Apeiron In-Depth Analysis: The Rebirth of God Games

Key Takeaways

• Apeiron’s vision is to bring back God Games into the mainstream, similar to how Black & White took off two decades ago. The team has spent the last 6 years (since 2016) developing the framework and prototyping the game development. The game will be developed on Unity’s game engine & launch on the Polygon blockchain.
• There are two core Game Modes being developed by Apeiron with multiple gameplays in each. The Planetary game mode includes Simulation God Game, Planetary Cycle, and Celestial Conjunction (Planet Breeding) while the Avatar Combat Mode includes a Card-Based Action Real-Time Strategy Gameplay, Single play PvP in the Galactic Arena or PvE in Dungeons, and lastly, a team-based multiplayer GvG, GvE & Esports mode.
• Apeiron has already secured $3 million pre-seed funding from multiple Guilds & Crypto venture funds with another seed-round funding ongoing to realize its vision. GuildFi made an $880k investment in Apeiron which is the single largest investment yet for GuildFi.
• The first NFT Presale on Apeiron — Planet NFT will go live on the 14th of April while the Star NFT (Land) Presale will be in June. The exclusive testing of the game will kick start in July and we can’t wait for the official launch of the game in October!

Introduction to Apeiron

Earlier in March, we’ve made our largest & highest conviction investment to date, with an $880k investment into Apeiron. Today, we’ll provide you with a deep dive into Apeiron.

At some point, we all wished we could be God for a day. Well, now you can as Apeiron is building the world’s first play-and-earn god game built on Polygon chain. The team started conceptualizing the game back in 2016, prototyping the game design, testing out various graphics & building the ever-expanding lore behind the world of Apeiron.

While initially intended as a mobile game, the ambition of the team was far greater. The vision is to create an original IP franchise beyond just gaming which will include animation shorts, interesting stories & physical toys that take after their world settings.

After witnessing and being involved as players themselves with Axie Infinity & the start of the Web3 Gaming movement, the team hit an epiphany and decided to remodel their game designs to integrate blockchain elements. While most gaming projects have only two tokens (Governance & In-Game tokens), Apeiron has introduced a tri-token model which includes $APRS as the governance token, $ANIMA as an in-game token, and lastly $RNGU for the alliance gameplay (Guild vs Environment and Guild vs Guild).

With multiple gameplays & different game modes that will be built for players to be engaged, let’s dive into the world of Apeiron!

God Game Genre

But before that, what exactly are God Games? Some of the most popular God Games in the past include Black & White & its predecessor Populous, however, many of the popular games these days revolves around MMORPG, FPS & MOBA. We’ve gone through 30 years of God Games history to share why this is a genre to look out for.

God Games is a gaming genre where players take on the role of a god. An important aspect of this gameplay is the concept of Good vs Evil with the atmosphere of the game largely affected by the player’s moral choices. Some elements included in God Games are:

• Autonomous people or creatures
• Growing power through gaining worshippers.
• Supernatural abilities
• Influence your civilization as opposed to direct control

By using your godly powers to help your worshippers, eg: creating rain for their crops to grow, your worshipper’s standards of life will increase, thus creating a positive feedback loop that leads to your environment becoming stronger and allowing you to gain more powers.

The general goal in God Games is to gain control over the entire game universe (village, space, or planets) which is accomplished through actions that sways your worshippers. Once your worshippers have become stronger and are loyal to your influence, you are ready to conquer the rest of the universe.

Core NFT Assets

Spirit Core (August Pre-sale for non-standard PFP)

Spirit Core is the PFP NFTs of Apeiron. All players will be given a standard & customizable Spirit Core in the beginning. However, if you’re the type that aims to stand out from the crowd, you can purchase a unique collectible PFP NFT from Apeiron Marketplace to replace the standard Spirit Core outlook.

Players can utilize their Spirit Core to inhabit the EDENS (mysterious structures circulating on the surface of Planets) on their Planet which gives you the ability to control your Planet’s elements & environment.

