Aurory, a flagship game in the Solana ecosystem, released the Prologue to Adventures, the first major milestone in the game’s long-term plan.
Beginning today, players who currently own an Aurorian (Aurory non-fungible token, or NFT) will be able to access the Prologue, with the game publicly available to all later this summer. The Prologue is meant to act as a foundation that will allow the game to grow and scale efficiently for years to come.
Jon Campeau, executive producer and head of production at Aurory, said in a statement, “This is a huge step for Adventures and we’re excited for players to finally experience the game. It’s been a colossal amount of effort to get to where we are. The Prologue sets the stage for what is to come, and we’ve made sure the foundation is strong before continuing on this path.”
Through the Adventures Prologue, players will experience their first taste of Blanche, a village hidden deep in the snowy mountains of Tokane, a critical location to the entire Adventures story. Speed Blitz will be one of the main attractions of the village, where travelers can take part in one-versus-one “Automated Pokemon-style” battles.
In order to participate in a Speed Blitz duel, players will need to connect with an NPC (non playable character), who will be waiting to challenge their abilities in battle, and can then select a set amount of $AURY to wager on the outcome of the battle.
The NPCs are highly motivated to achieve glory and would like nothing more than to prevent players from climbing up the leaderboards. They consist of two teams – Team Bull and Team Bear. Team Bull is made up of Neftie aficionados, risk takers, and thrill seekers. Members of Team Bear play it safe but are tough and tactical in their approach.
Players for the first time will meet Kitty, an Aurorian of particular distinction, who seems to know a lot and will have an opportunity to earn their way into Kitty’s favor. Moving north of the main plaza in the village, players will also come across the Incubator, which can be utilized in-game or triggered remotely via the heliOS dashboard to hatch Neftie Eggs.
Campeau said in an email to GamesBeat that the original inspiration for the game was the Final Fantasy franchise and its exploratory gameplay.
“Also, Pokemon was a huge inspiration as well for their combat system and logic. Combine both Final Fantasy and Pokemon and Aurory was born,” Campeau said. “The social MMO aspect of games like Runescape also serves as a bit of inspiration for where we’d like to bring Adventures to in the future.”
The main plaza in Blanche will be a central place where Aurorians meet, dance, and chill. In response to community requests, a chat box has been added to allow players to familiarize themselves with others in-game, and interact with friends.
Additionally, players will find multiple kiosks in the main plaza that can be interacted with. A swap kiosk will allow players to directly swap SOL and USDC for $AURY, and a marketplace kiosk will enable players to purchase or sell Nefties, and other items like eggs, and cosmetics, without having to leave the game.
“The future is bright for Aurory and its dedicated community – it holds so much more than what is currently presented in The Prologue. Our dream is for it to grow and evolve into a light MMO experience as the narrative develops, and we look forward to seeing its expansion in the coming years,” said Stephan Carmignani, creative director for Aurory, in a statement.
Aurory started as a company in April 2021 and it has 63 employees. The company has raised $108 million to date.
The game uses Web3 technology to enable players to own their gaming assets.
“This is essential for any game with a collectible item/character system with a rarity component involved,” Campeau said. “Think about the Pokémon card scandal just a few weeks ago and how having NFTs tied to those cards could have prevented that due to the fact that NFTs are verifiably scarce and trackable thanks to the transparency of the blockchain. This effectively aligns incentives between game devs and players by keeping game devs accountable and incentivizing them to maintain a healthy game economy, while making players ambassadors who feel more invested in and connected to the game.”
Campeau also said the company created new tech like SyncSpace, which was developed to allow a more frictionless experience for players who might not have a crypto wallet, which many games require just to try them out. It can be described as a hybrid on-chain/off-chain inventory system. It effectively creates a buffer between the game and the blockchain, which allows players to facilitate a high volume of transactions without the need to approve blockchain transactions every single time an asset is moved. This tech will also enable the company to go cross-chain much more efficiently.
On top of that, he said the game dev team has created a triple-A quality matchmaking system. Dynamic server logic allows the team to scale up and down based on player activity, giving more flexibility and cost control.
Staking your NFTs through Aurorians on Expeditions is another great way to get rewards for holding onto NFTs. The rewards that the players receive can be used in the ecosystem to improve their experience.
In the Prologue, Campeau said that players will experience their first taste of the world Aurory is building, as it will be only a very small fraction of Aurory Adventures.