Hello MonkeyFans! Happy New Year to you and your families from the whole team at UnCaged Studios! Welcome to the 2022 year end studio update, giving us a glance at the last year, recent development updates, and what’s coming up!
It has been a wild and turbulent year for crypto and for markets in general. The industry started 2022 on the coattails of a powerful bull run and through a series of ground shaking events, its ending several months deep into a crypto winter.
Regardless of the market conditions or what your Uncle may have told you at the holiday dinner table this year, blockchain technology’s fundamentals haven’t changed and its many use cases makes its mainstream adoption inevitable. There is no better marriage than between blockchain and gaming, and as such high quality gaming holds a master key to pushing blockchain forward.
For MonkeyLeague & UnCaged Studios, it’s been a wild and at times challenging journey but nothing worth it comes easy. It’s easy to get lost in the moment but when you take a step back and think of everything that’s been accomplished within the time frame and resources we’ve had it’s pretty remarkable.
Just a little over a year ago, our founders — the bobby fischer of crypto Shahaf Bar Geffen and mobile gaming legend Raz Friedman — took us out of stealth. We started small, had our IDO, launched our $MBS token, and grew a passionate community. While we evolved the game prototype and released more features, the studio grew in numbers. (Starting from 8 to now 46 team members). We raised a Series A of $24M from gaming’s top VCs ensuring the studio years of runway and launched a couple top tier brand partnerships with AC Milan and Paulo Dybala. And about a year from our very first tweet & less in development time, we presented the first playable version of the MonkeyLeague core game at Solana Breakpoint in November!
The game itself has also evolved greatly from the initial build version to the more content rich, robust mechanics, deep game logic, and lively look & feel that exists today.
RECENT DEVELOPMENT UPDATES
Game Development Updates:
A few hundred people playing MonkeyLeague for the first time at Solana Breakpoint gave us great feedback and a clear understanding of where the baseline game prototype should be for the initial game release. Since, the team has been focused on taking the game prototype to application. After which, work will be done to optimize the A.I. and touch up game mechanics and visuals.
Taking the game prototype to a user facing application means optimizing game performance, completing critical game economy components, and having the right robust infrastructure in place to offer the right level of entertainment value and scale effectively.
One infrastructure component that will allow us to improve and scale the entertainment value in the game was a big undertaking called the Game Design Engine.
Game Design Engine
Led by Chief of Product, Raz Friedman and Game Designer, Monty Alon, the Game Design Engine is a custom built automated tool that allows for the quick and seamless creation, implementation, and configuration of new or updated game logic or mechanics like zones of mobility, A.I. behaviors and new behavior trees, game actions, special abilities, seasonal content, and much more inside the game.
Game Animation Platform (GAP)
Originally planned for post-initial game release, the Game Animation Platform, or GAP, is another custom built tool that allows our animators to create and implement new animations into the game super efficiently, as well as update existing animations. For example, to have different reactionary and cinematic animations in the game to enrich the environment and create a more lively, immersive experience. Taking the look & feel to the next level. Examples of this could be, a Monkey’s reaction to a foul or an animation added to how a Monkey receives a pass, a combo animation that connects two actions, visual effects, seasonal animation content, and much more.
Optimize Game Performance
Optimizing game performance is a tedious but critical task, especially given the many higher quality visual assets and content in the game, including heavy, complex NFTs. We don’t believe in compromising on quality so building the right back-end infrastructure to manage all the content assets in an optimized way will ensure the game runs smoothly while maintaining high levels of entertainment value we seek to deliver. This will also come in crucial with the Game Design Engine and Animations System as content and asset creation will be continuous and frequent.
Game Economy
From game items, game assets, the stats of Monkeys, match costs, winnings, tournaments, League structure, the free to play version, and more — all components and features within the game represent its own economy that have to align with other components and make sense.
Having a well designed, sustainable economy is not only essential for a fun gaming experience but also for the game to last.
Tremendous progress has been made surrounding the game economy, with the design of the core game loop economy, focusing on the entire Energy economy for matches in all game versions nearly finished, as well as, the League economy, and the matchmaking logic and economy. In progress now is completing the economy around XP and tournaments.
