I try to get small and simple ideas.
A blog. A cold wallet client. A book. An auth-app.
And I do get them. Small simple ideas. …and then they grow.
In November-December 2021 I wanted to spread some positive vibes, show a few Ignis features in a fun way, and test – can we make “non-crypto-users” use blockchain + can our homegrown apps, SIGBRO Mobile and NFTMagic.art, handle it?
Yes they could.
The small idea turned into The Frenchie.land Advent Calendar: 24 days, 24 videos with cardboard versions of frenchie NFTs taped onto sushi sticks, performing an interactive crime story in front of different backgrounds (a greenscreen), with sound effects and music, daily puzzles and quests, and a story that I made up on the go. I already told you, my wife’s face changes color, every time I tell her I got a simple idea. Now you know why… 😉
After this, and a short break, I wanted to turn Frenchie.land into a web game but unfortunately – and understandably – as things turned out, my friend and creator of the “Frencies” design and NFTMagic, The Wiremaster, moved on to more healthy hobbies like playing tennis, skiing, and taking Percy – his young and strong willed frenchie – on walks IRL, which left me with a half-baked project I had based on his artwork, not my own. Based on the same core ideas I decided to start developing a new story, characters, and universe.
Wen game?
The name of the game is Wen Gods.
Digging deeper, I soon found the similarities between screenwriting and game design are plenty but… there are certainly also differences. Like… great world you built, but what’s the gameplay? Game mechanics? How do you control the character, what’s immersive about it, how to PLAY that story? After an online master class on gamedesign, and some great heavy books on world building and MMOs (yes, paper books, I happen to like physical stuff ;)), creating testgames on paper, and analyzing games I play, here we are.
Let’s look at some rules I’ve decided on, and maybe you can tell me in the comment field below how you feel about them.
Free to play
Wen Gods is free2play.
- Everybody starts with a free character
- The character can be played till the Wen Gods end game and beyond
- Free characters die permanently (PD) after 3 re-spawns – game over, start again
OMG, can they die? Yes, sir. Your king dies in chess, if the enemy kills it, right? For me, as a player and someone with a “slightly” competitive mindset, I see true victory in a game as beating it with something REAL at stake; e.g. take first position on the leaderboard with a character who can suffer PD, while most others run around in protective armor and can’t die.
The free Wen Gods character can be toughened up, taught skills, and must battle NPCs and possibly constantly respawning PCs, but it can do it, and it can change the game world for all of them, right in front of their eyes. THAT is legend.
Most AAA studios these days (OK, years) make games that feel more like interactive movies, where they harness and protect their players, and walk them all the way through to the endgame, because the studio wants to profit; they minimize the risk of losing customers by keeping them alive, rather than letting the players risk to die if they play badly.
This, IMHO, takes away a crucial experience from playing games. I respect people enough to allow them the boost one gets from taking a risk, overcoming mad obstacles and feeling the rush of a well-deserved great victory! I want them to achieve success, in games, and in life. Alone or together. Players who take free characters from scratch to legendary, might very well realize that they can’t do it alone; they may not only need forums and walk-throughs but also the help of each other: to partner up, cooperate, find a way. Win! Why play a multiplayer game, if all you want is to play solo?
I was all fired up, when I realized this. “I want my character to be able to die!”, I told scor2k.
“Why?”, he said. So I wrote all of the above to him. “Ok. I want to live forever!”, he replied, with a ))))))))))) …
OK.
I’m a fan of the freedom to choose, so I guess I should respect that some players just like to re-spawn for ever and ever.
Which leads to the next rule:
- When a free character reaches level 5, the player may turn it into an NFT character
NFT characters
Players with NFT characters can
- Save the character’s stats to the blockchain
- re-spawn unlimited times with their latest saved stats
- sell their NFT character, including all obtained stats, p2p
NFTs are usually thought of as an image. But a person’s character does not come from looks alone. A character is not a skin. So, besides the NFT characters’ image information, their stats are attached to the NFT. All achievements are transferred from the free character to the new NFT character, for example: Experience (EXP), Health (HP), skills, distributed Character Points (CP), Talent Points (TP), and the NFT character’s level and core specialization, are saved on the blockchain. This meta data will follow the NFT character if it is sold or transferred to another account, player’s or NFT investor’s.
