We just passed $110000 raised in ETH and BTC, and that cracks open a new possibility - to work on few games at once. We are in for another change of plan, and here it is.
As we are still unable to establish a contact with most of the big exchanges, we will proceed into the Blockchain crypto mining game development using only those that reply before the end of the Stage I sale, and agree to our conditions and supply us with high-res logo, slogan and permission to include them in the game. While the currencies information we use in the game is not a subject of copyrights, the exchanges logos, names and slogans are owned by the respective companies, and we cannot use them without permission, taking legal risks. But we are free to mock their lack of support and appreciation for our work, so you can expect some close representation of the “unofficial” versions. The game will enter active development the moment Stage I of the ICO is over, so if you have any way reaching the TOP10 exchanges, please remind them they still have few days to reply!
Because of the low Cryptum ICO sales, you can expect very high returns even from the Blockchain game - 20% of any profits after the Kickstarter campaign and future wholesale and retail deals. For example, if we raise $250 000 in KS (which requires only 4167 backers), and assume 30% off the KS price cost (remember, we will not include development in the formula, you’ve already paid for it), taxes and shipping fees,
Let’s face it - our ICO was not among the top September picks, and it’s about funding something that probably nobody ever thought of funding with ICO - a board games studio. So things were going slow, and we were starting to worry that our initial plans would have to be changed and we will have to invest further into publishing those games. But then a group of investors approached and asked if we can reach an agreement so at least the crypto mining game would be secured and published on time (see here: Blockchain: The Cryptocurrency Board Game), which would power up the whole chain of games - with Primewarp already past half done, and with the news about Godforge already being developed (stay tuned for it and follow our News feed, it is a long post and we want to tell you the whole story), we are already ahead of schedule for two of the games and we would concentrate on the Blockchain game the moment our ICO is over.
If you followed the information about our crypto mining board game - one of the games we are funding with the Cyptum ICO, you probably know that we will be releasing an expansion called “Exchanges” that would offer expanded gameplay and more exchange mechanics. But we also wanted the game to be educational and somehow closer to the real world, and this also means to include some of the real exchanges in the base game, even adding some optional rules on the way, if necessary.
Of course, we had to ask them - which is essentially done by filling in a support ticket on most of the big ones. ShapeShift support was instantly on the line and since they are not the typical trading website, we quickly decided to include them as a base exchange service for the supported currencies that are already included in the game. Basically this means any currency that stays in the game (remember, you can vote in the Bitcointalk thread) that is also supported in real life by ShapeShift, will be safe from the dump practice we mentioned in the game description.
This would change an essential part of the gameplay, yet it will make it closer to how we wanted to represent the “safe” currencies - ones that settled down and are no longer subject to easy pumps and dumps.
So, welcome to ShapeShift, the first real wold exchange in Blockchain: The Cryptocurrency Board Game!
If you have followed the information about our new cryptomining board game, you’d know the two main currencies the players are collecting are Bitcoin and Ethereum. We decided that we may add real metal coins to the game instead of the typical paper tokens. One quick order to Francesco Orrù and few hours later we already have the models:
Beautiful, aren’t they? But we had to test the models, so today we tried simple 3D printing to see how the detail will show. It was fairly low res, so for the most part the detail wasn’t there, but we are still very happy with the result. With some modifications, the game will feature some nice shiny Bitcoins and Ethereums. Well, you can’t really spend them, but… they are gorgeous!
Starting an ICO about board games (well, not only, but people read only so far) was bound to raise the question why are we seeking funding in the crypto world, instead of using the market we already have. And we believe that deserves an answer, and a honest one:
Because it’s a competitive market dominated by big corporations and high expectations, yet it has some sweet spots available to anyone, and with a decent funding we can get there. It’s a lucrative business with very high margins if you optimize well.
Someone at Bitcointalk asked us how far we are with the Blockchain: The Cryptcurrency Board Game development. It’s a great question, as somehow we haven’t thought of sharing more info, and there is a matter that would require public opinion anyway, so we decided to give you a status about the game.
First of all, you should definitely read the all the available information about the Blockchain board game on our website, but here is a less formal summary of the info:
This is informal summary with some expanded information:
Blockchain: The Cryptocurrency Board Game allows up to five players to compete by building mining rigs or investing in ASICs or even a limited number of ICOs, buying and upgrading high-end mining hardware with the goal of owning most Bitcoins and Ethereum at the end of the game. Bitcoin and Ethereum have a “floating” cost and it is set throughout the game as an optional rule, which adds another strategy layer (exchanging for BTC or ETH will raise their prices).Blockchain simulates both the competition and cooperation between miners by using solo and pooled mining (each new coin starts at low difficulty, but adding more miners raises it, opening pool slots and lowering the solo mining profitability), difficulty changes (as explained) and market development (heavily investing in a coin may rise its price), while player interaction is achieved by event manipulation (the algorithm deck has double-sided cards with events on the back) and a limited set of exchange practices (holding or dumping, more will be added in the Exchanges expansion). There are limited set of ICO offerings add some risk-taking elements for the endgame.
