We’re starting an experiment.
How can I call it anything else?
An online game.
Text-based, multiplayer.
It can be played directly in Discord.
In fact, we’re not just making a game but a new game engine.
It will use Ardor accounts for player IDs, the SIGBRO app, and it implements different Ardor features.
WHY this game?
Different reasons.
- I am a storyteller by profession. A poet and a screenwriter, who likes to start things up, observe, describe, and interact with people, build worlds, and I have used this interest – and years of learning the tools of the trade – for writing rap, shorts, feature films, show running radio play series, and writing TV series. TL;DR: Who doesn’t like to imagine worlds, and maybe even use them to prove a point about something you have at heart?
- I love games. Even if what I call being “enthusiastic” when I play, my family calls “obsessed”, “loud”, and sometimes “confrontative”. Okay, I get immersed. 🙂 In card games, RPGs when I was a kid (only played them as a kid unfortunately), everything on Playstation for a period of my life, tabletops – LOTS of tabletop games – especially after my kids got old enough to play them. But nooooo, I never created a game. Well, back on c-64 I did write a few small text-based multiple choice stories in basic, and yeah I did do an interactive theater play where the audience influenced the ending, and I did also make a few skill-based games on the Nxt and Ignis blockchains. But nothing advanced, just research, IMO.
- I have an idea. I have an idea I can’t let go now, it’s so manifested inside my brain, that I told my wife about it, even though I know the words: “I have an idea”, coming from me, often makes her face turn blue. Hmmm, could this be the reason I feel the urge to play sometimes? Heh, nevermind 😉 Ideas are cheap, but this one sticks, branches out, grows, and won’t leave. I’ll expand on it in later blog posts but here’s what you need to know now: I want to use as much of what I’ve done and learned in my life so far in THIS project, as I can, I want to keep learning, and I want to offer a new game and fun creative tool to the world.
What will be the ingredients?
We draw inspiration from the old MUDs (ancestor to MMORPGs), LitRPGs, tabletops, and from ourselves of course. When I say “we”, it’s not because I’m a schizophrenic (at all times), it’s because I also told my man, scor2k, about the idea, and his first reaction was the opposite of my wife’s: Coooool, I love it, let’s do it, I always wanted to be a game dev! Scor2k is my partner through many years, when creating apps. He is a talented absolutely brillant full-stack developer, nothing less. I forgot to mention my other hobby interest for the past 10 years, through which I met scor2k: the Nxt community and the Ardor blockchain. I own much to it: inspiration, friendships, skills in being able to construct blockchain apps, but NOT what many seem to like most about blockchains: money. So, even though we will implement NFTs and other smart contracts in the game, do NOT expect a get-rich-quick scheme from this project. We use blockchain because it makes sense for the game.
Let that be today’s announcement.
The engine has started
I will use this blogging space on Nxter.org to write my thoughts, updates, and questions to you, as we make progress with the game, and here’s a SPOILER for you: it will not be full of buzzwords and hype – unless there’s something real to be hyped about. I do get hyped in this space, but mostly about the tech and new use cases, I am sick and tired of e.g. games that call themselves web3 because they let users log in with a blockchain account, NFT creators and marketplaces that try to pump 10k NFTs for the chance to get an image with “legendary traits” that can be used for nothing but a profile pic on SoMe and bragging to a small community about it, and bad MMOs calling themselves meta verses because they have a few blockchain features, like showing NFTs. I care for creating a great game, for the process of the experiment, and for the result.
I welcome everyone who is interested to join us and be part of the discussions we’ll have, about the game, the game mechanics and the universe, about the use of blockchain, and common stuff like privacy, freedom, AI, and other topics that are relevant to the project. You can post your ideas, thoughts and comments in the comments field below my posts. Or, if you’re a lurker, lurk away, read along and enjoy following our journey – maybe later you’ll feel compelled to create a player character for yourself and step into the game world of Mycora, explore, form relationships, go on quests and hunt down NPCs for loot, or make your own game.
I’ll try to keep you updated at least once a week, sometimes more or less, and I’ll do my best to answer comments daily while still being in dev mode. You can subscribe to comments below.
Emotion: hyped.
Looking forward to the journey.
/apenzl