Apeiron: A Project Overview.
Introduction
With a unique approach to players and sustainability, Apeiron aims to be a leading product in the new era of blockchain gaming. Built on Polygon, Apeiron is the world’s first God Game with NFTs. Its unique design combines a play-to-earn model and an intriguing tri-token economy in its attempt to win over the crypto gaming community.
For those unfamiliar with gaming terms, a God Game is a gaming genre where players take the role of a god, controlling the game on a large scale as an entity with divine and supernatural powers. The entity can be non-specific or a specified leader, placing the player in charge of the game setting and containing autonomous characters to interact with it. Players interact with the autonomous characters using godly powers to get more worshippers to further their power and gain terrain.
The general end of a God Game is when the player gains control over the entire game universe, but in Apeiron, this is just part of the game, as we will see in the next chapter.
1. Gameplay
Apeiron’s unique gameplay style consists of three mechanics: the god game simulation, the action roleplay, and NFT ownership.
The Apeiron gameplay includes many expansive features; in this article, we will only introduce the basics so that readers can understand the game and its basic features.
1.1 The God Game
When starting Apeiron, every player will receive a Spirit Core, the PFP (Profile Picture) NFT of Apeiron; these unique collectable Spirit Cores will also be available to purchase from the Apeiron Marketplace.
Players also need a planet to participate in the game. The planet will allow the player to interact with the EDEN. The EDEN being the mysterious structures circulating on the surface of Planets. Through the user’s Spirit Core, they take control of the EDEN, which gives the player the ability to control the Planet’s elements and environment. Planets NFTs will have two major components: The Planet itself and The Planet Avatar.
Players will be able to purchase Planets from public marketplaces. However, the Apeiron team created a solution where a player who wants to try the game can reach out to their partner gaming guilds and receive a non-transferable “seed planet” to experience Apeiron’s gameplay for free.
Each Planet will have its specific environmental characteristics (traits) and elemental type(s). Four base elements will exist (Earth, Water, Fire, and Air), with a further eleven different combinations able to be created by blending the base elements together. Also, each Planet will have one of three different Avatars, Fury, Wisdom or Fate. All these combinations will give players access to a unique set of skill cards for the Action RPG (Role Playing Game) gameplay. The planets are inhabited by autonomous characters named Doods, we shall dive into these characters fully later on.
Along with that, each Planet will come with unique dungeons to explore. Players can explore the dungeons, engaging in battles along to way. This will allow users to unlock additional NFTs, such as new Dood Apostles (more on these later), to use as party members in the Action RPG alongside their Avatar.
Using the EDEN, the player can perform Miracles and shape the world. The Doods will respond accordingly. Miracles will be tied to the environment by the four core elements: earth, water, air, and fire. Some of the miracles that players can use include; breaking apart mountains to provide Doods ore to build cities or sending a fireball to control them. As the player progresses and levels up their EDEN, they will unlock more powerful Miracles and Planetary functions. Using Miracles to develop the Planet will unlock new skill cards for players to use in their combat deck.
In the Teaser below, you can watch the Spirit Core taking control of the EDEN, the EDEN itself, some different ways that Miracles interact with Doods, and how these interactions will contribute to the overall development of the Planets.
Apeiron follows the path of other God Games by using an alignment mechanic; as players cast Miracles, their alignment will shift towards either good or evil. Dood followers will present the player with prayers; answering them with benevolence will turn player alignment towards good, unlocking new special skills, quests, and an evangelical appearance for the Planet. If the player takes the opposing route and frequently punishes the Doods, it will shift their alignment to evil, unlock special skills and quests, and slowly transform the Planet into a demonic hellscape. Once players maximise their alignment, there will be a chance for Doods to construct special Planetary wonders or for unique Dood heroes to appear.
But what is a Dood?
