Onchain Heroes founder Skarly has spent the last few years writing code for one of the most prominent on-chain games, and now he’s working on his own, an upcoming idle role-playing game (RPG).
The game received a round of angel investment and key infrastructure partnerships in September and is expected to launch in late 2024 with a focus on fun and sustainable on-chain gaming economies.
“Onchain Heroes is my attempt to bring magic and fun to on-chain gaming,” Skarly said in an interview with OpenSea. “Being involved in web3 over the past few years has taught me a lot and helped me find great partners and supporters who I know will lead Onchain Heroes to success.”
Founder of Onchain Heroes
Skarly, who has a decade of software engineering experience in industries including payments, logistics, and accounting, began his foray into web3 during the 1C0 boom when he tried investing in Bitcoin and various altcoins. However, it wasn’t until late 2021, at the height of the NFT craze, that he found his place in on-chain gaming with the on-chain venture protocol Wolf Game.
Skarly initially joined as a community member. He discovered some pain points in the NFT buying and selling experience of his fellow Wolf Game players and independently built tools to improve these pain points. His market aggregator simplified the tracking of reserve prices for different NFT features, which caught the attention of the Wolf Game founders, who contacted him directly and had a conversation.
Soon after, he joined the project as the sole developer outside of the founding team, and from that point on, Skarly took control of the project and developed most of Wolf Game's best-known products.
“I started out by developing various trading tools so that we could play Wolf Game and trade its items,” Skarly explained. “Once officially on board, I worked closely with Shepherd (Wolf Game’s co-founder) to develop many of Wolf Game’s features that are still available today.”
This experience was invaluable to Skarly, teaching him how to build on-chain architecture and develop a viable token economic system.
The inspiration behind Onchain Heroes
Skarly built Wolf Game as lead engineer for about 2 years, including the game’s acquisition by Pixel Vault, a company focused on developing on-chain assets and media products using blockchain.
One of the challenges Skarly faced during his tenure at Wolf Game was combining on-chain and off-chain systems.
“During my time at Wolf Game, we developed this complex hybrid architecture to handle the game, NFTs, rewards, all of which combined on-chain and off-chain pieces together,” Skarly said. “It was challenging to keep all the pieces running in sync, and I found myself wondering what the game would look like if it could stick to its original vision, and what would Wolf Game look like if it could stay that way?”
As Skarly pondered this question, he felt a pull to take on the challenge, and came up with the idea to develop a game that relied on the on-chain functionality he had built at Wolf Game.
“I feel like I learned everything I could while developing Wolf Game, and I need to discover for myself if I can fully realize this idea.” Skarly said, “I really want to bring back that magical feeling of the 2021 NFT craze and incorporate it into a game that is built around the idea of longevity and sustainability, which is my dream for Onchain Heroes.”
With a mission in mind, Skarly raised funding from several angel investors known in the Web3 ecosystem, including Beanie, Bry DiSanto, Apix, Bharat, and others, and started building.
What’s coming up for Onchain Heroes?
Onchain Heroes is designed for the web3 crowd interested in concepts like expected value, or the ability to parse the average of random possible outcomes. Players should have the skills necessary for chart analysis and reading blockchain transactions to thrive in Onchain Heroes.
Rather than aiming for the mass market from the start, Skarly intends to delve into the role of gamers who are already familiar with blockchain mechanics and methodically expand the player base from there.
At its core, Onchain Heroes will be an idle RPG that focuses on strategy and decision-making rather than mechanical skill.
“Fundamentally, this game will never be a test of your ability to handle a controller,” Skarly said. “Instead, it will be a test of your ability to handle risk.”
In the game, players will be able to experience classic RPG mechanics: complete in-game quests, earn rewards, craft upgrades, and repeat the process for better results, with an important twist in Onchain Heroes, where RPGs rely on idle mechanics rather than players spending time playing the game.
“I drew a lot of inspiration from Runescape and Melvor Idle,” Skarly said, referring to those full-blown MMO RPGs. “Runescape requires multiple clicks to collect resources like wood, and chopping trees takes a lot of time. Melvor is more appealing to me. I click a button to chop a tree, then come back a few minutes later to see how much wood I collected.”
The game's goal for "idleness" is to eliminate the time players waste performing repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on strategies that balance risk and reward.
“Players always have the choice to play it safe and slow down the game, or take high-risk, high-reward opportunities and speed up the game,” Skarly said.
Additionally, Skarly believes that idle game mechanics are a built-in repellent for bots, a recurring problem with web3 and other online games. A 2022 analysis found that 40% of web3 game players are bots, and eliminating any grinding stages in the game would put human players and bots on a more level playing field.
“The advantage a bot has over a human is its ability to perform tasks repeatedly over an arbitrary time frame,” Skarly said. “By removing this advantage, I save a lot of time banning bots by limiting their activity time, as their incentive to join Onchain Heroes is low.”
Future players of Onchain Heroes can expect all of this gameplay to be incorporated into a fun world built on a foundation of pixel art.
“We deliberately chose a cute and pixelated art style,” Skarly said. “It’s an interesting contrast to other on-chain games, which are usually high stakes and often feature serious themes like sci-fi, space, or dark fantasy. I really like pixel art, so making a game with it was a no-brainer for me.”
Onchain Heroes joins Abstract blockchain
Last September, Onchain Heroes announced it would launch on the Abstract blockchain, which bills itself as the future of consumer crypto apps. Abstract launched in July as the next product developed by Igloo, the parent company of Pudgy Penguins and Overpass, led by entrepreneur Luca Netz.
“We talked to most of the L2s in the Ethereum space,” Skarly said of Layer 2 blockchains. “Blockchain partners can generally offer three things: grants, technical support, and distribution. We have enough funding. Consumers don’t care about your technology stack, they care about how you reach people and integrate into the culture. Luca Netz and his team are the kings of distribution.”
Skarly believes that Abstract’s connection to the Pudgy Penguins community will provide a built-in cultural impetus for adoption and legitimacy in the web3 gaming space, an argument that seems consistent with Abstract’s mission, especially after it announced in July 2023 that it aims to become “the largest single distribution channel — bringing users, liquidity, and community to crypto-native builders and global brands.”
Additionally, Skarly’s interactions with the Abstract team during Korea Blockchain Week 2024 convinced him that this is a blockchain ecosystem worth collaborating with.
“If anyone can make consumer crypto work, I firmly believe it’s them,” Skarly said. “While Abstract isn’t a proven chain yet, I have every confidence in the team building it and believe it will bear fruit for Onchain Heroes.”
Onchain Heroes Minting
The upcoming Genesis Heroes NFT collection will be central to the Onchain Heroes experience, and while these NFTs will be able to be used as profile pictures, their primary use will lie in their important role in the game.
Collectors interested in participating in the minting can compete for a spot on the "Heroes' List" and qualify by climbing the points leaderboard.
Breaking with the common pattern of heavy minting before a game launches, Skarly plans to launch the game as soon as possible after paid minting, with the current target being Q4 2024.
“I hate being in a situation where you get all excited about a casting and then end up having to wait three-plus years to actually play the game,” Skarly said.
He stressed the importance of attracting players and getting them involved in building the game. "The game will be developed together with the community because you need the participation and investment of the players." Skarly said: "We are taking the players on a journey together, and I want to assure everyone that we are pursuing the maximum fun and not giving up halfway."
#Abstract #链游NFT #PudgyPenguins
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