Pronounced “liminal,” LMNL is a tech company established in 2021 by a team of veterans from significant game engine companies. The company’s flagship product, the LMNL game engine, is designed to cater specifically to virtual reality (VR) experiences while incorporating their interoperability technology dubbed “intermetability”.
The engine is claimed to boast workflows and optimizations that promise to significantly reduce development time for intricate interactive VR games. Simultaneously, it remains lightweight for developers targeting less powerful platforms. This could translate into more frequent releases and updates, delivering a wealth of content, especially on mobile platforms like Meta Quest.
What sets the LMNL Engine apart is its “intermetability” technology. This concept allows players to unlock virtual items in one game and seamlessly utilize them in other titles while retaining their identity profiles. LMNL believes intermetability is a crucial technology for VR games, enabling them to attract a broader player base and foster a sense of unity among developers.
“VR has the potential to become our primary gateway to a new virtual layer of reality,” remarks LMNL founder Matthew Dowd. “Intermetability seamlessly integrates all games into this cohesive digital layer, and LMNL Engine provides developers with a straightforward and independent platform to build upon.” Dowd further delved into LMNL’s vision with intermetability, emphasizing its potential to streamline VR interactions through modular design, expediting developer workflows.
Challenging industry staples like Unity and Unreal is assertive, but LMNL’s team comprises individuals with experience from game engine companies, including Bohemia Interactive. Notably, Ariel Manzur, a Co-Founder of the popular Godot Engine, guides the LMNL team. LMNL is confident that its intermetability technology will distinguish it from established players, offering a superior game development and maintenance approach.
The first games developed using the LMNL Engine are expected to arrive in 2024. Considering that Unity’s pricing policy update pissed off the developers, and even though Unity backed off slightly in the face of backlash from the industry, developers don’t look like they will let this go easily or forget it anytime soon. The developer community is still discussing leaning toward other engines and supporting the emergence of communities around them to increase their own survivability. Time will tell if LMNL will be among these alternative engines that the developers turn to and take its place among established game engines.
