Set in a bleak fictional future where Earth has been all but destroyed, the collectible card game Parallel sets the stage for five factions and their players to settle their differences over who will rule space and repopulate a new home world.
Built on a rich foundation of sci-fi lore, Parallel is one of the largest Web3 games on the market and is moving toward mass-market appeal and innovative technology to enhance blockchain-based gaming experiences.
Building a deck for space combat
Parallel works similarly to many other trading card games (TCGs), challenging players to collect cards and build competitive decks to take on other players, similar to full-blown TCG games like Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering.
The entire card collection features five different factions, including the warlike Mars-based Makori or the mutant Earthlings who never made it to space before the planet's catastrophic destruction, each representing a different style of gameplay and a specific character from the game's lore, as well as universal cards that can be used by any faction for support functions.
For example, the Orgen Core can quickly upgrade cards during a match, making them more powerful, while the Shroud Card can twist your opponent's strategy by eliminating their cards.
“Cards are really the backbone of Parallel because the flagship product of the entire Parallel ecosystem is the collectible card game,” said Franklin Fitch, head of partnerships at Parallel, in a recent interview with OpenSea. “Everything we’re building is centered around expanding the core product.”
So far, Parallel has launched two card series: Alpha and Planetfall, the former of which is Parallel’s most traded non-fungible token (NFT) to date.
Coming in October 2023, the Planetfall expansion includes 120 new cards, dozens of cosmetics, and a greater variety of in-game items, exploring a new narrative phase for the game as factions begin to fight for control of a reborn Earth.
In addition to cards, there are more categories of items that players can collect to customize their parallel experience, and players can pick up cosmetic items to apply new skins to their Paragon (the faction hero they can choose to play as) and improve their game performance accordingly through passive and active abilities (such as card attack bonuses or additional player health).
Some of the cosmetics are backed by NFTs and some are not, as the team wants to take a hybrid approach to scarcity where some of the cosmetics can be obtained by anyone and others serve as tradable status symbols.
Players can add variations of the card to their collection, which can include unique artwork or autographs from the artist, and players can also collect companions to decorate the corners of their game boards.
“Think of Companions as collectible fidget spinners, a new kind of chess board that you can interact with,” Fitch said.
Expanding Parallel’s in-game storytelling to physical comic books and “smart” avatars
For players and avid fans of Parallel’s narrative, the team is working with publisher Raid Comics to create a comic book that will add deeper storytelling to the game’s lore and further develop the world-building.
The comics are collectible as NFTs and were developed by many different parts of the Parallel team in collaboration with editors and producers at Raid, meaning anyone can collect their favorite comics and trade them their way to a complete collection.
Another collectible tier above the TCG arrives with the launch of Avatars, a collection of 11,000 profile picture-style characters (PFPs) that represent the five factions and leverage ERC-6551 technology and artificial intelligence (AI).
By incorporating ERC-6551 into its design, the avatar can act as a “backpack wallet” containing its own NFTs that can be used for cosmetic or functional purposes in the game, and the team is still exploring how best to explore this technology in the future.
According to Fitch, the avatars are part of an upcoming system called Colony that will be teased by Parallel co-founder Kalos in the near future, and can also be used as PFPs in the game, potentially increasing the rewards for their wins.
“No one has ever seen anything like Colony before,” Fitch said. “It’s on the level of The Sims or Black & White. The avatars will be semi-autonomous, which should be fun for their owners.”
PRIME
The final part of the ecosystem is the PRIME token, which players can use to purchase in-game items on OpenSea and the Parallel store. When players use NFT-backed cards in their decks to win, they can earn PRIME, which scales exponentially based on the number of NFT-backed cards they own.
Fitch said that owning and using more NFT-backed cards is generally considered rewarding because players can not only earn more rewards, but also obtain the collections they want to build through trading.
Players who crave this kind of user-owned gameplay will find a variety of ways to optimize their rewards: For starters, you can earn more PRIME if you win while holding the corresponding faction’s avatar.
For example, players can also use PRIME to upgrade the appearance of cards, such as adding artist autographs.
How creators can support the growth of the Parallel ecosystem
Although Parallel is a web3 game, it succeeds by leveraging an established playbook, providing players with a familiar and enjoyable experience.
First, anyone can enter Parallel for free and can smoothly collect NFT-backed items in the game, and if players don’t want to use NFTs, they are free to ignore them and enjoy a very well-known gaming experience.
“We don’t want to force any player to make a choice they don’t want,” Fitch said. “We want players to enjoy the experience they want, and we’re going to make it easy for them to switch between using NFT or non-NFT cards.”
According to Fitch, the team is making progress with traditional digital advertising and creator partnerships, bringing in well-known professional TCG players and even creating a video walkthrough of the game with streamer Alliestrasza.
“We invited professional TCG players to try the game and provide feedback,” Fitch said. “So far, they love playing Parallel, and most have purchased NFT-backed cards completely organically. They really like the type of TCG that NFTs can provide, so seeing them convert themselves is an even more real moment.”
One successful strategy for inviting game creators has been to challenge streamers to prized tournaments on Parallel, which the streamers then broadcast live to their subscribers on their own channels, and Fitch reports that the team plans to “refine the model and continue hosting tournaments for the foreseeable future.”
In addition to the marketing strategy, the Parallel team is also committed to expanding the game to as many formats as possible to maximize the game's target market, and the technical team focuses on localizing the game so that it can reach players in non-English regions and optimizes it for system requirements so that more devices can run the game.
The team is also exploring cloud streaming, which would minimize or potentially eliminate the upfront downloads required for players to experience the game.
“We are also looking into a possible mobile app, evaluating the work required and the cost of maintaining the app.” Fitch said: “We have seen this model work very successfully for other web3 games and don’t want to leave any opportunity to expand our reach.”
To this end, the Parallel team did not want to slow down the speed at which players could enter the game and experience the storytelling, card collection, and gameplay. Players do not need a cryptocurrency wallet to fully enjoy the fun of the game, which was an intentional design choice by the product team.
“Ideally, in the future, you will never need an external wallet to have a fully functional side-by-side experience,” Fitch said. “I know we are working on some wallet-as-a-service solutions and may launch backend wallet creation so that players don’t face any barriers when they are ready to purchase NFT-backed cards and other items.”
The Future of Parallel
Fitch said the Parallel community is always bustling and the team’s strategy has always been to shape its fluid community, making it easy for teams to compete and build engagement races around faction lines thanks to the faction system built into the game.
They also dropped pins and other physical merchandise centered around factions and Parallel branding to further weave the game into community life.
Parallel's upcoming major events include the launch of public beta and the launch of the Colony project, which is expected to be launched in March 2024.
“I don’t know which one I’m more excited about, between launching the open beta and announcing Colony,” Fitch said. “The open beta means we can get the game into the hands of as many people as possible, so to speak. Colony will truly transform the gaming experience for our players, and 2024 is going to be a big year for everyone involved at Parallel, the studio, and especially the players.”
Interested collectors and gamers can subscribe to Colony updates on the new trailer page here:
parallel.life/colony/signup
Parallel entered open beta on Thursday, February 29th, and anyone can join and play the game, for more information visit Parallel’s blog.
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