They have looks too, of course:
Free characters look alike. All players start equally and are the same race, Forest Ppl.
NFT players may select a ready-made NFT character or they can issue unique NFT avatars for themselves.
- There are selections of official Wen Gods NFT avatars
- Players can create and issue personalized NFT avatars
- Artists can issue NFT character collections and sell them to players
- Companies and ego-centric people can issue NFT avatars that show their branding and give them away
This means new races, skins, brands, and all kinds of drawing and coloring techniques will be allowed, as well as AI generated images. As it is written, the engine will not support 3D avatars, but 2D images. Images are hosted on IPFS.
Finally, a few general facts:
- NFTs are owned 100% by the account that holds them
- NFT images and meta data are not hosted on our servers but on IPFS and Ardor blockchain
- NFT character can be played across game worlds, so that if you get an NFT avatar in Wen Gods, you can play that same avatar in other games that are created with the Mycora game engine. Game masters in other game worlds may choose to let NFT characters enter with the stats and items they earned in Wen Gods, or they may let the player start afresh.
Not your keys not your funds. It should be unnecessary to state this, but players will of course create their own private keys and Ardor account, connect it to their Wen Gods PlayerID, and they will sign their transactions locally with SIGBRO. We do not have access to their accounts, we don’t host them, and if we close down for any reason, NFTs are not affected.
A Classless System
Wen Gods characters are classless, so the player can evolve them to fit their playing style.
I won’t limit people to being a Tank, Healer, Damage Dealer, or select only classes like warlock, mage, thief, etc.
Instead, new characters start with 25 Character Points (CPs) which the player can distribute towards the character’s strength, intellect, dexterity, constitution, and/or spirit. These 5 attributes and parameters form the foundation of a character and can be shaped to suit special playstyles. When a character levels up, the character receives another 5 CPs.
Characters can specialize and learn new skills within their specialization throughout the game.
Root Specializations are offered to the character on special occasions and can be accepted by the player or rejected. A character can only have a limited number of Root Specializations. Accepted Root Specializations can never be discarded.
Every time a character levels up, 1 Talent Point (TP) is received – and on rare occasions it will be 3 TP. The player can use these TPs to unlock new talents from their character’s Root Specializations’ Talent Tree, to give their character new skills and abilities.
Mycora
…is the name of the Wen Gods universe.
Mycora is text first, then image.
It doesn’t mean Mycora has no visuals. But it’s text first.
Mycora games can be created by anyone who can write (alone or with friends or help from some AI) – and be played by anyone who can read and imagine. It’s a cool feature humans have – imagination. It makes us tick. In conversations. Love letters. Podcasts. Books. Imagine – Harry Potter beat Voldemort before he got the face of Daniel Radcliffe, millions of people saw his epic battle in their minds and felt it strongly. Lord of the Rings is a masterpiece in storytelling and world building without Peter Jackson, and religious texts do wonders every day. Literature can take you anywhere, and many people like the idea of leaving this world for a bit, stepping into another one with different rules, a virtual world in which you can become someone else and push your boundaries. You don’t get that immersive a feeling from reading, or playing solo in MMORPGs.
A map to find your way
The map of Mycora is built of hexagons. 6 directions to go.
They house different challenges, that the player moves in on and explores.
The world is covered by fog, but as the player moves through the lands, the fog lifts, and the map gets visible.
The Mycora Discord bot and web UI are in sync, so whether you write /move commands in Discord to explore the land or you click on the web UI’s arrows to move faster over several hexagons, it’s the same. On hexagons there are dialogs with bots, fights with monsters, trading, looting, small quests, and a non-linear storyline that eventually will involve all players directly and change the gameworld.
Enough for this post. Soon I’ll post more.
Am I overloading you? Is this interesting for others than me and scor2k?
Please use the comment field below to share your initial thoughts about the Wen Gods concept and interact with us 🙂
/apenzl