Today we are excited to introduce ourselves and share our vision for the future of storytelling in games. We’ve been quietly working towards that future for a while (2 years!) but we’re finally ready to tell the world that we exist (and prove to our families that we have real jobs). Our mission is to help everyone in the world find their story, and we aim to do it by igniting imaginations through play.
We believe that gaming is the best way to share stories since the invention of the campfire, and our dream is of a future where it’s just as accessible to anyone. The reason we CAN build that future is because some very cool people share that vision and have invested in us to help make it a reality. We are proud to share that we’ve raised $5.8M so far from some incredible leaders in the games industry, including BITKRAFT Ventures, Riot Games, and OTK Media Group, with additional support from several angel investors including Marc Merrill, co-founder of Riot.
So what is Liminal?
We are building a creativity game to make storytelling effortless and fun for the next generation of UGC players. There are some pretty cool tools out there that have been lowering the entry to making games for years. RPGMaker is a favorite of ours, and everyone at Liminal has a lot of respect for the impact Roblox has had on gaming by opening up creation to a new audience. But what really inspires us are games like Tiny Glade, The Sims, Minecraft, and even Dress to Impress. These are games where creativity is play, not work, and the hours fade away as we get lost in the flow of creation.
That’s the feeling we want to bring to storytellers of all ages, all over the world—with gameplay magic, not with code. Think Mario Maker meets Zelda, with even more customization options at your fingertips. Liminal is built for joyful creation: a space to build immersive worlds, create your own heroes and bring epic adventures to life with your friends. Our vision is a community of millions discovering their creativity and sharing their stories with a global audience. One day, Liminal will be for gaming what Wattpad, Ao3, and Webtoons are for their mediums.
As for who we are, mostly we’re a bunch of nerds who love storytelling in all forms, whether it’s fiction, DnD, Microscope, or online fanfic. And for our day jobs we’re a team of experienced developers that have worked on some of your favorite games from Riot, Blizzard, Niantic, Bioware, Electronic Arts, and more.
What can we share about the product?
We’re holding off on showing gameplay until the team has had a little more time to cook, but at its core, Liminal is a creation game like Minecraft—only instead of building castles, you’re building complete, playable stories.
We want to unlock the fantasy of building your own RPG, letting you craft adventures in bite-sized chunks—something you and your friends can complete in a night or a weekend. Rather than toil away for years to tell your magnum opus, Liminal will allow you to publish stories as episodic adventures. Every Liminal episode occurs in one setting, and it’s finished when the Adventurer completes all of the quests in that area. Imagine creating Ocarina of Time, one episode at a time. Today is Kokiri Forest, tomorrow is the Deku Tree, next week is Hyrule Field. We’re still fine-tuning the full feature list, but here’s a glimpse at what Liminal will offer:
With Liminal you create through play
- 3D episodic adventure stories, no coding needed
- Full building, decorating, and character editing systems
- Easy quest creation and advanced gameplay editing
- AI-powered storytelling assistance and game creation concierge
- Seamless creation and sharing of adventures with 1-4 players
- Asset packs with some of your favorite IPs for true interactive fanfiction
We’ve already spent two years bringing Liminal to life, and it won’t be long before we have more to share. We expect to launch publicly playable content next year, but if you want a sneak peek as an alpha tester, sign up here to be among the first to explore Liminal!
Liminal and AI
Liminal enables joyful creation in a way that no game before has, and to do that we leverage the latest technologies, including large language models. We know AI in gaming is a hot button issue, and for good reason. Which raises the question, if we aren’t ready to share gameplay, why are we even talking about AI? This is a topic that’s guaranteed to get people mad at us, so why wade into the debate now?
The reality is that whether or not we want to talk about it, the industry is facing important choices about the use of AI today, and we believe that having the right conversation now is necessary to shape the future that we all want for gaming.
We’ll share more about exactly what we will, and won’t, do with AI when it comes time to reveal the game. In the meantime, we want to plant our flag in the ground as a studio that believes that AI can expand human creativity and bring communities closer together, if leveraged correctly. At Liminal we believe in the sacredness of the creative process and don’t want to shortcut that with any type of technology. AI is coming, and at its best it will empower creativity and make the joy of creation more accessible than ever.
We don’t pretend to have all of the answers in this space, but we know we want to be a part of the conversation. We hope you’ll join us in envisioning a positive vision of the future of storytelling in games.
Nice to meet you, can’t wait to talk again soon
The future of storytelling is so bright, and there’s no better way to get lost in your favorite worlds than through the immersion that gaming provides. We’re thrilled to share the first glimpses of our vision, and we hope you’ll follow along with us as we keep working to make it a reality.