Mullet MadJack: Developing & Publishing an Arcade-Style Game

Introduction

My name is Ivan Sendin Silveira. I’ve been in the games industry for 19 years and founded my company, Epopeia Games, 15 years ago. Nintendo games have always inspired me, and they continue to be a major influence on the games we create. Over the years, we’ve gone through many stages of development: creating advergames, launching small titles on Steam, Xbox, and Switch, and gradually building the knowledge we needed to evolve into a publisher, leading to the launch of Mullet MadJack.

Epopeia Games

Epopeia is a company founded by two game development students in 2010. For many years, we worked on advergames and work-for-hire projects for clients across Europe and Asia. Today, 15 years later, we are five partners and a team of 15 people. We’re now fully focused on our mission: to be a publisher dedicated to launching great games from Latin America to the world, with a focus on the PC and console markets.

While we do have some hierarchy for bureaucratic needs, we strive to operate with a horizontal mindset. We embrace a “One Piece-style” philosophy — where everyone plays a vital role in the crew. Our vision is for everyone to help Epopeia achieve its dreams, while the company also supports each person in achieving their own personal dreams. This is something we care deeply about, and we believe we’re making it a reality. People matter more to us than money.

Mullet MadJack

The idea for the game is not ours — it belongs to Hammer 95 Studios; we are the publisher. Hammer 95 Studios, the developer behind the game, is a three-person studio owned by Alessandro Martinello. We've been friends since 2010, back when he had a company called Swordtales and developed Toren. We've followed each other's journeys in the industry ever since. During the pandemic, we began meeting regularly in online gatherings — that's when Martinello started showing me the game he was working on, and I shared my experience and results in the Steam market.

Eventually, after he had been developing the game for three years and I had gained more publishing experience, we decided to partner up: I would take care of publishing, and he would focus entirely on development. That marked the beginning of our publishing journey in 2023. The game turned out to be excellent, and that motivated us in two key ways:

1. It had strong market potential and promised solid revenue for both him and us;
2. It was a great opportunity for me to apply and test all the knowledge I had gathered.

These two reasons — along with our long-standing friendship — were what made us decide to launch Mullet.

Alessandro Martinello, Game Director: We modeled the main character and the enemies in Blender. We worked on touching everything by hand to emulate retro anime cutscenes. We worked on all the sprites frame by frame in Photoshop. The engine we used was Unity with its simplest lighting pipeline.

The game aims to bring back the intense arcade experience of the 90s. You have 10 seconds of life and gain more seconds by blasting enemies. Also, on every floor of the building, you can choose between 3 upgrades to make the best build that suits you. Arcade fun with some roguelite elements.

Approach to Promotion

We basically have a marketing team that handles all social media, influencers, and press. In our Discord community, a lot of people gave feedback before, during, and after the game's launch, which helped us roll out quick updates.

The game is already fully finished — we’re just working on porting it to other platforms like Switch and PlayStation. We're also considering the idea of making a sequel, but we're taking it slow, no pressure. You can follow Epopeia on social media through our Linktree.

Ivan Sendin Silveira, Founder of Epopeia Games

Interview conducted by Theodore McKenzie