NFTs and Gaming
The adoption of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) has rapidly accelerated in recent months. However, the adoption appears to be mostly limited to artwork collections such as CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club. The most expensive NFT is currently Beeples ‘Everydays’ which sold for $69 million at auction. The artwork is a digital mosaic composed of 5000 images that Beeple has created daily since May 2007.
Axie Infinity is the most recent NFT-based game to gain mainstream attention and adoption. It demonstrates the potential use case for NFTs in the gaming industry. This got me searching for other game projects that focused on using NFTs within their games universe. Aurory was the platform that grabbed my attention.
The Aurory Platform
Aurory will be a gaming platform based on the play to earn mechanism. The game developers have chosen to be powered by Solana and to use Serum for the in-game marketplace. The Solana blockchain has a maximum transactions per second (TPS) of 65,000 which rivals Visa. The current transaction fee on Solana is much less than 1 cent, $0.00036 to be exact, at the time of writing. These minimal transaction fees could attract Ethereum users who are looking for an alternative whilst gas fees remain unsustainably high. A Solana Program Library token will be used as a core of gaming ecosystem in Aurory. This token will be useable in solo, multiplayer and in the marketplace. The goal is to create a real utility in these games and in future games that follow.
Solo mode
The solo mode is a J-RPG type game set in a retro-futuristic universe. It is a side-scrolling game where you will follow the quest of Helios. Even though the game is in the production phase it already looks really promising. The game artwork looks great, features the colour scheme of Solana and is fully hand drawn. Objectives will involve completing quests, engaging with NPCs and defeating many opponents in order to advance in the plot.
Every monster or creature that you defeat will be earned as an NFT and stored in your wallet. Those NFTs cards will be the core of the multiplayer modes, and will allow you to compete against other players or to gain additional items. Furthermore, each time you complete a quest, you gain some tokens that will be usable to play multiplayer games, or to buy items from the marketplace.
Multiplayer modes
There will be two multiplayer modes introduced on the release of the game:
- Discovering the basis of Decentralised Finance (DeFi)
- Player versus player mode
Decentralised Finance may be a term that a lot of people aren’t familiar with and the development team of Aurory picked up on this. They have decided to take aspects of DeFi and introduce them into their game. The aim is to help familiarise players with the use of staking and farming, therefore contributing to the mass adoption of DeFi. Tokens that have been won on the platform will have the option to be staked in order to win additional tokens. The collectible NFT cards will also have an option to be staked to win in-game skins, power-ups and unique legendary cards. Any items acquired through staking will be usable in fights against other players and will be tradeable in the marketplace.
A player versus player mode will be available in which players can choose five of their items and cards to compete in a contest. An amount of tokens will be paid by each player in order to enter the contest and the winner will claim all the tokens paid to start the battle. A leaderboard will be available to reward players who play and win the most. Token giveaways and mythic items will up for grabs and will be updated on a weekly and monthly basis to incentivise players to play.
Aurorians
10,000 Aurorians will be sold, each with specific traits that will make them unique. These Aurorians are generative NFTs but will have much more use than just being used as profile pictures. They will work as visual identity within the game and are proof that you have been around since the genesis of Aurory. Aurorians will also give you access to play future game modes, allowing you to test and validate these modes before they reach the main game. In future updates of Aurory, your Aurorian will be your in-game skin allowing you to use is in the solo and multiplayer game modes.
The sale of these Aurorians will happen on Tuesday 31st of August at 5:00 PM Central European Time and each one will cost 5 SOL to mint.
Release date
At present there isn’t a release date for the games. However, the open beta should be available to play in November. If you want the latest updates on the Aurory Project then follow their Twitter and Medium.
