Blockchain Battle Arena
Blockchain Battle Arena will be a cross-chain multiplayer battle game for NFTs. Any standard NFT on most Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible blockchains will be usable inside of the game. Your NFT characters will come to life as they don a mech suit and battle each other using a variety of weapons. The concept is loosely based on the Super Smash Brothers series of games, but with a more Sci Fi aesthetic.
The current demo is single player with a simple AI opponent and we only have one battle stage, but the underpinnings are there for 4 to 6 player multiplayer support, both local and over the internet. For local multiplayer, this will be achieved through gamepad input support in addition to the keyboard. Gamepads will be supported for online play as well, of course.
Competition
Though NFTs from different blockchains will be supported, we are still figuring out the competition mechanics and how outcomes will be stored and tracked. We would eventually like to have a leaderboard for both individual players, tracked by wallet address, and for NFT collections, tracked by contact address and chain id.
The initial version of this system will likely be on a traditional database system while we figure out the specifics of the on-chain storage.
Monetization
We will probably always have a version of Blockchain Battle Arena that will be free to play, including the ability to mint a character NFT for free on a low cost blockchain in case the player does not yet own any NFTs.
For competition modes and fully unlocked multiplayer modes, we could offer the minting of a Blockchain Battle Arena battle pass that would be a standard NFT, able to be transferred or sold on marketplaces such as OpenSea. Though the initial version of this battle pass will probably be limited in number as test the scalability of the game, eventually minting will be open to anybody who wants to play and not limited to an arbitrary scarce amount. Revenue from the minting of battle passes could also be used to offer play to earn prizes.
We will also be exploring launching our own NFT collections along with a novel mechanism to mint accessories for the characters that can then be removed and sent to other NFTs or traded on marketplaces. This is unlike NFT collections today that have fixed traits and accessories with various rarities that are fixed upon mint.
The Future of NFTs
It seems NFT creators and collectors have become fixated on the 10k profile picture collection model of distribution for NFTs. Though NFT collectibles are fun to own and trade, we suspect the collectibles market is nearing saturation and collectors are becoming fatigued by this model.
We would like to evolve the NFT standard to include the ability to mint and trade accessories. This would mean collections could be made much bigger, not just limited to 10k, and the monetization possibilities for creators would increase as they can release seasonal accessory collections for their NFTs and even usable by other collections as well. This would be a win for collectors as well because it would allow greater customization and hence allow more creative self expression.
In addition to accessories, we are also proposing evolving the NFT standard to include methods in the smart contracts that provide the base NFT image with a transparent background and perhaps a few simple different poses or expressions for the character. These methods would unlock amazing interoperability with different games and dApps from the get-go, instead of collectors having to wait for the creators of their NFTs to launch a game or partner with other companies.
In summary, we are imagining a future for digital collectibles on the blockchain that provide instant utility from day one, by being customizable through allowing the minting of accessories and immediate interoperability with a range of web3 games and dApps in general.