Beer pong playing knights and possessed jello shots are among the intoxicating enemies in a Dunedin-made video game about alcohol which has received financial backing from Microsoft.
Brews & Bastards, the debut title from Dunedin-founded Mune Studio, released today on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC and Steam.
Mune Studio co-founder Erekose Watson said the game was a fantasy tavern-themed dungeon crawler.
“Sort of think Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, but with booze instead of chocolate.”
Without the support of Microsoft, the game might not have gone ahead, Mr Watson said.
The studio initially took the game to conferences in the United States and Japan seeking a publisher, but did not secure a deal.
Running low on funds and thinking “this might be the end”, they applied to Microsoft for a deal to port the game over to its consoles.
Months later, they were contacted by Xbox and offered a grant as part of its developer acceleration programme.
“It completely covered the cost of the rest of the development.
“They swooped in and saved us.”
Mr Watson said the original concept for the game was inspired by their father, who was a “big gamer” himself.
Set in an exaggerated brewery, players descended through a variety of alcohol-themed levels to recover a stolen magical stone called “the Brew Stone”.
Among the player characters to choose from were a woman wielding a “corkscrew crossbow”, a magician with a yard glass of mead and a cyclops named Chugg with a giant bottle opener for an axe.
All of the enemies were “booze-themed” too — from “possessed jello shots that are sliming around like little snails” to giant beer pong playing knights, along with other “strange little creatures that have become possessed by alcohol”.
It had been in development for almost five years.
Releasing it publicly was stressful, but exciting, Mr Watson said.
“I’m very excited to have people play it.
“We’ve already had people play the demo that’s been out on Xbox.
“We’ve had some nice feedback from that.”
Mr Watson and co-founder Hamish Fechney were both made redundant from RocketWerkz’s Dunedin studio in 2020.
The pair formed Mune Studio in 2021 and, about the same time, applied for funding from the Centre of Digital Excellence (Code) — an economic development initiative by the government to grow the country’s gaming sector — based in Dunedin.
They received about $40,000 worth of funding in 2021 and $150,000 in 2022, and also received investment from New Zealand venture capital fund Alt Ventures in 2023 so they could afford their first staff member.
When showcasing the game at the Pax Australia gaming convention in 2022 and 2023, Mr Watson said they were surprised by the range of people interested.
“We thought our big audience would be [the] 20 to 30-year-old male into the college drinking scene, that kind of thing.
“We were sort of surprised to see there was a lot of 50-plus-year-old players who were really into it.
“It’s kind of got that old-school gaming arcade feel to it that resonated with them.”
Brews & Bastards was “silly and explosive and colourful” and they hoped players would get a few laughs out of it.
tim.scott@odt.co.nz
