Interview with Adam Kugler, creator of MoteMancer

In this edition, Wordfoxes interviews Adam Kugler, the creative mind behind the game Motemancer. Adam discusses his inspirations, the development process, and the unique challenges he faced in bringing Motemancer to life. This conversation offers a rare glimpse into the developer’s process and the strategic decisions shaping one of today’s most talked-about indie projects, from its artistic vision to community reception.

Wordfoxes - Can you share what your game developer journey has been like? What prompted you to embark on a solo project at this point in your career?

Adam Kugler -I’ve been a gamer all my life, even playing Magic: the Gathering and Poker professionally for a brief time. But my true developer journey began at Blizzard where I primarily worked on four World of Warcraft expansions and Warcraft Rumble, ranging from Art to Design to Direction.

A few years ago I decided to learn the Engineering side of development and used this project as my training ground. I had always imagined that I would do solo dev work when I retired just for fun, but as MoteMancer grew and grew, it became clear that it was real enough to chase, and here we are.

WF - The decision to move away from the traditional “coal and wires” setup in favor of Salt and Aether was striking. Where did this alchemical inspiration come from, and how did this show the ropes of the gameplay design?

AK -Because the elements form a closed loop, there was a significant opportunity to make the game about synergy and flexibility. There was a world where Salt was the catalyst for everything, but I really liked the opportunity for a given resource to always be multi-purpose, letting players respond to the world in their own way.

I’ve always been enthralled by elemental language, an occupational hazard as a fantasy FX Artist, and the ability to fully express that color and theming language made it a very natural vocabulary to leverage and present.

WF - The devblogs display a remarkable attention to the game’s tone and language. Can you tell us more about the creative process behind MoteMancer’s unique voice? How does that voice shape the game’s narrative?

AK -I believe strongly that every part of a game should tell the same story. There are six elements, the game is played on a hex grid, each building has six recipes, many of the UI elements are hexagonal, even your action bar has six slots on each side.

All of this is in pursuit of making the game feel as much like itself as possible and having a distinct recognizable feel. Six also happens to be a wonderful sandbox for designing a game, because you can group two or three concepts together effortlessly – opposite and adjacent relationships are natural.

The additional benefit of this is when you are intently focused on congruity, there are some happy accidents that come for free deeper into development. I also wanted this game to be about creation and reinvigorating the land, rather than pillaging it–bringing order to chaos, which resonates deeply with a lot of players.

WF - You briefly mentioned a larger map in development in some devblogs. Can we expect that world to expand, or is the game meant to stay more intimate in scope?

AK -The world is completely procedural, and there are six planes to visit, one for each element. You can think of them like other games might have additional planets to visit, but the conceit is that they are all overlapping, just with an elemental bias.

So, in terms of scale, the game is infinite, but in terms of world building, the planes are meant to represent the untamed wilds themselves, so will be focused on how unique they are from each other, both in resources and topography.

WF - In devblog #1, you mentioned the challenge of translating MoteMancer’s unique vocabulary. How was the collaboration with the localization team? Were there any especially surprising solutions from other languages?

AK - I was very impressed and thankful for the thought and care put into the translation of MoteMancer. The team asked tons of clarifying questions, which shows their dedication to their craft. I did particularly enjoy the Turkish translation of Hex Grid which amusingly can also mean ‘grill’, so it’s almost like a hexagon barbecue grate, but I’ve also heard from a few Turkish friends that it makes sense and is endearing.

WF - Thinking about international players, was there any mechanic or term that proved particularly tricky to adapt across cultures?

AK -Mote itself is by far the winner here. Mote for me is reminiscent of Carl Sagan’s famous reference to the Earth as “a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam”. Motes were also referenced in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade as tiny bits of elements that became more. It’s tricky because it’s somewhere between a grain of sand and a faint pulse of magical energy or essence, and while it has roots in many cultures, there isn’t really a single thing to point to that is agreed upon.

Many translators had their own take on both the game name and the Mote name itself, but I think the best part of the whole process is genuinely feeling thateveryone understoodwhat I was trying to do and represent it as faithfully as possible.

WF - What’s next for CyanAvatar Studios once MoteMancer is released? Are you adding more content to the game or developing a new title?

AK - Even after launch there will be plenty of extra things to build for MoteMancer, like controller support, mod support, maybe even additional endgame content. It’ll really depend on the community reaction to it, but there’s plenty of ways to make the game even better after launch.