Innersloth and Mediatonic: The Devs in the Spotlight

by Finn, Grade 7

Thanks to the Internet, almost any game can make it into the spotlight. Whether it’s a Triple-A game that took years to develop like the Last of Us: Part 2 or an entire game made by one person like Undertale, any game can get that spotlight. Well, over the past about 2 months, two games have been in the spotlight: Fall Guys and Among Us, developed by Mediatonic and Innersloth respectively. So, let’s talk about the devs’ history and why they’re in the spotlight right now of all times.

Innersloth

Innersloth is a 3 person company at the moment founded by PuffballsUnited and one of his friends. They have currently had 2 big games: The Henry Stickmin Collection which is a digital choose-your-own-adventure that was in the spotlight a little before Among Us, their current biggest game. Among Us is a game where there’s 4-10 Crewmates trying to complete tasks on a ship or planet to get home. Meanwhile, there're 1-3 Impostors among them that can sabotage things like lights, oxygen, or a reactor. They can even defeat opponents and use vents to make an escape. If a body is found, everyone talks about where they were and try to find an Impostor. The Crewmates win if they complete all of the tasks or find all of the Impostors. Meanwhile, the Impostors win if they outnumber the alive Crewmates or the Crewmates don’t fix a sabotage. It’s inspired by games like Mafia and various other things. Besides that, they’re a relatively new company.

Mediatonic

Mediatonic was founded in September of 2005 by Dave Bailey and Paul Croft. They’ve made games since late 2005, right after they founded Mediatonic, but haven’t had a big game until Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was released. Fall Guys is basically a 60 player battle royale with jelly beans, but the battle royale is also mixed with a game show. The players run through various races or play minigames until one person gets the crown. That’s it. It’s that simple.

Why They Blew Up

The success of these games can be contributed to 3 factors: Simplicity, Replayability, and Communities.

Simplicity

The games are simplistic in their art style and gameplay. Because they’re easy to learn but hard to master, it allows for the next part of their success: Replayability.

Replayability

Because they’re easy to learn and hard to master, it wants you coming back for more. Plus if you have a good group of friends it makes it even better, which also leads to the final aspect of their success: Communities.

Communities

These games allow you to connect with new people or old or current friends to just have a good time. Just go on any one of the Subreddits and you’ll see a bunch of talented people just making art and animations and clips and so much more for the games, and they’re all so nice about it.

Since I don’t know how to end this, I’m ending it right now. Bye. I’m leaving. You can leave too.