Blockchain is using well known engine-building and worker placement mechanics, and the game features 85 mineable coins and 15 of the top assets, as well as 25 mining algorithms and a large number of upgrades, hardware, software and events.
The mechanics are pretty self explanatory for most gamers, but here are few more pieces of info - you start by building a rig (actually 4 slots for each player, all comes through cards from drafting and the market), mine on it by assigning hardware (workers), sell, dump or hodl at the end of a round. The little trick we used with the workers is that you actually assign a whole rig worth of them at once for each action point (4). Coins are populated with each new algo, and events are on the same cards, so whenever a new coin is out, conditional events trigger.
During the Kickcstarter campaign we will unlock new coins (you can help us with that, see the Voting paragraph further below, and we will have a stretch goal to unlock metal Bitcoin and Ethereum coins for the game (note that they are just game coins, and are not backed by real BTC or ETH).
The subconscious decisions sometimes make bad jokes with us. Last week we placed a codename to our upcoming cyberpunk adventure game - 2077: A World Without Borders. We wanted something different, but we know CD Project copyrighted the title “Cyberpunk”, and we would risk lawsuit if we used it in some ways. So we had to choose something else - and because of the logo design we picked “2077”. It looks so cool in typical cyberpunk neon.
Turns out CD Project upcoming PC game is called “Cyberpunk 2077”. And we knew that, it just slipped somewhere. So we are off to another change of names, and our game gets the work in progress title C22: A World Without Borders, and we will set it in the same world as Primewarp: Genesis. We will share some more details about it when the time is right.
From Nikolai Tsekov, Project Manager
Yesterday a reddit user brought up a few questions that I feel I need to address personally. Looking at the board games project from the distance of a person that doesn’t invest in ICOs - for example when you only want just the board game(s) and you don’t care about much else, it wouldn’t seem like the wise investment we are claiming it to be. And I understand that - keeping 30 tokens at the now steep price of 0.02 ETH each means you will be currently investing about $188 (at the time of writing this article) in a single game.
And he was right, the Ethereum price is higher now than when we started developing the project. So we will change the requirements for each Tier (tiers are not obligatory!), simple as that!
Well, it is not so simple. We will still lower the required amounts, but we have to explain them.
Sofia, August 15, 2017 – Cryptum ICO (launching September 16) announces it is funding the first strategy board game set in the world of cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
The game is thematically named “Blockchain: The Cryptocurrency Board Game” (see also BoardGameGeek Database Entry) and allows up to five players to compete by building “mining rigs”, investing in ICOs, buying and upgrading high-end mining hardware with the goal of owning most Bitcoins and Ethereum at the end of the game.
“Blockchain: The Cryptocurrency Board Game is educational, fun and has a cool historical value for the digital currency market. It’s the ultimate mining game, but it goes well beyond that by bridging the cryptocurrency and board game worlds,” – said the designer Nikolai Tsekov.
This is a project that enters the Cryptum Network with most of the work in it already done. There are quite a few things that need to be done before we say it’s finished and ready for a Kickstarter campaign, but the essential job: rules base, art concepts and card art pieces, and many of the 3D models are already done. You can check the game current status at Cute Lizard’s Facebook page. Primewarp is a unique game that puts 2 to 4 players in a PvP/PvE fight over two huge labyrinth-like maps (with a twist that you just can’t guess), but the KS campaign will probably add solo and pure coop modes, as well as full-featured campaign for all game modes.
The project changed as it entered the Cryptum Network and will be published as Primewarp: Genesis core game and a separate Primewarp: Blades and Fire Expansion, which adds another player (so it would probably end as 1-5 player game), new playable characters, NPC and much more. The expansion will be part of the KS campaign.
We already mentioned we planned for at least four expansions for the game “Blockchain” we will publish after receiving funding from this project. Three of them: Exchanges, Mining Farms and Forks represent some very distinctive aspects of the cryptocurrency world, and they are self-explanatory. Of course, they will add a lot more than the obvious, starting with new coins, ICOs, updated prices and difficulties for some of the base game currencies, and more.
The fourth one - Project 2020, is much different from the rest of the bunch, and it will completely change the game world to a dystopian future where the world already accepted cryptocurrencies instead of fiat currencies, and paper money are obsolete. Such a dramatic change of the game will come at the end of the expansion chain, so it is possible this project to be pushed further down the queue if we decide to release more than the planned 3 prior expansions - after all, we have to consider the possibility the game would become insanely famous. No wonder, considering how good it would be.
Not a final image. © 2017 Cryptum
Blockchain: The Cryptocurrency Board Game is a highly educational board game about cryptocurrencies, mining and investment.
Blockchain is an advanced engine-building, worker placement game where 1-5 players try to use their processing power to “mine” digital currencies and exchange them for Bitcoins and Ethereum, competing for the highest profit at the end of the last game round.