The team at Apeiron has also hinted that they will be working with other projects to ensure that your Spirit Core PFP NFT will be compatible with the Metaverse.

Planet & Avatar (March-April Pre-sale)

To begin playing in the Godiverse, you’ll need your very own Planet NFTs. Now here’s where it gets interesting, the Planet NFTs consists of two components — The Planet itself and The Avatar.

The Planet is where the god simulation game-play takes place.

What’s interesting here is that you can sacrifice a planet in a process known as Chronomergingin order to speed up the development of your Planet. Alternatively, you can opt to breed your planets which allows you to fine-tune your skills and elements down the desired path with the Primal Planet being one such option, though a difficult one.

Having acquired multiple Planets throughout the gameplay, players may also opt to rent their Planets to other players for a fixed period of time & earn a share of resources that the tenant generates during their own gameplay.

The Avatar is used during the battle part of the Apeiron gameplay. Defeating enemies will raise your Avatar’s level, allowing you to unlock new skills and abilities that enable you to expand your interaction with the gameplay.

Apostle (Doods)

Looks can be deceiving for your Apostle Doods NFTs as they play an important role during the Battle part of the gameplay.

There will be 4 heroic Apostle Doods accompanying your Avatar NFT in battle. Each Apostle has its own unique abilities & skills to aid you in battle. These Apostles can be recruited through dungeons and via community events set up by the team.

Apostles obtained in the dungeons can be converted into a Relic NFT using the $APRS governance token. Which will allow you to trade them on the marketplace or use them in another planetary cycle.

Relic NFTs

The Relic NFTs can be obtained as part of the Planetary Cycle gameplay. Once you’ve triggered the Armageddon event & reset your Planets, you’ll be able to convert gameplay objects that would otherwise be lost between cycles into something permanent. The gameplay objects include Apostles, Gears, Cosmetics & even rare Planetary Wonders.

The conversion process involves minting these Relic NFTs by using the governance token $APRS. These Relic NFTs can then be inserted into a Planet’s Relic Slot which provides players with a nice head start on their next Planetary cycle. Alternatively, you can also sell them on the marketplace to someone who is capital-rich but time-poor.

Star NFT (June Pre-sale)

The final piece of the puzzle in Apeiron’s NFT is the Star NFT which is lands in Apeiron and consists of a total supply of 11,498.

Each Star has a number of orbital tracks that you can rent to other players to Orbit around. The players who are renting it will enjoy passive bonuses while the original Star owner will enjoy yields on their rental.

The Stars can actually be evolved as multiple Stars can join to form Constellations.

Marketplace

Now you might be wondering, how does one sell their hard-earned rare NFTs? Well, it can all be sold on the public marketplaces and $WETH will be the native currency in these marketplaces.

Getting Started

Earlier, we’ve shared that acquiring 1 Planet NFT is essential to get started with the game, so how do you get your hands on one? Well, there are a couple of ways!

• Buy them during the March Primeval Planet (Gen 0) Presale where there is a total supply of 4,586.
• Buy them secondary on the Marketplace.

Gameplay

Note: Game testing will occur from July with the official game launch will kicking in during October 2022.

The interesting part of Apeiron’s gameplay is that you can either play with a life of conscience by being a Good Godling & having a harmonious Planet & Avatar or live out your secret wicked fantasy by playing as the Evil Godling and unleashing fireballs on your followers to create a hellish Planet & Avatar.

We’re personally keen on trying out the Evil gameplay theme as the ability to launch fireballs & thunderstorms seems pretty cool on the gameplay demo.

Planetary Gameplay

Simulation

Now, let’s dive deeper into the Simulation part of the gameplay.

By utilizing and combining the 4 elements: Earth, Fire, Wind & Water, players can control the environments in their respective Planets to help grow their settlements. So what can these elements do?

