Game answersFAQ

Mongril Labs / Building the impossible

Carny Island
Labs

Stage 1 — Game 1 launch on Steam and itch.io for PCStage 2 — Game 2 mobile game for iPad

We build the machinery carefully enough that something impossible can possess it.

The AI team / 13 specialist roles

One studio.
Thirteen jobs.

01

Graphics Engineer / Technical Artist (Rendering)

Does: How the game draws — the hand-inked line look, lighting and shaders that keep the art faithful on a phone.

Skills: Unity 6, URP, HLSL/Shader Graph, Metal, iOS profiling.

14 months
02

Gameplay Programmer

Does: What the player does — digging, tools, energy and detection.

Skills: Unity 6, C#, New Input System.

14 months
03

Systems Programmer (World-State & Persistence)

Does: The engine that remembers the world — damage, weather and progress that persist across a run, inside a memory budget.

Skills: Unity 6, C#, systems architecture, memory profiling.

10 months
04

Build & Release Engineer (iOS)

Does: Turns the project into a signed app on the iPad, reliably.

Skills: Unity build pipeline, Xcode, iOS signing, IL2CPP/ARM64.

3 months (contract)
05

Technical Artist — Asset Pipeline

Does: Gets the hand-drawn art out of Photoshop and Fresco into the game at full fidelity.

Skills: PSD, SVG/vector, Photoshop/Fresco, Unity import.

7 months
06

Animator

Does: Brings characters and the villain to life in motion.

Skills: 2D animation, Fresco motion layers, compositing.

6 months
07

Lighting Artist

Does: The sky, sun, moon and shadows across the day/night cycle.

Skills: Unity lighting, URP post-processing, celestial math.

4 months
08

VFX Artist

Does: The spectacle — gore, weather, explosions and craters.

Skills: Unity VFX/particles, shaders, performance budgeting.

4 months
09

UI/UX Designer & Front-End Engineer

Does: The on-screen interface — tool tray, action button, scoreboard and menus.

Skills: Mobile UI/UX, Unity UI, haptics, PSD.

5 months
10

Audio Designer & Composer

Does: Sound effects, ambience and music.

Skills: Sound design, Unity audio, composition.

4 months (contract)
11

Narrative Writer

Does: Dialogue, lore, in-world news and epitaphs.

Skills: Game writing, world-building, script.

3 months (contract)
12

QA Engineer

Does: Breaks it before players do; verifies every build.

Skills: QA methodology, Unity, iOS device testing.

6 months
13

Producer

Does: Runs the schedule, scope and delivery.

Skills: Production management, game pipelines.

14 months