It’s been over a month since our studio Petricore released Mythic Realms. Mythic Realms is our mixed-reality roguelite RPG, where you can live out the life of a mythical hero in your very own room. While players are off slaying beasts and gathering resources, Sebastian is the one making sure the kingdom feels alive, reactive, and full of surprise. He might not wear a cape (that we know of), but as the architect of many of Mythic Realms’ core systems, he’s basically the Kingdom’s unseen wizard.

Sebastian is one of the developers behind Mythic Realms, and unofficially holds the title of “Kingdom Guy.” When you explore the in-game kingdom, chances are nearly everything you interact with has his fingerprints on it. From the wandering NPCs to the functioning shops, to the day-to-day ebb and flow of a magical world – it’s all coded into existence thanks to Sebastian’s quietly heroic efforts.

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Sebastian, what is he thinking about? Random kingdom events perhaps?!

Magic in the Margins: Random Events and Routine Chaos

One of Sebastian’s latest and favorite contributions is the time-based random event system. It’s the reason why, one morning, a traveling merchant might appear in your kingdom, and the next, a shadowy figure challenges you to a game of hide-and-seek. “Every day at 7AM system time,” he explained, “the game checks what day it is and activates a set of random events.”

The system wasn’t just about sprinkling fun surprises across the kingdom, it was a deeper exercise in game-wide integration. Sebastian had to balance persistent game states, backward compatibility with old save data, and cross-system effects between MR and VR versions. “We share a lot of systems between MR/VR,” he said. “So changes to one might accidentally affect the other if we’re not careful.”

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A screenshot of part of the kingdom in Mythic Realms

Coding the Kingdom

Sebastian didn’t start by designing everything to perfection, in fact, he recommends not doing that. “Don’t worry about ensuring the core system is fully fleshed out before starting to use it,” he advised. Instead, his process was iterative:

  • Set up a basic system that tracks the in-game day and assigns a list of active events.
  • Establish save/load logic to preserve state across play sessions.
  • Build mostly-complete versions of each event.
  • Refine the system based on event-specific needs and issues.
  • Double-check nothing breaks the expedition portion of the game.

In classic dev fashion, his one regret? “I would’ve started with building barebones versions of all events instead of completing them one at a time, so I’d know what data I’d need to save across all three.”

Behind the Curtain: A Day in Sebastian’s Life

Sebastian works remotely, and some days it can feel like he’s solo-deving a huge XR project from home. But even so, he’s in constant communication with the team – syncing with Project Manager Christina and Lead Developer Oliver on bugs and features, and often spending hours helping teammates with system-related questions.

Though Sebastian focuses on programming, his work often influences design. “I’m strictly a programmer,” he says, “but sometimes my implementation becomes the baseline for future design decisions.” For example, when a character like Jim the NPC ended up a “dapper lad,” it started with how Sebastian initially implemented him.

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Jim, the aforementioned dapper lad

Building Worlds, Not Just Features

What’s something no one would know just from playing the game? “A lot of content is made from reusing existing systems in creative ways,” he explained. “Like the wall shadow event? It’s the same wall shadow enemy – just stripped of enemy logic and re-skinned as a friendly NPC. The traveling merchant is the same character from the expedition, just coded not to fight you.”

It’s this kind of clever modular thinking that powers so much of Mythic Realms.

When asked what he’s most proud of, Sebastian doesn’t hesitate: “Anything that helped the kingdom feel alive.” From interactive NPCs to tutorial characters like Oscar, it’s clear he’s not just building systems, he’s crafting the soul of the kingdom.

Whether you’re battling enemies or bargaining with merchants, chances are Sebastian had a hand in it. So next time you find something delightful in Mythic Realms, tip your hat to the quiet architect behind the curtain.

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Oscar, our friendly helper posing with your latest Kingdom upgrade!