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"Activities are a brilliant way to meet your audience where they are already congregating – on Discord. Their API simplifies the process of connecting with groups of players and utilizes established web standards to facilitate the building of rich and immersive experiences."
— Mojiworks' CTO, Al Harding
Mojiworks, a company specializing in social video games, is on a mission: to enrich relationships among millions of people around the globe. From its inception, the company envisioned creating games played within social apps where friends hang out. Something like Discord’s Activities platform was what the Mojiworks team dreamed of when the studio was first founded. When Discord invited them to contribute to the development of the platform’s early versions of Activities, they were totally down.
Launched in October 2023, their first activity, Chef Showdown, is a collaborative, competitive, and sometimes chaotic cooking game. It's a 3D, real-time multiplayer game that’s playable as an Activity to everyone on Discord.
"The release of ‘Chef Showdown’ has been absolutely pivotal to Mojiworks. The success of the game — with its impressive user numbers and overwhelming love from players — showed us that Discord was the perfect home for us as we strive to create the next generation of pro-social multiplayer games. We believe that Activities will bloom into a massive game platform, and we're thrilled to be on the front lines of this innovation."
— Matthew Wiggins, the CEO of Mojiworks
An early version of Chef Showdown, initially conceived to help Mojiworks learn about Discord as a game platform and act as a testing ground for game ideas, was built in about three months. After soft-launching in March 2023, the Mojiworks team was able to use real-time feedback received from actual players over the next six months to continue iterating on the game design before launching the game globally in October 2023. The game was adapted from a previous project to create a native Discord experience that leverages the platform's potential. Early experiments informed the focus on collaborative gameplay, aligning with Mojiworks' ethos.
Their tech stack, featuring PlayCanvas as the engine and core game editor, supports rapid iteration and provides a collaborative editing environment. This setup mirrors Mojiworks' commitment to multiplayer experiences and crafting games specifically for the platform they’re on. Active engagement in their own Discord server enabled them to share builds and receive early feedback from dedicated players, which later helped shape a lot of the Activity’s UX. This combination of player insights, data, and their own playtests set Chef Showdown up for success.
Mojiworks wanted to give players a great, polished gameplay experience that felt like it truly belonged inside of the Discord product that users were familiar with, so they got to work ensuring that their infrastructure and design choices matched that of Discord’s.
“Players often tell us that playing games is their favorite way to hang out with friends online,” Jen Bolton, Mojiwork’s Head of Player Insights states. “And since their friends are also on Discord, Activities are a great go-to. Joining Activities in progress is very easy (even from phones!), and they love that all Discord's social features are right at their fingertips as they play.”
Mojiworks players express that even more than simplicity, the convenience of Discord Activities is what draws them back to playing them on Discord time and time again. One player shares, “I usually just play browser games, so having a voice channel is really helpful. [Discord Activities] also makes it easier to play the games with those people, compared to having to set up a call and search on another platform for what to do.”
Since the launch of 'Chef Showdown' on Discord, Mojiworks has seen astonishing growth, with a million players on launch weekend and over 14 million players so far. And it’s not just user numbers: engagement has been fantastic, with 3x the average session times that Mojiworks’ has seen on other platforms.
They attribute their success to their interaction with their Discord community, and the game’s intuitive and responsive design. Mojiworks' vision has always been to create the next generation of social multiplayer games, aiming to strengthen relationships for millions of people around the world through their creations. Releasing 'Chef Showdown' as an Activity on Discord is just the beginning of their journey.
Mojiworks believes that Discord Activities is the next big games platform. Their goal is to make the highest quality and most innovative Activities on Discord that foster experiences players can't find anywhere else, and to build a community of millions who will enjoy playing their games for years to come.
The success of 'Chef Showdown' has solidified Mojiworks' belief in the potential of Discord Activities, and they’re already applying the lessons learned from 'Chef Showdown' towards their next game, codenamed 'Thieves' - built from scratch and designed specifically for Discord.
To developers considering creating an Activity on Discord, Mojiworks’ has three main pieces of advice:
As a platform, Discord provides an inherently social, multiplayer experience, so Mojiworks advises that you consider the importance of flexibility to player numbers in a session. Although you can still play PVP in Chef Showdown, their testing shows that collaborative gameplay is a much better experience for new players.
In tests comparing PVP and PVE game modes, collaborative gameplay led to +50% new user retention and +30% play time. Mojiworks also believes in a collaborative focus as it better supports a pro-social design that’s a positive experience for all players, regardless of skill & experience level.
Mojiworks attributes their speed and depth of iteration to their Tech Stack. They’ve found their secret sauce using the following:
But this secret sauce didn’t always taste so good. Over the years, Mojiworks refined their tech stack to find what worked best for them, and their advice is if your team is finding that your tech stack isn’t working for you - to shop around! Maybe even consider copying their stack as a jumping off point.
Finally, Mojiworks encourages developers to focus on how being on Discord makes the player experience unique. They challenge developers to ask themselves, why would your player come to Discord to play your Activity? Ensure that your Activity is special and offers something core, and can take advantage of the uniquely social nature of hangouts and conversations that are already happening between your users on Discord. What will make it stand out?
This philosophy is central to Mojiworks’ design mindset, and they’re now focusing that right here on Discord. After the success of Chef Showdown, they’ve gone all-in on a new project that puts everything they’ve learned into a truly Discord-first game. Mojiworks is stoked to make this big investment because of their belief that this time on Discord is a rare opportunity to help define the next big thing - and make a forever game in the process.
You get started building the next big thing on Discord by heading over to our Developer Portal, and try out ‘Chef Showdown’ yourself by hopping into a voice or text channel on Discord and opening up the App Launcher!
