Gm Mortals, it’s that time of the month again - another Dev Diary fresh off the press! With so many updates to share, let’s dive right in.
Recent Highlights
Mobile Pre-Alpha Test For Android
First, we recently shipped the mobile pre-alpha for Android, a significant milestone for us. This is a big step forward in making the game more accessible to everyone, and we're thrilled to see players enjoying the game on their mobile devices. Fun fact: Most Mortals are excited about playing GU in the throne room, if you catch my drift. How about you?
We've received a lot of inspiring feedback from the community and know the mobile UI needs some work. We're actively gathering feedback to prioritize our next steps. We’ll tackle bugs with the current Android build and share an update on the next milestone for mobile soon too!
Mobile Vendor Partnership
Speaking of mobile updates, we shared some exciting news a few days ago, which would help us take Gods Unchained to the masses! I’m excited to say we’ve almost finalized our co-dev partner for mobile and once the dotted line is signed we’ll make a formal announcement. I’m stokek because with their expertise in AAA mobile-game dev, we expect to get mobile into your hands sooner rather than later. We know you're itching to play on more Android devices and your Apple devices, and we're working hard to make it happen.
The end goal remains - to improve the mobile UI, incorporate more features, rollout to more Android devices (and iOS at a later stage) while enhancing the overall user experience and accessibility. If you haven’t already, drop your suggestions in the #mobile-pre-alpha Discord channel.
Secret 6 Partnership
In my last Discord update, I shared that Secret 6, a world-renowned game development studio, is stepping in to empower and help upgrade our development capabilities to take us to the next level! I’m excited to report they officially began work on 1st March, and we’re knees deep in onboarding them to get them up to speed.
What can players expect? Faster delivery! Secret 6 is developing tooling for the game to push GU forward faster. Things that have been deprioritized over the years will finally get built. Items such as changing rank and progression points, tagging reward events, game modes and rules, making cards, etc., all require much engineering. Now, with Secret 6 we’ll have tools to handle all of that without weeks worth of engineering for every change.
Another cool thing about the tooling Secret 6 is building is that it will allow us to reward our players in new and unexpected ways, as well as will enable us to optimize player rewards regularly. This opens the door to thematic reward events - think Winter Wanderlands’ Candy Chain event variations on a much larger scale!
Community-Driven Events And Rewards
We believe our community is at the heart of the game, and to show our love and gratitude for your constant support, we’re planning more surprise rewards for our most active, loyal members. Some of you would’ve received $GODS tokens as part of our Valentine’s Day campaign or to celebrate the multiple prestigious awards we won in 2022. Thank you for helping us bag so many!
We know that many of you have been with us since the early days of Gods Unchained, and we want to make sure you know how much we value your commitment. As such, we’re working on more community events and rewards and promise you there’s an upside to continue playing. Hot tip: Resubscribe to receive emails from us by contacting the support team in Discord, or you’ll miss out on rewards!
Feature Progress Updates
Community-First Initiatives
First, we’d like to thank our community for helping us reach the 125K follower milestone on Twitter! We’re so grateful to each of you for always supporting us. Next, Council Of Mortals Season 2 will officially begin at the end of March. Please stay tuned as we tally the representative votes and announce the newly elected members. Lastly, there’s a ton of tournament action hosted by Sewlie. The Fight For Lysander event is currently running, and the prize pot includes 10,000 $GODS and 2500+ card packs! Sign up now.
Bulk Pack Opening
ICYMI, our team has been hard at work making improvements to one of the most-requested features - modifications to the pack-opening experience. You can now open all your packs with just one click! We’ve also made it easier to see your newly-minted cards in your inventory after opening packs.
But that’s not all - we’ve added a “reveal all” button so you can flip all the cards in your pack once and a “next pack” button that immediately opens the next pack. And for those who want to speed things up even more, we’ve included a “skip animations” toggle to disable all pack-opening animations. We’ve even added keyboard shortcuts for you power players to make the process even quicker! This should save you some time and make collecting those sweet, sweet cards even more satisfying.
Etherbots NFTs Mint
Your eyes do not deceive you - you read that correctly! Your patience will be rewarded if you’ve been with us from the beginning. We’re honoring the old Etherbots website promises and will mint the NFTs into the wallets with the Etherbot parts. Yes, it took a while, and we know plenty of Genesis holders have purchased Etherbots packs and couldn’t gain their packs in exchange for parts, until now. On Friday 10th March we’ll begin distributing Etherbot NFTs to all wallet addresses holding Etherbot parts, fulfilling our long-standing promise to the community.
TL;DR players with Etherbot parts in their wallets who are eligible for the NFTs will receive those NFTs automatically in their wallets by the end of the week!