• Water: Cast Rain to grow trees and fruits which in turn provides you with wood & food for the settlements to grow.
• Fire: Destroy things or throw fireballs at doods to make them fear you (a must-try feature of the gameplay).
• Air: To cast gusts of mini tornadoes to blow things around & change the landscape.
• Earth: To compress matter, to create rocks, sand & lava.

These primary elements can be combined to form new elements when players level up, for example: combining Water + Air will create an Ice element which will enable you to open up new interactions with the environments within the game.

So long as your doods (the chubby-orange-looking creature) are growing through various elements that you use, your Avatar’s powers & planet will grow alongside it.

Planetary Cycle

After mastering the Simulation aspect of the gameplay, you can opt to hit the reset button and trigger the Armageddon event on your planet. Do not be confused, this is not a perma-reset mode whereby you start from zero!

In fact, the benefits of this are that:

• Benefit from earning Soul Gems which allows your Spiritcore will level up
• Earning the in-game $ANIMA token while starting a new cycle.
• Promotes a perpetual gameplay
• By increasing your power with each cycle, you will be able to grow more impressive planets, venture deeper into endless dungeons and increase your ranks in the arena.
• Convert game objects earned into Relics NFT

Celestial Conjunction (Breeding)

The gameplay involves controlling your Avatar while being accompanied by 4 Apostle Doods (which are NFTs as well). Each Apostle Doods comes with its own unique set of skills & abilities so that you may counter your opponent’s attack in real-time.

Celestial Conjunction’s gameplay revolves around the breeding of a new planet. This is only possible if a player has more than 1 Planet NFT in his collection. Each Conjunction event will give birth to a new planet that inherits traits from the previous generations of Planets. There is, however, a unique twist to Apeiron’s breeding aspect called Elemental Purification.

What this means is that while most planets consist of 4 elements (Fire, Water, Earth & Air), through clever breeding they are able to breed Primal Planets that are of a single pure element. To break it down, you may start off with 1 Fire element Planet & perhaps purchase another Fire element Planet via the marketplace. You breed them together and now you’re able to unlock powerful Fire skills in combat that weren’t possible with only a single generation of Fire element planet.

Avatar Combat

Card-based Action Real-Time Strategy

Now for the fun part, the Battle aspect of the gameplay is a combination of real-time strategy & card-based battle.

Honestly, do check out the video for yourself as words can’t justify how amazing the gameplay is.

Dirac Dungeons

The PvE endless dungeon mode whereby players will be fighting their way to recruit powerful Apostle Doods.

The Dungeons can be explored by controlling your planet’s EDEN whereby players can expect to earn $ANIMA by completing dungeons. There is however a daily limit on the $ANIMA that can be earned to prevent a farm and dump on the in-game tokens. Dungeons further allow you to recruit Apostles, mix and merge the ideal mix and turn them into NFTs.

Galactic Arena

The PvP battle realm of Apeiron is where players compete in a 1-on-1 PvP Tournament to climb the monthly leaderboard and win the governance tokens $APRS.

Galactic Arena will also host the Alliance Gameplay in the Mythology Galaxies where the intense Esport modes, GvE & GvG battles take place. Which guild will dare stand up to GuildFi in this mighty battle?

Team

The development behind Apeiron started back six years ago back in 2016 when Frank aka Lorekeeper left behind a life in private equity & management consulting to start his digital entertainment company that focuses on game development & IP licensing. As with most founders in the Web3 Gaming space, Frank has been an avid gamer his whole life playing the likes of World of Warcraft, Red Alert, Counter-Strike, Starcraft but his all-time favorite genre was God-Games. He has then partnered up with his two co-founders Gem Ng & Orange See to start Aither Entertainment/Foonie Magus which is the studio behind Apeiron.

Gem aka Lorescribbler aka has been a mobile game developer throughout his career and has worked out 100+ mobile games with Artificial Life & Four Directions and was previously a Chief Software Architect of Measurable Data where he gained his blockchain development experience. Orange aka Loremaster similarly has 16 years of experience in game development and has multiple titles during his time with Sigma Game. With his expertise, he currently heads the COO function in Apeiron. What started out as a team of five 6 years ago has now evolved into a team of 35 and still growing!

