Mythic Quest is a fairly faithful depiction of that process, presenting game design as a series of crises and crunches punctuated by moments of magic. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, his 2017 book about video game development, Jason Schreier of Kotaku-a site repeatedly referenced in Mythic Quest-points out one of the most maddening aspects of game design: “It’s impossible to know how ‘fun’ a game will be until you’ve played it.” As a Naughty Dog designer tells him, “You make these intricate plans in your head about how well things are going to work, and then when it actually comes and you try to play it, it’s terrible.” Beyond that, though, the shovel episode is mostly true to the exasperating alchemy of making a game-and not just in terms of players’ proclivity for doing damage and forming penises. Granted, the shovel Poppy and Ian team up to create is neither novel nor innovative: Hundreds of games have featured shovels as digging implements, weapons, or both. It’s a combination of both of their visions, and thanks to that blend, it’s fun. I just do.” After Poppy tweaks the redesigned item’s physics to make it more satisfying to swing, the shovel becomes the most popular addition to Raven’s Banquet, Mythic Quest’s new expansion. “I just know that this thing can be the coolest item in the game, and they will love it,” Grimm muses. If the shovel were a weapon as well as a tool, it could become the game’s signature accessory. (OK, two problems: Players use it to dig penis-shaped holes.) There’s something there, though, and Mythic Quest’s visionary yet egomaniacal creative director, Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney) pinpoints the missing ingredient: violence. There’s one problem with Poppy’s plan: The shovel isn’t fun. More important, perhaps, the shovel would be the one mechanic in Mythic Quest, the highest-grossing game of all time, that Poppy could call her own: the rare one-person project in a collaborative creation designed and maintained by dozens, if not hundreds, of programmers, writers, and artists whose individual contributions are assimilated into the studio’s monolithic moneymaker. In Poppy’s mind, the low-tech tool would give players agency over their environment, allowing them to leave their marks on the digital landscape. In the first episode of Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, a new Apple TV+ comedy set in a video game development studio, lead engineer Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) conceives a new feature for the titular MMO she helped build: a shovel.

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