From Raid to Indie: Heimdall Games’ Founders Talk

If you’re passionate about idle RPGs and love watching new indie studios emerge with fresh visions, this week’s Fateless Podcast is one for the books. The team sat down with Ladarski and Ori—from Heimdall Games, a new studio formed by two longtime game industry pros and dedicated gamers. This duo isn’t just jumping on the idle RPG bandwagon—they’re reimagining it with lessons learned from Raid: Shadow Legends, MapleStory, and years of deep, personal gameplay experience.

Here’s everything we learned from the episode—plus why Heimdall’s first title might be one of the most promising projects in the mobile gaming space right now.

Ori and Ladarski met seven years ago at Fanatics, a gaming company where Ori was the CTO and Ladarski was a product manager. Since then, they’ve both worked in major studios (Plarium being one of them), launched games across platforms like Steam and Apple, and soaked up industry experience from both development and business angles.

What unites them now is a lifelong passion for gaming—Ori with over 100,000 hours logged in RPGs like Diablo II, Lineage 2, and World of Warcraft, and Ladarski growing up on MapleStory, Mass Effect, and Clash of Clans. Their shared vision is clear: make something they’d want to play themselves.

Instead of building a clone of Raid: Shadow Legends (which both founders deeply admire and still play), Heimdall is tackling the idle RPG genre. Why? Because they see massive untapped potential.

Games like Legend of Mushroom, Idle Heroes, and Capargo dominate the space, but many of these are built with a strong Eastern design philosophy that doesn’t always click with Western audiences. Ori and Ladarski want to change that. Their approach brings in richer Western-style progression systems, meaningful loot mechanics, and layered, compelling character builds.

“The genre is severely underdeveloped. We want to bring in those meta layers—gear sets, strategic synergies, and dungeon mechanics—that make games like Raid so addictive.”

The Heimdall team is crafting a game that starts off deceptively simple—easy onboarding, quick fun, loot drops galore—but slowly unfurls layers of complexity that reward theorycrafting and mastery.

Key mechanics they’re introducing include:

• Gear Sets: Think Raid’s stun, provoke, or stoneskin sets, adapted for idle combat.
• Gacha Meets Strategy: Instead of just chasing power, you’ll need to equip smartly for specific bosses.
• Manual Ultimates: While auto-battles are the base, you’ll be incentivized to control your ultimate skills in key fights for tactical advantage.

This creates a spectrum of gameplay—from ultra-casual players who check in now and then, to hardcore theorycrafters chasing min-max perfection.

One of the major innovations Heimdall wants to bring to idle RPGs is a true multiplayer backbone. That means actual group content—not just token leaderboards or asynchronous raids.

“We’re thinking about clan bosses, PvE dungeons, and co-op challenges—systems that make you want to log in not just for yourself, but for your team.”

Their inspiration? That feeling from WoW raid nights or Clash of Clans wars, where you feel part of a squad. They want to recreate that in an idle framework, without it feeling like a chore or daily grind.

Incredibly, Heimdall’s first 15–20-minute playable demo was developed in just four weeks. It’s already live for internal testers on Android, and they’re actively onboarding a small, growing Discord community for early feedback.

Their MVP includes:

• A core gameplay loop involving loot, gear upgrades, and combat
• Eleven gear rarities to explore
• A scaling campaign with one visual map but increasing difficulty

They’re watching metrics like session time, repeat logins, and engagement across various device types to validate fun and stability before expanding.

Their rough development roadmap:

• Core Game Complete: ~1 year
• Global Launch: Within 18 months
• Soft Launch Markets: Already targeting regions like the Philippines and Indonesia to begin testing

From UI tweaks to feature pivots, they’re embracing a community-first, iteration-heavy development style that reflects modern indie sensibilities.
“A founder friend told us: Ship the game the moment you’re ashamed of it. That’s when the real feedback starts.”

Since Fateless always ends on a fun note, Ori and Ladarski were asked about their favorite mythological champions. Their picks?

• Ladarski: Poseidon—powerful, calm, and capable of chaos when provoked. Picture water-themed creatures and stormy ultimates.
• Ori: Ra and Obelisk from Yu-Gi-Oh!—a nostalgic nod to childhood and Egyptian god lore.

No surprise they’d be a great fit for Godforge’s mythological universe too…

Heimdall Games is doing everything right: They’re building with love for the genre, learning from what works (and what doesn’t), engaging with players early, and aiming to inject real innovation into idle RPGs. Whether you’re a fan of Raid, AFK Journey, or Legend of Mushroom, this is one studio worth following.