Mythmatch Blends Match 3 And Community Simulator With Greek Mythology

Play as the goddess Artemis, who descends to the mortal world

Build A New Community With Artemis

Struggling As A Female Olympian

One sunny day on the island of Dalos, soon-to-be-goddess Artemis dreams of climbing up to the top of Olympus, curious of the world beyond their tiny island. She then discovers her innate god-like powers of fusion, putting together existing matter to create something new. These powers earn her a ticket to the Olympus peak, sent there by her father Zeus. While her twin brother Apollo gets his new job handed to him on a silver platter by Hermes, Artemis is shooed off to find her own path—a task much easier said than done.

Artemis quickly realizes that being part of Team Olympus isn't what it seems…tired of the hostility going around, she stands up to the Olympians in an attempt to give them a piece of her mind, only to get cast to the mortal realm in retaliation. There, she finds comfort in a small town community, and along the way, will learn what it really means to be a god. Join her in her journey as she tries to prove her worth as the Goddess of the Hunt and also rebuild a little town in need of some goddess intervention.

Rebuild Ithaca And Stand Up To Gods!

Welcome to Ithaca, the town below Olympus where Artemis is now stationed. Work with the mortal townspeople to gather resources, craft materials, and build Ithaca to a new and improved version of itself. Mingle with the locals as you learn about how mortals live in comparison to the gods and goddesses, delving into the complexities of life. Solve disputes, recruit new islanders to grow the population, or even babysit their energetic children so that they can work and contribute to the town. Helping the people out earns you more belief and trust from them, in turn making Artemis more powerful.

As you repair knicks and knacks in the town and establish yourself as a friendly goddess to humanity, your power grows exponentially, perhaps even rivaling that of the Olympian gods and goddesses themselves. Prove your worth and earn their favor while also influencing them to show more grace to the mortals of the realm.

An Upgrade To Match 3 Games

An interesting mechanic of Mythmatch is the central usage of the match 3 gameplay, a type of gameplay usually associated with mobile games and therefore not as seen on PC releases. In Mythmatch, three is Artemis’ magic number—because of that, her fusion powers work with three of anything on the board, then transforming into something new. Create anything from tufts of grass to a whole Cerberus! Find out all the results from the combinations that you create.

With this Match 3 gameplay combined with the community-building simulator mechanic, you will control Artemis and her useful powers to help out the locals of Ithaca with their problems, and turn the quaint little village into something much better.

Making Games With A Little Heart

Team Artichoke is an independent game “microstudio” headed and founded by creative director Moo Yu, and manned by numerous game staff around the world as the employees all work together remotely. Their motto is to make “games with a little heart, both in the kinds of games we make and the way we make them,” and they’re taking the first step towards fulfilling that ambition with their upcoming debut game, Mythmatch.

Believe it or not, this is actually Yu’s first official foray into the game design sphere, having previously spent much of his game development career in the programming sector. He is both the creative director and the sole full-time developer of Mythmatch, as he shared with Game Developer in a recent interview last week. This sudden 360-degree change in the midst of his career was brought about by his previous work.

Mythmatch, The Experiences Of All

Moo Yu has lent his skills to known game companies, beginning his game development career in Insomniac Games (Ratchet and Clank) and Media Molecule (Little Big Planet). While having a promising start at Insomniac, the company then pivoted its attention to post-apocalyptic first-person shooter Resistance later on, which did not align with what Yu wanted to work on. “I think there was a big pressure in America for almost all the studios to shift towards shooters, and I don't work on violent games,” he said in the Game Developer interview. “And so I was just like, what jobs are there for me?”

Then, Yu moved up and away to Media Molecule during its early stages of developing the adorable Sackboy-maneuvering Little Big Planet. With its family-friendly aesthetic and gameplay and the focus on creativity, along with a surprisingly small team of about 20 people, it heavily inspired Yu to apply those qualities to the kind of game he wanted to make himself.

Later on after his stint at Media Molecule, he was also able to work on the mobile game Knights and Bikes with artist Rex Crowle, whom he met back at the Little Big Planet studio. The game was well-received, garnering positive reception for its interesting action-adventure premise inspired by The Goonies, Secret of Mana, and Crowle’s humble childhood in Cornwall. This run with Crowle and Trailmix Games also had a hand in visualizing the idea for Mythmatch.

“Seeing Rex being able to capture his childhood and Cornwall represented the way that he did definitely made me think, ‘Okay, what's the project that I can do to represent me?’” Since then, his goal for Team Artichoke was not only to represent his own stories, but the stories of his team members as well.

Female Protagonist With Female Experiences

“My game features a female protagonist, so I definitely want a lot of women on my team to share their experiences to blend into the main character's story,” he says. “I want to make sure that my team gets credit for the work that they do.” In fact, almost all of Team Artichoke consists of women, such as writer Lara Barbier, artist Beidi Guo, and content designer Albertine Watson. Based on the website, only two of the team members are men, including Moo Yu himself.

In Mythmatch, Artemis is constantly overshadowed by her twin brother Apollo. Apollo takes the highway to heaven route, immediately being bestowed as God of the Sun upon their first meeting with Zeus in Olympus while our struggling female protagonist, Artemis, has to prove herself that she is worthy of the goddess status. The narrative of the story is fueled by gender issues, privilege, and power—issues that are rather ingrained into the very core of society. These Apollo-Artemis parallels are nothing foreign.

“Specifically, the writer must be a woman, must be able to understand instinctively rather than me doing research and trying to vaguely understand,” Yu added.

Cozy-like Gameplay With A Deeper Meaning

While the core gameplay looks very simple, the plot is what really drives it forward. The game is clearly a passion project, headed by a people-centric director who values their people, and is making sure that their stories are shown in the work they make. If you’re looking for a different take on the Match 3 genre with a deeper story that you might find yourself relating with, Mythmatch is the game for you.

Mythmatch does not have a specified release date as of writing, but it is available to be wishlisted on Steam, along with a free trial demo should one want to check out its gameplay for themselves.