Expanding $GODS Programs
We’ve already announced Season 2 of Offering of the $GODS and are exploring new ways to enhance the manual staking program in the upcoming weeks and months. Leveraging $GODS to develop ecosystem growth programs that encourage content creation are also at the very top of our radar, as we look to find new ways to even more vibrantly encourage the community to contribute to the ecosystem. Finally, utilizing $GODS for new player acquisition and retention will continue to take center stage.
Player Onboarding Improvements
The recent updates to our registration and tutorial phases have shown promising results and are now permanent parts of the game's onboarding process. We also know that “blockchain technology” is scary and off-putting for real-world gamers. We hope to put the “tech part” under the hood so new users can sign up seamlessly and begin playing without having to pass through hoops. Enter Immutable Passport - allowing players to bypass any friction with a single Immutable account. We aim to integrate the first phase soon this year, with the custodial system coming later.
Bug Tracking And Reporting
We’ve updated our old Bug Board, cleaned it up and given it a new home. We want to maintain and improve our transparency and communication around known bugs that are impacting the game.
Our Moderators have also been given the ability to submit bug reports directly to our team for review now, based on all of your helpful reports in our Discord #gameplay-bugs channel. Check out the new Bug Board here: https://airtable.com/shrExPaPk9Q0aq0Al/tblYzIWskm2leqVol
Things To Look Forward To
The Next Set - Band Of The Wolf
Mark your calendars because Band Of The Wolf is officially launching on March 30th, 11 am PT! Get ready to journey to the charming coastal village of Raneko, where you’ll be introduced to an exciting and diverse cast of characters and a brand-new Ally keyword mechanic.
This set would bring a fresh and innovative gameplay experience to the table (think Forging and crafting), complete with interactive storytelling that you’ve been privy to in Discord if you joined the army for our “Mercenaries Wanted” plea, spotted wolf-inspired emojis or the many character bots in #raneko-village channel! It’s not too late to join the hunt as we reveal this set’s lore through Discord clues and puzzles! With 38 new cards to discover, we hope to have you at the edge of your seats as you explore a new side of Eucos you’ve never seen.
A New Game Mode
We’ve heard your cries for a new game mode, and I’m pleased to say it’s in discovery! We plan to start with a draft or sealed mode, allowing players to build a deck on the fly with limited cards. We want to create a mode that all players can enjoy, regardless of their card collection size or experience level. With changeable rule sets that will regularly rotate, we’ll ensure players have a new experience with every playthrough. The new game mode will be available for free and paid variations to test your deck-building skills and add an extra layer of strategy!
Expanding Our Lore And Building A Franchise
Get ready to level up, Mortals! We're not just focusing on improving gameplay mechanics, we’re leveling up our lore too. Our team’s been going nuts behind the scenes creating innovative design systems and frameworks to showcase the potential of web3 gaming. We’re not just building a franchise, we’re building a leading franchise and IP with GU. That’s right, we’re taking it to the next level! So get your game on and join us for an unmissable lore event coming up later this year. Strap on your thinking hats - there will be hidden easter eggs and clues. Think big!
A Brand Refresh
As if all this wasn’t enough - we’re also amid a comprehensive refresh of the Gods Unchained brand! We're not just talking about a simple logo change here; we're talking about a complete overhaul of the brand that will elevate your experience in ways you've never imagined! As part of this initiative, we're revamping all our channels, including our website, to give you an even more immersive and dynamic experience. Some of you may have even participated in our brand survey and got a sneak peek of the various logos we've been considering, haven’t you!
In-Person Events
To keep us on our feet, we will host an offline tournament for the very first time in collaboration with GaFin. We can’t wait to see you all there, so stay tuned for more details about this exciting event. If you’re around, we’ll also be at GDC (Games Developers Conference) later this month.
New York came calling too! I’m super excited to share that Immutable is the title sponsor for NFT. We can't wait to bring GU to the event in NYC this year. We know how important events like this are for bringing the web3 community together, so we're going all out with wall takeovers, posters, and other fun activations on-ground. Suppose you get the chance to attend NFT. NYC, don’t forget to catch us!
New Partnerships And Entering Key Markets
Preparing to onboard more players into the GUniverse, we've established new partnerships with Emerge from Singapore, BAYZ from Brazil, and Play3 from Indonesia. These strategic collaborations will help us further accelerate brand awareness in these countries. Our existing partnerships with IndiGG for India, Ampverse for the Philippines, and Aggero for LATAM have also had great success. You would’ve noticed the uptick in educational content for new players and Twitch streams lately.
Cycling Planning Updates
We’ve completed C3 (Nov-Feb) and are working full steam ahead to prioritize the C1 (Mar-July) roadmap. With the Secret 6 still going through onboarding and us almost signing on the new mobile-dev team, we’ll have a clearer sense of feature updates by mid-April. Internally, we’ve also introduced a whole new operating model for the team and some changes to team structures that’ll allow us to deliver quickly while doubling down on our core strength - web3 games. I’ll be back soon enough to share an updated version of the product roadmap once all the teams align on it internally. Until next time.
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