“It’s a small planet, but someone’s gotta make the deliveries.” Messenger started because we wanted to build something that felt calm but also a little bit… weird. Having recently visited spots in Asia with a very specific vibe, a mix of total tranquility and a subtle sense of "oddness", we wanted to see if we could capture that in a game. On the technical side, we also wanted to keep pushing our multiplayer environment tech, specifically in some areas we’d been researching lately. We figured a free, 15-minute experimental game was the perfect way to play around with these ideas. The Early Days: tech and environment From the start, we imagined the world as a tiny sphere where you could walk in any direction and eventually end up right back where you started, much like King Kai’s planet. Technically, that threw some pretty cool challenges our way: Dynamic camera: building a system that could handle the player being at any angle. Orientations: ensuring text and trees actually stood upright on a curved surface.…