Land Dev Journal + Teaser!
Background
Have you ever wondered why we call our gaming universe Axie Infinity? From the very beginning, we always envisioned building a gaming ecosystem that brought smiles and joy to every type of gamer around the world. Infinite experiences, infinite engagement… infinite fun. At the foundation of our ecosystem are Axies, the digital pets you all are getting to know and love. Each Axie is unique in its own way, and as we’ll all begin to discover together, the world of Lunacia will soon present many unique experiences for both you and your Axies to better get to know each other. We’d like to share some more about one of those experiences that’s currently deep in development.
Early History
Last December, we first gave community members a one-week glimpse of a game that had the codename Project K. K was short for kingdom, and all landholders at the time got a chance to play with the first concept build of the game. We shared it primarily to test some gameplay concepts with the community, get your feedback, test our server infrastructure, and to make it clear to the community that our ecosystem is truly committed to different gaming experiences. It was a tiny part of our ultimate vision for Project K, but it was great to see the positive feedback it received.
The success of the demo reaffirmed both that we had the foundations for a great gaming experience, and that we needed to scale our team considerably to execute our full vision. You might be surprised to learn that the early team behind that demo only had 3 engineering contributors. Thankfully, given our recent funding round and incredible growth in 2021, we’ve been able to make key hires that will ensure our execution on Land does justice to the lofty dreams we share with each and every one of you.
Project K in 2021
We have made considerable progress on Project K over the past year. We conducted extensive gameplay research within various genres related to our core concept, and identified a number of gaming mechanics that excite us. We developed a number of foundational elements for the game, including an infrastructure that enables social interactions between players, and the ability to create distinct, yet interrelated gaming modes as special “seasonal” events that players can enjoy.
Perhaps as an example of these special events, we’d like to share an extremely early prototype of an event our software engineering team has been playing around with. As you can see in the screenshot below, we’re testing a gameplay mode where armies of Axies come together on massive battlegrounds for control of Lunacia. We intend for experiences like these to make Project K a game that delights all types of gamers, whether they prefer building, battling, puzzling, or even decorating.
Additionally, we welcomed a new senior game designer who refined the pre-existing design of Project K, and also brought a considerable number of fundamental design improvements to the core gaming experience.
We also brought in an amazing art director to make the necessary strong stylistic choices which allowed us to hone and clarify the game’s core aesthetic. He has helped oversee the creation of a much higher fidelity experience, and as you can see below, the art speaks for itself!
We’ve been incredibly busy growing Project K in every conceivable way throughout 2021. Today’s team is 15 people and growing, each member putting their full effort into a game that we can’t wait to reveal.
A Collective Vision & Destiny
We are now 2.9 M community members strong. Collectively, we are a force to be reckoned with. Our coming together as a community and a movement obligates us to collectively swing for the fences, to literally shock the world. We believe that together, we can build engaging, fun, inspiring gaming experiences for everyone. We believe this can only occur on top of an open foundation that allows us all to win together and share in this project’s success.
This belief extends to all parts of our gaming ecosystem, including Project K of course! As such, our collective vision has become much more expansive and befitting of the growing power of our community.
Our vision for Project K is to introduce a whimsical, high fidelity world for Axies, consisting of a number of interrelated gaming experiences built by Sky Mavis and over time, the entire community. It will have a strong stylized feel, introducing the world to considerable Axie lore, while carrying forward the spirit of our gaming experiences. Our primary focus however, is centered on the fact that the best games create fun, emotionally engaging experiences with people from all walks of life. This is the primary goal of Project K.
Project K will release aspects of this multi-experience game over time.
Phase 1 of this experience will focus more upon simulation and land management (production, resource gathering, building, and trading).
Phase 2 will build in additional management gameplay elements (such as skill trees, jobs, and social/cooperative activities).
Phase 3 will focus more on group strategic gameplay (defend, battle, conquer). Throughout the continuous evolution of Lunacia, features will be added, and Axies will have an ever-expanding set of experiences they will encounter. However, between each event and game release phase, major events that affect all of Lunacia will occur, giving players a sense of progression at a world scale.
This scale of the game candidly felt constrained, and borderline impossible within the 2D art style we released last year. So, we took a step back, and rewrote the core engine in 3D. These are considerable new challenges for us, but the results to date have made us super excited for the opportunities these engineering choices create.
In short, building something of this scale requires considerable time and effort. This is why we decided to delay the release of the Project K alpha this year. We appreciate your patience, and think you’ll find that it was well worth the wait. To give you a view into the future, we wanted to prepare a teaser video for you all as our holiday gift to the community. We hope you enjoy it!