An in-depth article about the Play 2 Earn model, the NFT minting and gene inheritance of ZiberBugs.
ZiberBugs was inspired by earlier NFT games to incorporate a breeding system into the game. But we felt motivated to do something a bit extra, while also trying to solve a few problems. In this article, we’re going to explain it thoroughly, go over the earning system and see how they tie everything neatly together. In the end, we will address some of the problems we’ve seen in other games, and our solutions to them.
Genes
Each bug will have 2 chromosomes that define the actual unit, 4 stat genes that grant various bonus traits (there are 9 different bonus stats) and 2 ability genes that define the bug’s abilities. Each of the 6 dominant genes also come with recessive and secondary recessive versions that do not affect the bug’s own stats, but can be inherited to the bug’s offspring. Each bug’s genes are determined by its father’s genes and the genes of the egg. But how are eggs’ genes determined? We’ll explain further down.
You breed new bugs by fertilizing an egg with a seedling from an existing bug. That bug inherits its genes according to a likelihood table — a dominant gene is more likely to be inherited than a recessive, but whether it becomes the dominant gene from the father or the egg is a coin flip.
There can also be random mutations, ruining an otherwise perfect gene pool. Calculations to find the perfect purities will be necessary to be successful in this process.
Choose your Race
Once you are ready to produce your first egg, you will be prompted to pick your race. If you really want to, you will be able to change your race at a later time, for a fee. Your race determines your queen, and your queen determines what type of bugs you can breed. Your queen has X chromosomes only, and they will be specific to her race. When she lays eggs, the eggs will have the same X chromosome, hence they can only ever become three of the nine bugs that exist. Read more about how chromosomes define the different races and classes in our previous article.
Regardless of what race you pick, you can still obtain and go to battle with any bugs. The only thing it controls is what bugs you can breed.
Choose your Role
Different people prefer playing different game modes. Some will like the gatherer-focused, puzzle-solving PvE mode, where you not only acquire larva (an in-game asset that represents the food that your queen requires to lay the eggs), but also NFTs — Queen’s Hearts that can manipulate the genes in the eggs by a process we call Infusion, and Symbiosis Cores that can be upgraded and brought into battle to add synergy buffs to your lineup.
And some will like the competitive and rank-based PvP mode, where you try to become the best and earn tokens while doing so. The earning token will only be rewarded in the PvP game mode.
Laying Eggs
Your queen will be able to lay one egg every two days. For this to happen, there are two requirements: You must have spent two days worth of daily energy, and you must feed her an amount of larva. The stat genes of the eggs are determined by what type of larva you feed her. There are three types: Beetle larva, Arachnid larva and Flyer larva. If you feed her only Beetle larva, the egg will receive a lot of tank genes. Arachnid larva grants ability-focused genes and Flyer larva generates attack damage genes. You can also mix and match, if you want to try your luck with an exotic hybrid unit.
The different types of larva are rewarded based on what type of PvE Raid you choose to play. You can go raid a Beetle’s nest to obtain Beetle larva, and so forth. Each type of nest will require special lineups of bugs and cores, and special knowledge for optimal performance and earning.
Infusion
If you manage to do well in PvE Raids and slay the enemy queen boss, you will win a Queen’s Heart. This heart will have an ability gene, based on what ability the Queen you were facing had. This gene can be inserted into an egg in a process called Infusion — burn some Pheromones to infuse the gene to give it a specific ability, either passive or ultimate. If you don’t infuse an egg, it will come with its initial, randomly generated ability genes.
Making Seedlings
To fertilize an egg, you need a seedling. Seedlings are created in a process we call scenting — you burn Pheromones to scent a bug, which makes it release a seedling. The seedling always inherits its father’s genes perfectly. When you play PvP games, you will earn Pheromones, but if you’re not happy with the pace you’re earning it in, or if you’re a PvE player, you will also be able to buy Pheromones in the official swap pool. A bug will have a maximum number of seedlings it can ever release: 6.
Fertilization
If you have a seedling and an unfertilized egg, you can fuse them together to create a new bug. This process will come with a fee of ZIBER — our governance token. This is when the offspring’s genes are calculated and given to the unit. However, the genes will not be visible until after the unit has hatched, three days later.
Summary
You should now be able to understand the entire breeding process, gene structure and earning model. Let’s talk about some of the problems that were solved when inventing this system.
NFT Inflation
Some other NFT games with breeding elements are suffering from NFT inflation — a system that allows exponential growth of NFTs. If the amount of playable units grows faster than the demand for units by new and old players, the prices will collapse and everyone who has invested in the NFTs will see their investments plummet. An additional problem is the fact that when you have so many people not playing the game, but just breeding new NFTs and sell them for profit, they will end up selling them to each other back and forth in a great ponzi scheme, before noticing that the actual demand isn’t that high at all.
ZiberBugs has a natural limit to how much breeding can take place by requiring active accounts to create eggs. This means that the breeding can never go out of control, and must always comply to the growth of the player base. Should the game go completely viral, there will be mechanisms to counteract the problems that may cause as well, such as Queen Boosters and distribution of pre-minted eggs.
Earning Token Inflation
There have been games rewarding their earning token for every game mode that the game has. This has made it particularly easy to just perform the same tasks over and over every day to earn the maximum amount, particularly in the PvE game modes. Some have even implemented bots that play the game this way, because it’s simple enough. The end result becomes unavoidable — the value of the earning token collapses fast.
ZiberBugs will only distribute earning tokens in our hardest game mode, and we will not reward them to the lowest tier of players. On top of that, we have invented several other sustainability solutions that will help maintain the earning token value at healthy levels.
PvE Often Not Fun
Most games want more depth than to just have one game mode. For a competitive game, this can mean adding some kind of single-player mode that acts as an element of variety. More often than not, you see different types of requirements to participate in them, rather than game modes that are fun enough that you will want to. This is because of the simple fact that if you designed a game around playing against other players, it is hard to make the same game appealing in an environment where there are no other players, because you would almost have to make a different game. One route that many games historically have taken is to just add computer-controlled opponents to the same game, but other than that, not make it different. Another is to spend an equal amount of money to develop two separate games, one of which is going to be more popular than the other.
We believe we have utilized game design knowledge and found two game modes with two different appeals. One that appeals to the gatherer, and one that appeals to the competitor (read more about the biggest game appeals in our game design article, if you’re interested). One will be more puzzle game, the other will be more mind game.
Conclusion
Our earning and breeding system is complicated, but sophisticated. It is decently hard to explain in text, but it will be very understandable and natural once you get to try it. We are confident you’ll love it, and we are so much looking forward to building it for you!
Until next time!
The ZiberTeam
https://ziberbugs.io
