What happens when you take the chaos of an MMO raid and compress it into a 30-minute roguelike session with hundreds of players? That’s the question Low Drag Labs is trying to answer with Minimo, their newly announced massively cooperative roguelike that’s already generating buzz on Steam. Instead of the typical 1-4 player co-op most roguelikes offer, Minimo scales up to hundreds of simultaneous players diving into procedurally generated worlds together.
The pitch is simple but ambitious – bite-sized roguelike adventures with MMO-scale player counts. You jump in, team up with a massive group of strangers, push as far as you can in 30 minutes, and either succeed spectacularly or fail together. Then you do it all over again with a fresh procedurally generated world and a new crowd of players.
The MMO Roguelike Experiment
Roguelikes typically thrive on solo play or small co-op groups where coordination is manageable. Even games like Risk of Rain 2 cap out at four players. The genre’s focus on tight mechanical execution, careful decision-making, and learning from failure doesn’t naturally scale to massive player counts. So why try?
Low Drag Labs believes there’s untapped potential in the intersection of MMO social chaos and roguelike structure. Games like Realm of the Mad God proved years ago that bullet hell action combined with MMO player counts can work. More recently, 33 Immortals demonstrated that raid-scale cooperative action with roguelike elements resonates with players looking for something different.
Minimo takes that concept and streamlines it further. The 30-minute session length is intentional – short enough to fit into a lunch break or between other activities, but long enough to build momentum and create memorable moments. You’re not committing to multi-hour raids or endless grinding. You’re jumping into controlled chaos for half an hour.
How Does It Actually Work?
Details are still emerging since the game hasn’t launched yet, but the Steam page and early gameplay footage reveal the core structure. Players enter procedurally generated worlds filled with enemies, bosses, and loot. The goal is to push as far as possible before the 30-minute timer expires, working together to overcome increasingly difficult challenges.
The roguelike elements come from permanent death within each run, procedural generation creating unique worlds each session, and progression systems that unlock new content and abilities. You’re not just mindlessly grinding – each run teaches you something that helps in future attempts, classic roguelike design.
The massive player count introduces emergent gameplay that smaller co-op can’t replicate. Hundreds of players swarming bosses creates spectacle. Watching dozens of players get wiped by a tough encounter teaches you mechanics without dying yourself. Someone in the crowd usually knows what to do, creating a form of collective intelligence that guides newer players organically.
Classes and Progression
Early footage shows multiple classes with different abilities and playstyles. Players can unlock additional classes through progression, giving long-term goals beyond individual runs. This meta-progression helps retain players who might otherwise bounce off the permadeath structure – even if a run fails, you’re working toward unlocking new content.
The balance challenge is significant. How do you design encounters for hundreds of players that feel neither trivially easy from overwhelming numbers nor impossibly chaotic? Low Drag Labs will need to nail difficulty scaling, boss mechanics that work with massive player counts, and rewards that feel meaningful when split across hundreds of participants.
The Team Behind It
Low Drag Labs is a small indie studio founded by industry veterans Jon Selin and Mike Hines. Selin brings experience from CCP Games (EVE Online) where he worked as Design Director, plus a decade as VP of Design at Pocket Gems. That MMO and mobile game background directly informs Minimo’s design philosophy.
Hines comes from the art and tech art side, having worked at companies like Epic Games and Oculus on various platforms from PC and consoles to VR and mobile. His experience with performance optimization and visual development across different hardware will be crucial for a game trying to render hundreds of players simultaneously.
The studio describes their development philosophy as rapid iteration, extreme alignment, and making the game rather than talking about making the game. They move fast, test often, and focus on actually building rather than endless pre-production. For a small team tackling something as ambitious as a massively multiplayer roguelike, that execution-focused approach makes sense.
Technical Challenges
Making a game that supports hundreds of simultaneous players isn’t trivial. Most roguelikes run on a single machine with minimal networking because they’re designed for solo or small co-op play. Scaling that to MMO player counts requires completely different technical architecture.
Server performance becomes critical. You need fast tick rates for responsive combat while tracking hundreds of player positions, abilities, projectiles, enemies, and loot drops. Network optimization determines whether the game feels smooth or laggy. Client-side prediction and server reconciliation prevent rubber-banding and keep action fluid.
Visual performance matters too. Rendering hundreds of player characters with abilities firing simultaneously could tank frame rates on mid-range hardware. Smart level of detail systems, efficient particle effects, and careful optimization separate playable from unplayable when player counts get this high.
The 30-minute session length actually helps here. Session-based design means servers can reset between runs, preventing memory leaks and performance degradation. It’s easier to maintain stability for 30 minutes than for multi-hour persistent worlds. The instanced approach also allows better load balancing across servers.
The Roguelike Genre Evolution
Minimo represents another step in roguelike evolution. The genre started with single-player ASCII games like Rogue and NetHack focused on pure mechanical challenge. It evolved through graphical roguelikes like ADOM and Angband, then exploded with roguelites like Binding of Isaac and FTL that streamlined for accessibility.
Modern roguelikes embrace co-op – Risk of Rain 2, Gunfire Reborn, Deep Rock Galactic. But they still cap at 4-8 players maximum. The intimate small group dynamic lets everyone matter individually while coordinating tactics. Scaling beyond that creates fundamentally different gameplay where individual contribution becomes less visible but emergent group behavior becomes more interesting.