Doods are natural inhabitants of the Planet; at the game’s beginning, only one continent (part of the terrain) of the Planet will be unlocked for the player. It will house a small Dood community. The primary objective of the gameplay will be to convert these Doods into followers by listening to their demands and performing Miracles. Doods will have their preferences, and players must determine the best way to meet their needs. After enough Doods are converted into followers, the EDEN structure will level up and unlock new continents for exploration with more Doods for converting.
Once players unlock all of the Planetary terrains and the Dood society expands as far as possible, the God Game will reach its endgame phase. At this phase, players can initiate Armageddon. This event will reset the Planet but will grant a set amount of Soul Gems that can be used to upgrade the player’s Spirit Core, providing permanent passive and active bonuses.
Armageddon can end up being a benevolent Rapture for its Doods or a malevolent Sacrifice. These Armagedon options will give players different rewards. The benevolent one will give lasting bonuses and a small number of Soul Gems, while the malevolent one will grant a larger amount of Soul Gems. Soul Gems are designed to upgrade the player’s Spirit Core, providing permanent passive and active. In addition, Armageddon will produce a large amount of Anime, Anime being the Aperion play-and-earn token.
During the reset, players can also convert some Planet objects into NFTs. To perform this conversion, tokens will need to be used. Every time a player resets their Planet, the continents will be randomly generated based on the Planet’s elemental distribution, keeping the gameplay for each cycle fresh and exciting.
1.2 Action RPG
As we mentioned, every Planet will come with a unique Avatar class based on the Planets characteristics. The player’s Spirit Core can inhabit the Avatar when not inhabiting the EDEN. While controlling the Avatar, players can explore worlds and fight monsters. Players will also be able to join PvP (Players vs Player) and GvG (Guilds vs Guild) battles, raids against powerful world bosses, and competitive esports events.
The action RPG Game will use a card-based combat skills system, with a team of one Avatar and four Apostles. Apostles are Doods that lead squads of Dood disciples and will offer support to the player Avatar in explorations and battles. The player will be able to control the movement and targeting of their Avatar, while Apostles will move around independently. The Battle Teaser below gives a proper understanding of how battles will occur.
Every Avatar will have its own set of Skills; some will be derived from its class (Fury — melee, Wisdom — ranged mage, and Fate — support). Others will be obtained from the elemental composition of the Planet to which they are linked. With others being acquired over time through developing the Planet or found within the Godiverse. If a Planet has a more concentrated elemental composition or special Planetary wonders, Avatars will have access to more powerful skills.
Apostles will also have different stats. These include classes, weapons, special body parts, and skills, which make up 300 million unique combinations. The 12 Apostle classes will be Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Bard, Hunter, Priest, Summoner, Dragoon, Knight, Berseker, Shaman, and Guardian. And each Apostle will have an associated deck of Skill cards which will combine with Avatar cards and form the player’s Combat Deck.
Apostles may be combined through holy rituals to generate better stats or skill decks. Also, Apostles are lost upon Armageddon but can be converted into Relic NFTs using Apeiros, the governance token, and then traded on the marketplace.
Probably the most fun and challenging task in Apeiron Action RPG would be the creation of the Combat Deck, as players will have to choose between several strategies and tactics to build their decks, along with different options of Avatars and Apostles with various skills cards.
1.3 NFTs
Three different forms of NFTs on Apeiron will exist, Planets, Stars, and Relics.
- Planets: as mentioned previously, are where the vast majority of Apeiron gameplay will happen and will also be a necessary item to play the game. Every Planet will come with a different combination of traits — some traits will have impacts on the Planets, others will only be cosmetic;
- Stars: will introduce a similar concept used by other NFT games called ‘Lands’. Each star will have one or more Orbital Tracks, where the player will be able to deploy their Planets into the open spaces, and the Planet will receive an ageing boost from the Star (ageing faster will help the Planet to unlock more Relic slots, which can be inserted into the Planet, to power up the player’s EDEN and Avatar);
- Relic: the different relics forms are Apostles, Equipment, Skill Cards, Cosmetics, and Planetary Wonders that might otherwise be lost during reset. When a player initiates an Armageddon, they are given a chance to convert their items and Apostles into Relics. To mint an object into a Relic NFT, the player must spend Apeiros. These Relics can be installed into a Planet’s Relic Slot and activated in the next Planetary cycle. Once Relics are triggered for a new cycle, they revert to their original form and must be converted back into Relic if they are to be used in a future cycle. This maintains the necessity to use the tokens for the conversion.