As we know Leagues will be a central part of MonkeyLeague, as players are placed in Leagues with other similarly skilled players. Currently, there will be 5 Leagues and 5 Rankings within each League. Once in a League, you will have a certain amount of time to climb the rankings within the league and the leagues themselves. Climbing the Leagues puts you at higher levels of potential rewards and benefits. Different leagues will also have specific tournaments attached with high stakes prizes.
Another seemingly simple feature but actually super complex is match making. Match making can make or break your experience inside the game as this backend system determines the right Monkeys to fill your team if you have less than a full team. It also selects the opposing team’s Monkeys, and when PvP comes out, it will choose the opposing team. So for example, if you only have 2 Monkeys and need to “rent” 4 from the game, assigning the right Monkeys to your team and the right level and mixture of Monkeys on the opposing team to create the right experience for you as a player is key and involves its own economy design, logic, and development. Stay tuned for a full breakdown of economy components over the next couple of months with our Head of Economy, Tamir Albek.
Blockchain Development:
The blockchain and web app development team also made significant progress in the last couple of months, most notably with a custom built, open source system called ‘Ka-Ching’. Ka-ching is an on-chain point of sale system that operates on the Solana blockchain in a secure way. It essentially allows us to support crypto payment processing and transactions in-house and on-chain. Ka-Ching has many use cases, with being able to host our own offers and have a marketplace being just a couple.
Art Development:
The art team is also nonstop! As we know, visual aspects of a game contribute greatly to the look & feel and to your overall experience in the game.
Our talented art team is responsible for designing and creating NFTs, all visual components in the game such as the fields, animations, the UI/UX, game screens, cinematic cuts, all visual effects, sound effects and more. They are also responsible for the website, web app, marketing content such as graphics and videos like for breeding, AC Milan and Paulo Dybala.
A couple larger developments include a new and much improved NFT Generator system and Megashader.
NFT Generator V2:
The new NFT generator built out of Maya allows the team to create much higher quality NFTs, more quickly and seamlessly. The development of the MegaShader allows the team to then optimize the configuration of those NFTs for unity in the game while maintaining their level of quality.
The NFT Generator, Game Design Engine, and Game Animation Platform are all platforms that give us robust infrastructure in order to scale efficiently and effectively.
Aside from these two significant developments, the art team has been focused on the game’s mobile first approach such as new game screens (i.e. Team Selection, Lobby), game in-cuts, cameras and camera movements, UI/UX, a couple of new field environments, and making the overall in-game environment more enriched and lively.
Latest Gameplay Clip with Updated UI/UX
What’s Coming:
- Paulo Dybala Season
- Game Release: Closed Alpha
- AC Milan Season
- Game Release: Closed Beta
- Female Season
- Game Release: Soft Launch
As we gear up for a crazy year full of game releases, don’t forget to register now to become a MonkeyPioneer for preferred game access, early access to features, exclusive sales, and much more!
2023 will be the year of the Monkey!
Much Monkey Love
Oren Langberg
Head of Marketing & Partnerships
About MonkeyLeague:
The first in a franchise, MonkeyLeague is a turn-based, web3 soccer game that’s easy to learn, yet hard to master.
Build your dream team, win matches & tournaments, and climb the League ranks!
MonkeyLeague combines high-production-value, multiplayer gaming with Solana blockchain, NFTs, and decentralized finance to deliver an exciting, web3 game that’s easy to learn yet hard to master.
Get on the MonkeyTrain:
Discord | Telegram | Twitter | Youtube | Twitch | Facebook | Instagram |LinkedIn| Reddit
Check out the MonkeyLeague Game Trailer!
About UnCaged Studios:
UnCaged Studios is pioneering high-quality, fun-first Web3 gaming. Co-founded by seasoned Web3 and gaming experts, the studio has over a hundred years of combined experience designing and developing high production value, immersive gaming experiences with sustainable economies. Through its own platform, Game OS, the studio’s first release is an esports franchise called MonkeyLeague. Moreover, UnCaged leverages Game OS to co-develop with leading game studios by providing core technical functionality, infrastructure, and live operations Web3 services.