Games that have attempted large-scale cooperative roguelike elements include Realm of the Mad God, which proved the concept over a decade ago but never spawned many imitators. 33 Immortals is currently in development with, appropriately, 33-player co-op raids. Minimo pushes even further by targeting hundreds rather than dozens.
Who Is This For?
Minimo occupies an interesting niche between several player demographics. MMO players who enjoy large-scale coordination but don’t want endless time commitments could find the 30-minute sessions appealing. Roguelike fans curious about scaling their favorite genre to massive multiplayer might discover a fresh take on familiar mechanics.
Social gamers who thrive on shared experiences and emergent chaos will likely gravitate toward the spectacle of hundreds of players fighting together. Casual players intimidated by difficult roguelikes might find safety in numbers – dying matters less when you’re one of hundreds, and watching others succeed teaches strategies without personal failure.
The bite-sized session structure specifically targets players with limited time. Parents, working adults, students – anyone who can’t commit to multi-hour gaming sessions can jump into Minimo for exactly 30 minutes knowing they’ll get a complete experience. That accessibility could expand the roguelike audience beyond the hardcore crowd.
Potential Pitfalls
Several challenges could derail Minimo despite its interesting premise. Player count requirements create a chicken-and-egg problem – the game needs hundreds of active players to function as designed, but attracting hundreds requires word of mouth and momentum. If launch numbers are weak, the core experience breaks down.
Balancing for massive player counts is genuinely difficult. Design encounters too hard and everyone dies frustrated. Design too easy and victories feel hollow. Finding that sweet spot where hundreds of players feel appropriately challenged without being overwhelmed takes extensive testing and iteration.
Performance issues could kill the game before it gains traction. If players experience lag, frame drops, or server instability, they’ll leave negative reviews and warn others away. Technical execution must be nearly flawless at launch to build positive momentum in the crowded indie game market.
The roguelike community can be particular about what qualifies as a “true” roguelike versus roguelite. Purists might dismiss Minimo for streamlining traditional elements or prioritizing accessibility over depth. Finding an audience means appealing to roguelike fans without alienating them through oversimplification.
FAQs
What is Minimo?
Minimo is a bite-sized massively cooperative roguelike developed by Low Drag Labs. It supports hundreds of simultaneous players diving into procedurally generated worlds for 30-minute runs, combining MMO-scale multiplayer with roguelike structure and progression.
How many players can play Minimo together?
Minimo is designed for hundreds of players to cooperate simultaneously in each session. The exact player cap hasn’t been officially specified, but marketing materials consistently reference “hundreds” rather than dozens.
How long are Minimo sessions?
Each run lasts approximately 30 minutes. This bite-sized session structure allows players to jump in for quick gaming sessions without multi-hour time commitments typical of MMOs or longer roguelike runs.
When does Minimo release?
No official release date has been announced. The game has a Steam page and is in active development, but Low Drag Labs hasn’t committed to a specific launch window. Interested players can wishlist it on Steam to receive updates.
Who is developing Minimo?
Low Drag Labs, an indie studio founded by Jon Selin (former Design Director at CCP Games and VP of Design at Pocket Gems) and Mike Hines (who worked at Epic Games, Oculus, and other major studios). They’re a small team focused on rapid iteration and execution.
What platforms will Minimo be on?
Minimo is confirmed for PC via Steam. No console versions have been announced, though the Steam page mentions partial controller support suggesting potential future platform expansion.
Is Minimo free-to-play or paid?
Pricing hasn’t been announced yet. The business model hasn’t been revealed, so it’s unclear whether Minimo will be free-to-play, premium purchase, or some hybrid approach.
Are there different classes in Minimo?
Yes, early gameplay footage shows multiple classes with different abilities and playstyles. Players can unlock additional classes through progression, providing long-term goals beyond individual 30-minute runs.
Is there meta-progression in Minimo?
Yes, the game features unlockable classes and progression systems that carry between runs. While each 30-minute session involves permadeath and starting fresh, you’re working toward permanent unlocks that expand your options in future sessions.
Worth Watching
Minimo represents a genuinely fresh take on the roguelike genre by scaling cooperative play to MMO levels while keeping sessions short and accessible. Whether that ambitious vision translates to compelling gameplay remains to be seen, but the concept alone deserves attention from anyone interested in where roguelikes can go next.
The 30-minute session structure addresses real problems with both MMOs and roguelikes. MMOs demand too much time commitment for many players. Roguelikes can run for hours only to end in permadeath. Minimo offers complete experiences in manageable chunks while preserving the roguelike loop that makes the genre addictive.
For Low Drag Labs, execution will determine everything. The concept is interesting, but interest means nothing if performance is poor, balance is broken, or the game simply isn’t fun. Their veteran developers bring relevant experience, which increases confidence they understand the technical and design challenges ahead.
If you’re intrigued by the idea of roguelike chaos at MMO scale, wishlist Minimo on Steam and follow Low Drag Labs for development updates. The game could be the next interesting evolution in cooperative roguelikes, or it could be an ambitious experiment that doesn’t quite work. Either way, it’s trying something genuinely different in a genre that’s seen plenty of iteration but less radical innovation. That alone makes it worth keeping on your radar.