ago—survival mode gave you the same armor and regeneration benefits that it does now, but the algorithm it used for deciding where to run didn’t work nearly as well.
Blog Archive
Patch Notes: 1.9.22
September 18, 2024 - Full patch notes for Chaos Agents build 1.9.22, including updated leaderboards, Agent details view, and many other improvements.
1st World Invitational Qualifier Tournaments: Qualifier #2 Video
August 2, 2024 — Qualifier #2 for the inaugural Chaos Agents World Championship, originally broadcast on Twitch. Featuring a mix of long-time playtesters and newly-arrived Brokers who discovered Chaos Agents at Gen Con.
1st World Invitational Qualifier Tournaments: Qualifier #1 Video
August 2, 2024 — Qualifier #1 for the inaugural Chaos Agents World Championship, originally broadcast on Twitch. Featuring a mix of long-time playtesters and newly-arrived Brokers who discovered Chaos Agents at Gen Con.
Chaos Agents - Roadmap Reveal for 2024: Playlist
May 13, 2024 — Arka Ray from the Popularium team welcomes MVP community members to the Chaos Agents 2024 roadmap reveal and the topics that will be covered in today’s session.
Chaos Dev Diaries Episode 2: Attack of the AI Agents
February 12, 2024 — What kind of logic do Chaos Agents use to carry out your directives during a Chaos Battle? Or is it all simply chaos and madness? Learn how order leads to Chaos as we deep-dive into the AI-powered mind of a Chaos Agent.
Chaos Dev Diaries Episode 1: The Phantom Timer Menace
January 27, 2024 — The Chaos Agents dev team wanted to give you an inside look into the many trials and tribulations along the exciting journey to shipping v1.8.6, while also providing you with a classic example of how software development, despite best intentions and efforts, can sometimes devolve into a domino of causes and effects that, while being painful for us devs, can provide wonderful entertainment for the rest of the community. So grab your popcorn and get ready for a ride!
Chaos Strategy Diary: The 3-Agent Prisoner’s Dilemma
November 26, 2023 — And here’s an interesting scenario we were just discussing in yesterday’s Practice Match: What do you do when you’re caught in a 3 Agent fight, and all could presumably be on Attack the next round?
Chaos Agents - Exclusive First Look Playlist
April 14, 2023 — An exclusive first look at early development of Chaos Agents alongside one of our first working demos.
Keep your Numbers Off of Me
March 2, 2022 - Recently I started playing a digital game. There was a tournament announced for the top players. Although I wasn’t a top player – the game was new enough and there was enough luck in the play that I thought maybe I could qualify, and so I started paying attention to my ranking.
Quickly I noticed that I was having less fun because I was no longer experimenting and trying new things – I was focusing on what I knew worked.
The World is a Playground: The Philosophy Driving Popularium
Popularium was founded by a team who share a common belief — that games should be fun and built in concert with the community. We go where our team knows the fun is buried and work with our community to unearth the joyful heart of a new game. Our quest for fun has led us to create not just games but new genres of games. Magic: The Gathering brought TCGs to the world, Hearthstone set the standard for digital card games, Xbox Live connected gamers on consoles — and PCs — together for the first time.
Today, the entire world is the gamer’s playground. Gaming is the fastest growing sector of the entertainment industry. Rapid expansion and a plethora of choices in the manner and scope of gaming experiences are wresting power from the hands of studios, who once had unlimited control over which games to produce, build, and distribute, and placing this power in the hands of gamers. Gamers have the tools, time, and network access to play, experience, watch, and even build games their way. Streaming platforms have become global hubs of community, uniting — and activating — legions of audiences. Gamers are pushing the boundary of user generated content which blurs the line between fan and creator.
Gaming’s future lies in gamer empowerment, and empowering gamers through fun, innovative, and evolutionary games and experiences is Popularium’s mission.
The World is a Playground
From The Lydion Magazine comes The World is a Playground; a five-part series on gaming. Each edition focuses on a unique emerging territory–the rise of streaming platforms, the role of community, gamification, and digital assets–on the shifting landscape of the gaming industry.
Part 1: Games as Storytelling Engines
In Part 1, Popularium team members Jon Bankard, Jen Yi, Chris Ryall, Arka Ray, and others explore the evolution of games into engines for the creation of stories driven by gamers, who in turn are turning into content creators with the advent of streaming.
Part 2: All for One and One for All
In Part 2, gaming industry veterans such as David Hoppe (Gen Con), Dave Nemetz (Inverse, Bleacher Report) and rising stars such as Jyro Blade and Kore Bundt dive deep into the growing role and importance of gaming communities in the development process of games and the changing relationship between developers and their communities through evolving release models such as Early Access.