2. TEAM
Before anything else, it’s important to mention that the Team identity was verified by Certik (KYC) during their Audit Process (the Audit process will be explored further on).
The companies behind Aperion are Foonie Magus Pte. Ltd. and Aither Entertainment. The Team states that both are the same company, Fonnie Magus is their headquarters in Singapore, and the actual development company is Aither Entertainment. They state that this strategy is used to avoid geopolitical problems from the deteriorating Sino-US relationships and Chinese censorship. Also, the Apeiron game is held by Apeiron Aprs Ido Ltd. company, where the token raise will be funded, and Foonie and Aither will receive their share mainly via team tokens and a slot in the pre-seed round.
Aither Entertainment is a digital entertainment platform focusing on mobile game development and IP licensing. Founded in Hong Kong in 2016, the company pools together global talents to grow fledgling brands into unique international IP franchises.
Apeiron has a team of +35 members; some of the core Team members behind Apeiron development are:
- Frank Cheng — Co-Founder and Lorekeeper, Business(Linkedin): Frank left behind private equity and management consulting to pursue his dream and started his digital entertainment company that focuses on game development and IP licensing (Aither Entertainment).
- Gem Ng — Co-Founder and Crypto Game Architect and Producer, Product (Linkedin): is a multidisciplinary producer and entrepreneur of a 200+ developer company on a mobile app and game development studio. Previously chief software architect from Measurable Data Token and Measurable AI.
- Orange See — Co-Founder and Loremaster, Operations (Linkedin): is an on-chain analysis expert and executive producer who has shipped over 40 titles. Being experienced and knowledgeable in every phase of game development, branding, licensing, and business model transformation.
- Benjamin Horn — Creative Writer and Loreworm (Linkedin): has a PhD. in Game Studies, creator of the Questing Model for Critical Narrative Game Analysis;
- Felix Chu — Art Director, Concept and Design (ArtStation): is the cinematic director of Acid Rain World Gray Dawn, animation director of Rayark games, and full stack end-to-end animation producer.
- Shadow Wong — Chief Environment Artist and 3D Generalist, 3D Art (ArtStation): is founder of Stunga Lab, director of two original short films: 21 and The Rigger, as well as seven years of development experience on over 10 Mobile and VR Titles, and pioneer of intuition animations.
- Chris Wong — Technical Art Director, Effects Engineering (ArtStation): is the game art director for Acid Rain World Gray Dawn and full stack indie game developer;
- Sing Tsang (Advisor) — Tokenomics (Linkedin): founder of MTG Mint Card and Saka Saka, Asia’s top trading card game and collectable products distributor. Expert brand and product strategist with extensive experience in card game tournament hosting.
3. FUNDING
Apeiron has raised a total of $17.5 million to support its development in three different phases: first, they raised $4.5 million from NFTs sales; following this, in pre-seed funding, Apeiron raised a further $3 million; and lastly, in a seed round led by Hashed, Apeiron raised another $10 million. Other Venture Capitalists joining Hashed include DeFiance Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Spartan Group, De-Fi Capital and Infinity Ventures Crypto.
Hashed, the firm that led the seed round, is a team of blockchain experts based in Seoul and Silicon Valley. Hashed is placed as one of the largest investment firms in Asia, and in the last days of November 2021, they raised $200 million for a fund dedicated to growing the Web3 ecosystem. Previous to this, Hashed raised a $120 million fund in 2020. Some of the biggest Hashed investments in Web3 were Axie Infinity and The Sandbox.
