page_title: Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine
section_title: Development and release
hierarchical_section_title: Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine / Development and release
caption_attribution_description: English: Andy Schatz shows off his video game Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine
context_page_description: Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine is a stealth and action video game released in 2013 for the Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and in 2019 for the Nintendo Switch; the latter four were developed and published by Pocketwatch Games and the Xbox 360 version was published by Majesco Entertainment. The Nintendo Switch edition is titled Monaco: Complete Edition.
  Separate from the game's single-player mode, Monaco's cooperative mode allows up to four players to partake in heists and robberies in different locations. Players choose one of eight characters, each of which has a unique and beneficial skill. The story consists of four acts; the first three follow characters' recollections of prior experiences and the final act is played from the perspective of the police.
  Development of Monaco began while lead developer Andy Schatz was working for TKO Software and before he founded his independent company, Pocketwatch Games. The soundtrack was composed by Austin Wintory. Andy Nguyen—whom Schatz met while he was looking for playtesters—helped with the development of Monaco as a level designer and producer, and also worked in festival booths.
context_section_description: The idea for Monaco was first prototyped when Andy Schatz was working for TKO Software, a video game development company based in Santa Cruz, California. The game was inspired by the top-down mini-map used in the Hitman series that Schatz described as being similar to Jason Rohrer's 2014 video game The Castle Doctrine during Monaco's early stages of development. His original plan was to develop and release Monaco as an Xbox Live Indie Games title. He described it as "The Sims meets Diablo meets Hitman". The development at TKO was done in three weeks while the company solicited paid work. Schatz later left TKO and founded his own independent company, Pocketwatch Games. After Pocketwatch Games experimented with simulation games, such as with 2006 Independent Games Festival finalist Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa, Schatz developed an early version of Monaco using Microsoft XNA to see if it worked on the Xbox 360 after fifteen weeks of development. This won the IGF award for "Excellence in Design". Shortly later, Valve approached Schatz and offered to publish the game on the Steam distribution platform.
  When Andy Schatz pitched the game to Microsoft Game Studios, it was turned down. Schatz responded, saying "they were crazy", and asked if he could repitch the game, to which Microsoft agreed. He worked on it for another year to make it more marketable before repitching it; Microsoft again rejected the game. After these events, Schatz thought the game would not be released on the Xbox 360, disappointing him. He felt the platform and its marketplace were easy to work with and that it would have made an ideal platform for the game. Schatz considered releasing the game on PlayStation 3 but did not. Empty Clip Studios was hired to port the game to the RapidFire engine so it could be released on the PlayStation 3, but the port was never finished. To publish the game on Xbox Live, Schatz partnered with video game publishing company Majesco Entertainment.
  Schatz met Andy Nguyen while looking for playtesters in 2011; he described Nguyen as a man he "clicked with" who made an energizing work environment. Schatz hired Nguyen to work in festival booths and to sell the company's merchandise at events. Nguyen did not know how to program, but eventually became a level designer and producer for Monaco, leaving his job at Citibank to devote more time to the game and to Pocketwatch Games.
  The soundtrack for Monaco was composed by Grammy-nominated Austin Wintory, who had previously composed scores for Flow and Journey. The original soundtrack and a remixed album called Gentleman's Private Collection were released on April 24, 2013. The soundtrack incorporates pianos and drums into what Christian Donlan of Eurogamer said was one of Wintory's best works yet. Schatz originally used licensed music but asked Wintory to replace some of it with original pieces. Wintory later persuaded Schatz that a complete original soundtrack was warranted. Wintory was excited by the request because it involved using humorous "old-timey piano", saying, "when else am I ever going to be asked to write anything remotely like this?" Gentleman's Private Collection contains remixes of the original soundtrack by other composers, including Peter Hollens, Tina Guo—who played the violin in the Journey soundtrack—and Chipzel who composed the soundtrack for Super Hexagon. The full soundtrack and Gentleman's Private Collection were released onto Wintory's microsite on Bandcamp.
  Monaco was released for Microsoft Windows on April 24, 2013; the Xbox 360 version was delayed until May 10 that year. The Mac and Linux versions were released on July 3 and October 21, 2013, respectively. Since the official release, Pocketwatch Games has updated the game to include more levels and mini-games, including two campaign entries titled "Origins" and "Fin", the final chapter, was released to allow the developers room to focus on Tooth and Tail. On October 21, 2019 a port for the Nintendo Switch was released titled Monaco: Complete Edition.
caption: Andy Schatz displaying Monaco at the Game Developers Conference in 2010
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