Qi Podcast #16: Infinity Skies - A Play-to-Earn Crypto Sandbox Game to Build, Adventure, Trade & Socialize

Primer: Infinity Skies is an upcoming sandbox game. In this episode of the Qi Podcast, Archon speaks with Sander Dijkens, the CTO of Infinity Skies, on the inspiration behind the game, what the game is about, and what features do they have.

Background

• CTO at DreamFuel Games

• Studied at the University of Arts at Utrecht

• Did 2 years of rigorous self-study on video game development

• Has a generalist skill set — able to do arts, programming, and design

• Broad spectrum of skills enable him to communicate between departments

DreamFuel Games

• Infinity Skies is the first project for DreamFuel Games

• Many of their employees have been in the industry for quite some time

  • Project Manager with >20 years of experience

  • Artists with 5-10 years of experience

  • Their developers are also working on a game called Timebenders which has been featured on Gamescom

• Team size: ~22

• Team is international

• Will be opening up a physical office next month

Vision For Infinity Skies

Habbo Hotel

• Main inspiration came from a game called Habbo Hotel, which was popular back in the 2000s

• A hotel game where players own a hotel room and could decorate it with furniture and have people come over and chat. Is a social game

• Modeled Infinity Skies on Habbo Hotel, but they have diverged quite a long way from that original inspiration

• Took inspiration from The Sims, Runescape, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Hades

Background Of The Game

• Set in an afterlife setting of a mythical world

• World consists of many different cultures of humans that each have their own set of religions

• Each religion is represented by a living god and each of these gods have their own plans, using humans as pawns in their schemes against one another

"So that's kind of the idea of the lore behind this floating island world where people basically enter into the afterlife, and they help this god build up his kingdom." - Sander Dijkens

Their Technology

• Decided to build on the Binance Smart Chain:

  • Gas fees are low

  • Transaction speed is fast

• Aim is to be multi-chain, so that they can reach players on different chains

• (As of 23 November 2021, the team announced the switch to Polygon Network here)

On The Play-To-Earn Space

• Exciting to see this revolution picking up

• 10 years ago, it was unheard of that you can earn money playing games

• Have taken a look at many of the play-to-earn games in the space. Took elements that they liked and shied away from those that they didn't like

• Observed scholarship programs and guilds-as-a-business forming out of Axie Infinity organically

• Inspired them to work on an end-game guild system to facilitate in-game community building

• Took inspiration from Sandbox Game and Decentraland for their world map system

A Day In The Life Of An Infinity Skies Player

• When the game is live, players will be able to download the game client from their website

• Players have to create an account to log in into the game

• There's an area known as deep sky. This area is free for everyone to own a sky plot

• Currently updating their whitepaper. The updated version will be out in the coming weeks. One change that they made was to remove the size component from sky plots. Wanted to make sure that no one is ever restricted from building what they want to build

• When players arrive at their sky plot, they will see a small cabin with some basic furniture inside. These furniture pieces are not tradable NFTs

• Many ways to decorate your sky plot — floors, walls, doors, chairs, tables, armor sets, etc.

• To get NFTs, players have to go on an Adventure, which is a roguelike dungeon crawling game. Players have to proceed through 5 different stages and beat the boss at the end of their run. The further they get, the higher the rewards become

• These rewards are NFTs that could be used to build up their island/castle

• The Adventure mode is play-to-earn and free-to-play. There is no kind of pay-to-win structure in place

• Another way to obtain NFTs is to buy them with Skyblock tokens, their native token, from their marketplace. These NFTs would originally come from players who have grinded them out in Adventure mode

• NFTs come in different rarity tiers

Land Location

• Land locations that are nearer to the centre of the world are more valuable

• These locations exist as NFTs and are tradable

• A more central location will be important because of the leaderboard mechanic. This is tied to the Socializing aspect of the game

• Whenever players visit the castles of other players, they can upvote the castle and give it prestige points. At the end of each month, these prestige points are counted and players who end up on top of the leaderboards receive the most rewards

• Still possible to create a beautiful castle on the outskirts of the world. It's just harder to be found by other players and, consequently, obtain prestige points

Seasonal NFTs

• Seasons are not tied to the monthly social leaderboard

• The loot table for NFTs changes across seasons

• This puts a cap on the NFT supply and would make older NFTs more coveted

Visiting Other Castles

• To visit other castles, open the roadmap and look at the map display. Clicking on a castle would take you to it

• Have an advanced search feature where players can look up a friend, a castle with the most prestige points, or the highest value of NFTs, etc. Will have multiple sorting options in their advanced search feature

• In the advanced search, castles are sorted based on the numbers of feasts stacked. Feasts are common rarity NFTs that are dropped fairly often from Adventure mode. Feasts are burnt when consumed, increasing your castle's visibility

• There will also be a newsfeed on the normal world map which shows the top 10 castles with the most feasts active

• Expecting that people will be buying up lots of feasts to compete for the top spot on the leaderboards. Good for free-to-play players as it's a commonly dropped item

Rewards

• Rewards for the social leaderboard go all the way up to Royal rarity

• In Adventure mode, the maximum rarity for rewards is only up to Divine rarity

• Astral and Royal rarities are exclusive for events and the leaderboard

• Royal rarity NFTs are purely exclusive to the leaderboard

Adventure Mode

• Adventures will be actual games on their own. They will not be mini-games

• Will be constantly building so that there's enough variation in these adventure games

• Building Infinity Skies as a hub where players can depart on different adventures. Doesn't have to be exclusively roguelike dungeon crawling games

• For the initial roguelike game, they will continuously bring out new maps and storylines

• Introducing a trial system where players embark on a trial and explore their character's past or how they got to this place

• Currently building Act 1

Can Their NFTs Be Traded On A Third Party Marketplace?

• Yes, this is the nature of blockchains

• The Infinity Skies marketplace will still provide the most expansive searchability of assets. They will have the filters and sorting to help users find the asset they want

Burning NFTs In Exchange For A Higher Rarity Item

• Trying to prevent the oversupply of common items

• Allows players to use these items in the crafting system where they can burn them in exchange for a random item that is 1 rarity higher

• Can only craft up to Legendary rarity items in this way

Skyblock Token

• Main utility is for usage in their marketplace

• Players can obtain Skyblock token by farming NFTs through Adventure mode and selling them

• Another way is to buy them off an exchange

• For every transaction of Skyblock token, there will be a 5% tax:

  • 3% will go to the Play-to-Earn Stash

  • 1.5% will go to the Claim Pool

  • 0.5% will go to the development team

• Every week, there will be different quests. Completion of these quests comes with Skyblock token rewards

• For the Claim Pool, Skyblock token holders will be able to claim their share of the Claim Pool based on how many Skyblock tokens they hold

Token Distribution

• Total supply of 100 million. Of which, 24 million will be in the Play-to-Earn stash. The Play-to-Earn stash will deplete as the game continues

• 50 million allocated to the marketing fund

• 200,000 for the liquidity pool

• Team and advisors have 20 million that undergo cliff vesting

• 1 million in the public sale

• 10 million in the seed sale

• 15 million in the private sale

• Vesting is usually 24 months long

Roadmap For The First 12-18 Months

• Game will be released in early access. Expects to be fixing bugs, network issues, etc.

• Will be constantly updating Adventure mode with new adventures

• Will be working on assets for the following season

Where Can People Find Out More About Infinity Skies?

• Follow their social media channels

• Have a Telegram group with a nice community. There is an announcement channel in the Telegram group

• They have a Discord and a Reddit as well

• In the future, they will have a YouTube channel and a Twitch account

• Their whitepaper can be found on their website

All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.