In the words of Joseph Young, senior associate at Hashed:
“At Hashed, we have supported innovative and creative founders in the metaverse and blockchain gaming sector since 2017, including the likes of Axie Infinity and Sandbox. We believe Apeiron’s game logic, virtual economy, and gameplay are amongst the most sophisticated in all of web3 and are excited to back the Apeiron team to build an exciting and entertaining blockchain game that is both fun and incentivising to play.”
At the time of their announcement, GuildFi mentioned that their investment in Apeiron was their largest to date. They announced as factors behind their high conviction in Apeiron: Team (Frank’s passion for the project, the complexity and deepness of the lore — which can only be found in projects with truly passionate teams — , team’s previous experience in Web2 mobile games, and the team 80-month linear vesting); Competition (or the lack in case, as Apeiron is the only project developing a God Game genre); Opportunities beyond Gaming (Apeiron team aims to build a strong IP trough its game and with time expands to other areas); Content and Graphics; The Tri-token model (which will be analysed in a specific article); and the fact that the game is built in Unity game engine, which allows the game to be playable on PC and mobile.
4. Contracts Audit
For those unaware, Certik is a leading security-focused blockchain platform which aims to identify and eliminate security vulnerabilities in blockchains, smart contracts, and Web3 apps submitted to them. Certik audited all the Apeiron Smart Contracts in use. During the Certik Audit, they found the following issues:
- Critical: One, due to Logical Issues, some attributes could have duplication due to lack of check. This problem was already solved by Apeiron Team as mentioned in Certik Audit;
- Major: Two, due to Centralisation risks, the Team acknowledges the risks. The two risks pointed out by Certik give some authority to specific roles to perform some actions. Despite being classified as a major risk, this Centralisation has the function of combating malicious actors in the minting process and the whitelisting process;
- Medium: None;
- Minor: Three, which the Team already solved, and two acknowledged;
- Informational: Ten, from which seven were already solved and two acknowledged.
Certik gave a final note in security for Apeiron smart contracts of 80/100, which placed Apeiron at 273 on Certik’s rank. At the moment of writing, Certik has Audited a total of 3,205 projects, which made Certik give Apeiron a Top 10% honour badge.
5. Roadmap
In their Roadmap, the team behind Apeiron has set a +2-year execution plan. Currently, their Roadmap is sitting in Q3 2022, when the Apeiron team plans to release their closed beta, while the open beta is expected to happen in the Q4 of 2022. Also, the Apeiron team plans to release two of their tokens, APRS (through a Token Generation Event) and Anima, in the last quarter of the year, while the third token is planned only to go live in Q1 2023. There are many more developments on their Roadmap, as shown in the picture below.
ENDING
The world that the team is developing makes the Apeiron game a fascinating blockchain gaming project. Still, some questions remain as the project hasn’t been fully launched yet, like will their Planet gameplay be fun and not over complicated? Also, the Planet mechanic system could create a huge barrier to entry for new players. Currently, the cheapest Planet on sale at OpenSea costs 0.1 ETH (~$170).
Investments made by renowned VCs like Hashed, and gaming guilds, like GuildFi and YGGSEA (YGG Southeast Asia), are good signals of Team capacity and expectations that the Web3 sector leaders are putting into the project. Also, the Audit made by the leading security firm Certik is another factor of the work being undertaken by the Apeiron team.
In the next article, we will discuss Apeiron economic model, with their innovative approach (Three token scheme). This was just an introduction to their project with informational purposes and should not be treated as investment advice. Remember, you should always Do Your Own Research (DYOR) before investing.
~Written by Jordano M. Z. ~
This report was written by a Crypto Saving Expert Cryptocurrency Researcher and commissioned by Apeiron. This report is meant for informational purposes only, not to serve as investment advice, and you should always perform your own research before making any investment decision.
