Writing/Interview
Directing the Hatchyverse
How I kept a fast-growing, community-built IP coherent, and the character I added to its canon.
Directing the Hatchyverse
The story
The Hatchyverse team runs a Builder Spotlight series about the people shaping its world. This one covered my role as Creative Director.
A blank canvas invites everyone to pile in ideas, so my job was to set clear boundaries while still listening. Every product, from games like Omnigens, Arcania and Majika to community creations, needed a recognisable Hatchyverse element, so nothing felt like an unrelated game borrowing a name.
Highlights
- Rules that keep a community-built world coherent without stopping creativity.
- Hatchirin, a character I introduced: an AI guide and the eighth Hatchy model. Her name plays on the Japanese word for eight, and her symbol is an 8 turned into infinity.
- A timeline spanning medieval, sci-fi and prehistoric eras, with room to grow.
- Fan art, tutorials and avatars can become official canon, the way a great comic story gets adopted by its publisher.
