I'm going to be honest with you, despite being tuned in to the mobile gaming scene, Roco Kingdom had somehow completely missed my radar. When I was offered the opportunity to play the game and interview Xiaoye Tang, the global content lead, I thought, 'why not?' I love a creature collector, and there's no denying Roco Kingdom looks very cute.
Well, I've never been more glad to give something a go on a whim. Roco Kingdom is absolutely adorable, scratched a creature-collecting itch I didn't get from Palworld, and Xiaoye Tang was so passionate about the game it was almost infectious. If you're new to this franchise, it's actually been a smash hit in China over the last 16 years, spanning videogames, four feature films, an animated series, and over 100 published books.
If that vast history feels a little off-putting, Roco Kingdom acts as a soft reboot for the series, meaning you don't need any background knowledge before jumping in, so if you like free-to-play, open-world, creature-collecting RPGs, this is the game for you. However, to give you a bit of valuable base knowledge, the creatures in this game are called Jinies, and they're very cute.
So, let's dive in and learn more about this intriguing upcoming mobile game.
Pocket Tactics: Roco Kingdom has been massively successful in China; what prompted you to finally release the game globally?
Xiaoye Tang: There wasn't necessarily a prompt, because the plan has always been that this game should have a global version. It's just that we've been focusing on the domestic version's development for most of the production time, and we finally started working on the global version in December last year.
So we've been working on it for almost a year, and we believe that the game's aesthetics, story, and team designs should be very appealing not only to Chinese players but to everyone else in the world. So basically, it was already planned.
When I think of creature-collectors, Pokémon and Palworld are the first games that come to mind. What separates Roco Kingdom from those popular titles?
I think the most important feature that separates Roco Kingdom from those games is how it's sort of a multiplayer MMO-lite experience, and how the world is shared. Not only in terms of the actual session, where you can seamlessly see other players in the shared world, but also in terms of the server. It's literally one server for everyone in the world. So that's very interesting.
How does that work? Is that hard? I don't think I've ever played a game that has had one server.
We have very skilled engineers to create the server infrastructure for these games. Although it's one server, the infrastructure is global, so we make sure everyone can connect to the server with as little ping as possible.
You can seamlessly connect with other players from other countries. For example, if you're playing in Germany, you can add a friend in Japan, then go to their world and play with them.
As Roco Kingdom is free-to-play, what monetization can we expect?
Battle pass and cosmetics. We're very against pay-to-win. We have no pay-to-win whatsoever. In the battle pass, you do get an exclusive Jinie, but the fun part is that once you get it, or a friend of yours gets it, you can go into that world and catch it. A helping-each-other sort of vibe.
How do you make sure the Jinie designs have their own identity and differ from other franchises?
We have different aesthetics for different Jinies. For example, some of them look like fantasy creatures, such as unicorns. They're just unicorns and dragons. These types of Jinies, I would consider them, you know, basic animal-like creatures, and when you think of that archetype, we believe that other games have these types of creatures too.
If you see a fish, of course it looks like a fish, right? And we still have other types of, I would say, quite strange Jinies. For example, we take inspiration from not only animals, but also from strange stuff that you see in your daily life. Our broomstick Jinie is an example. We also have Jinies that are inspired by a pot, like a cauldron that witches use. We also have Jinies that are inspired by physical concepts, like quantum physics.
The design process is: What if a creature evolves and has to adapt itself to look like, for example, a broomstick? What would an insect that looks like a broomstick be like if it's an actual animal? It may look like a broomstick in a certain state, but it actually has many legs that go around; then, when it's trying to fly, it becomes a broomstick.
I've seen that you can ride Jinies, can you also carry the smaller ones around in your arms or interact with them in other ways?
You can mount them. You can hold them in your hands, and for some of them, they will hold you in their hands. Some Jinies are taller than you. It's almost as if a big, big buddy is holding a little guy, and you're the little guy. Some of them are so small that you're the big guy, and they're the little guy. You're holding their hand.
We make sure that for every Jinie we introduce, there's a way to mount them or interact with them, and besides this, they also have different types of interactions when they're just in the world. For example, they will react to your emotes or if you're mean to them. Some of them are going to fight back, even if they're already bonded with you. If you're mean to them, they're going to headbutt you, and it's actually going to kill you. If they're very timid, or the species itself is a very friendly species, they're going to cry; they're going to run away from you if you're mean to them. But if you're good to them, they will have different responses to your actions too.
In the wild, they also have their own routines. They have different relationships with other species, like real animals. Some of them are afraid of a specific type of Jinie. Some of them get along with each other and create a mutually beneficial relationship. In the open world, you can see them walking together. Some of them will care for their little ones. You see a big goose type Jinie with little geese following them.
The previous Roco Kingdom browser game focused on a younger audience of 7-14 year olds. Does this global version cater to the same demographic, or is it casting a wider net?
This one is not necessarily for a younger audience, although the aesthetic and the value we want to maintain are still a childlike experience. We wanted to be able to convey a sense of "Now I'm an adult, but I can still feel my inner child in this game." So it's for everyone. I think the appeal is that there aren't a lot of games on the market now that treat you like a little kid. I think that's a very, very valuable emotional thing that even adults want to feel sometimes.
Can you tell us more about the multiplayer aspects of the game?
First of all, you can hold hands with another player. When you're holding hands, you automatically enter their world. You won't see a loading screen. You're just in their world. When you're holding hands, the person who initiates the hand-holding will take control of your movements. You can just relax, and they're going to take you around.
If they have a mount that supports shared riding, you'll be along for the ride. So it's a very low-pressure experience. You can go into activities together, challenge bosses together, and also enjoy the story campaign together. We're also thinking about developing two-player PvP battles and multiplayer PvP battles. Right now, it's just one versus one, but we think it's gonna be fun if there are more players involved. So that's what you can do when you're doing co-op.
There's also a home system in the game. You can decorate your home interior, and you can invite your friends to your house. There's sort of a homestead. There's a field where you can grow your crops, and you can invite other players to come into your homestead and share those crops with them.
Is the customization of the homestead part of the monetization?
It's not. Most of the furniture you get in the new seasons is obtained by spending the seasonal currency, which is not bought. It's actually by participating in the seasonal activities. When you get into the seasonal hall, there's a vendor that sells furniture, and you just buy it from them.
Pocket Tactics: I'm now waiting very impatiently for Roco Kingdom's global launch. Since it launched in Mainland China last March, it reached 15 million registered players on day one and surpassed 30 million within nine days. That many people can't be wrong!