Animal Crossing meets Pokemon Go: Affyn Chief Product Officer Steve Taylor Explains the Magic behind Buddy Arena

20 October 2023, Singapore — While there may be many games with Web 3.0 elements, none are arguably as ambitious as Affyn’s Buddy Arena, a quick and casual MOBA set in the NEXUS World.

Affyn’s Chief Product Officer Steve Taylor delved into the magic behind Buddy Arena during his presentation at gamescom asia

Creating A Sprawling Virtual World

To understand the design of Buddy Arena, it is important to first understand the principles that drive Affyn. Steve shared that the first is having ‘More Fun Together’ with friends and family, and the second is to ‘empower users with Web 3.0’ by designing familiar game experiences that gradually bring them into the Web 3.0 ecosystem.

Steve first introduced the universe where Buddy Arena takes place — NEXUS World — which is mapped over the real world.

“The first component of that project is the game which we call NEXUS World. It’s an open world exploration game that is geolocation-based. Think of an Animal Crossing experience where you can interact with the community and build your own presence in the world, with the Pokemon Go twist that depending on where you are, the things that you can do will be different,” Steve said.

“We’ve divided the NEXUS World into hexagons of about 140 meters in diameter, which produces about 33 billion hexagon tiles, and if you take away the water tiles — the seas, the lakes — you’ll have 9 billion tiles. Of these 9 billion pieces of land, we have 100,000 that are mintable as NFTs. These are rare collectibles that tie with utility inside the games.”

Obviously, the scale of the NEXUS World presented a unique challenge in terms of graphics because the Affyn team did not want to have 9 billion identical or similar looking tiles. In response, the art team created tiles based on 13 to 15 layers which are combined in different permutations to make each of the 9 billion land titles truly unique.

A Casual Game For All Gamers

The virtual world is not a sparse landscape either — it’s populated by creatures called Buddies that are part of the gaming ecosystem that players can own as NFTs. These are playable characters in *Buddy Arena*, and the diversity of Buddies and their abilities open up the possibility of different strategies, which amp up the fun factor while keeping the game casual.

“We call these ‘Buddies.’ You can play with them in the game. They have special abilities and powers, so you can strategize your game, depending on how you use them,” Steve said.

“The purpose of the game is to descend into an arena to collect as many crystals as possible. But other players will try to attack you. If you knock them out, you collect their crystals. It’s basically a fight to collect as many crystals as possible to win. During this fight, you can bring your Buddies with you to use their abilities, so that they can help you win.

“The game has a number of playing options across different types of maps: free-for-all, two-versus-two, and four-versus-four. It’s a game that we intend for a casual, family friendly audience, as you can see from the style of the game. We wanted to make it very accessible.”

Designing for Web 2.5 With Partnerships

Affyn’s vision of building a game for both Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 audiences is a monumental one — many have tried but none have succeeded. However, recent partnerships and collaborations with both major players in both sides of the industry have paved the way for the roadmap.

Steve revealed that Buddy Arena’s soundtrack ‘Pick ‘Em Up’ was the result of a partnership with Warner Music Singapore, while the Grand Prix Singapore Season event endorsed by Singapore Tourism Board helped pave the way for Affyn as the only Web 3.0 partner in the calendar. The partnership with The Sandbox also yielded an Affyn land on its metaverse where Buddies can interact with, underlining Affyn’s intent to collaborate with like-minded partners.

“We’re a Web 2.5 game, we’re designing for broad adoption,” Steve concluded.

“The game that we’re pushing out on the app store plays as a regular game, with in-app monetization, battle pass, etc., we really try to go down the mainstream route, and we’ll gradually open the Web 3.0 functions along the way as adoption grows.

“We figured out a lot of things in the last year in terms of designing for this system, designing for mainstream adoption, and adding Web 3.0 elements into the economy.”

Buddy Arena is now available in Singapore, Philippines and New Zealand. Download now or pre-register for global launch at BuddyArena.com.

Affyn is building a blockchain-powered Multiverse of interoperable games and metaverses. Together with a global community of co-creators, we are forging a sustainable economy converging the virtual and real worlds. Affyn is based in Singapore.