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The cartoon-like character displayed on his screen followed the steps of a hedgehoglike creature with triangular tusks and flowers sprouting from its back. Outside Marinez’s one-story house, the sun was shining down his dirt driveway. His home lies about six miles from the strait which connects the Caribbean Sea with Lake Maracaibo which is among the world’s largest sources of oil.However, it is an exceptionally made idle game. The preference for players to pick their own way through the game allows it to distinguish itself from the mass of games with no purpose that force players to increase a number for as long as they want to.”

The talks progressed and Melvor Idle was soon signed to Jagex Partners, the RuneScape firm’s publishing department. Jagex provided Malcolm guidance on development and helped with a complete brand refresh and also assisted with the management of communities and translation, transforming a game developed by one person and made available in 13 languages (so far).

It launched earlier this month as well as the Early Access version proved this formula was popular with RPG fans, having been downloaded more than 600,000 times across Steam and both of the major online mobile apps stores. This went above and beyond the initial goals of Malcolm when he launched his game. Naturally, he believed that his strategy would succeed but he didn’t have an ‘endgame goal in mind.

“Luckily the enthusiasm that was a source of inspiration those first few months was with me for the years of development. Being capable of working closely with Jagex to directly tackle this is an absolute dream come true,” he says. “I would never have imagined that I’d get the support of the very studio which inspired me in beginning.

Making the transition from a hobby to a fan project was certainly a daunting task however, looking back at where I’ve ended up and the help I’ve received for establishing Games by Malcs as an emerging studio, it’s surely worked out for the most successful.”

Despite the close connection that existed between Melvor Idle and RuneScape, and the direct involvement of Jagex in the game, the publisher decided to maintain the game as an original IP and not make it the official RuneScape spin-off. This was in part recognition of the fact Malcolm had succeeded where Jagex itself had failed.

“We have actually thought about making an uninvolved RuneScape game a number of years ago, with RuneScape: Idle Adventures,” Pfeiffer elaborates. “In Alpha, we stopped development in order to concentrate effort on core RS Gold For Sale games.