What’s further important here is the alignment of interest between the Team, Primary Investors & Retail Investors. For Apeiron, the team’s tokens only start to unlock when Simulation gameplay goes live in Q1 2023. Thereafter, they have an 80 month (6.6 years) linear vesting. The long linear vesting is crucial as it shows the long-term commitment the team has in developing multiple expansion packs for Apeiron, which will be beneficial to retail investors & gamers alike.

Investors

Earlier in February, Apeiron announced that they’ve secured $3 million funding during their pre-seed round which involves a mix of Gaming Guilds, NFT Community & Venture Capital funds.

In the realm of gaming, GuildFi, YGGSEA, and Snackclub bring a wave of excited gamers from Southeast Asia & Latin America to battle out in Apeiron’s unique God Game. The Alliance gameplay further set the stage for Guild v Guild battles which aim to propel Apeiron into the e-sports scene.

In the NFT scene, the partnership with renowned Zombie Club which is launched by popular Hong Kong actor & singer Shawn Yue & other blockchain enthusiasts will lead to greater community outreach for Apeiron in Asia as they actively promote blockchain via seminars & tutorials.

In the crypto sphere, Apeiron’s investors include venture funds such as Trill Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto (Gabby Dizon from YGG is a Venture Partner), Leo Crypto Ventures, Enzac Research, DWEB 3 Capital as well as Skyvision Capital which invested in other GameFi projects in the ecosystem which took off (Crabada, Animoca Brands, Aurory).

Tokens

Unlike most gaming projects which consist of only just two tokens, Apeiron is experimenting with a tri-token model.

• Apeiros ($APRS) is the game’s governance tokens which will allow players to stake and earn a yield up to 150% APR.
• Anima ($ANIMA) is utilized in-game for gameplay and rewards players with the earning aspect of the game.
• Ringularity ($RNGU) functions as a unique Team-to-Earn token that involves GvG & GvE (Guild v Guild & Guild v Environment) on the Alliance Gameplay. The team has teased that $RNGU allows players to purchase unique & limited in-game items on the Apeiron marketplace.

Game Economy

To break down the Game Economy, we’ll look at it from two points of view:

Earn

• Daily Gameplay (Simulation) earns $ANIMA
• Arena & Events (Battle) earns both $ANIMA & $APRS
• Alliance Gameplay (Galactic Arena) earns $RNGU

Sink and Recycle Mechanism

• Chronomerging (Planet Aging) to fast-track the development of your planet costs $ANIMA
• Breeding (Celestial Conjunction) of a new planet costs $ANIMA & $APRS
• Minting Relic NFTs under the Planetary Cycle gameplay costs $APRS
• Buying rare items costs $RNGU
• $RNGU can be used to unlock new content during Season 2 of the game development as well as to purchase ultra-rare cosmetics.

Roadmap

In terms of the roadmap, the team has set out a mid-term 2-year execution plan. April & May are certainly key months to look out for with the Planet NFT Presale, Token Generation Event and Game Alpha (game testing for NFT holders & partners) going live.

Given how expansive the game is, it’s interesting to see that most sprints are on a quarterly basis, and execution by the team is key here. With a team of 35 and growing, we’re confident in Apeiron’s team abilities to deliver the roadmap.

GuildFi Thesis

GuildFi purchased an Omega Class Major Constellation for $880,000, which consists of both NFT assets and tokens. This is GuildFi’s largest investment to date, which was made to ensure that our community members can embark on their journey in the Apeiron journey with ease allowing them to gain a competitive edge in the world’s first play-and-earn god game.

With that said, here are some of the factors behind our high conviction in Apeiron.

Team

One of our key criteria when investing in most Web3 Gaming projects boils down to the team and more specifically, the passion behind developing the game and the capabilities required to make the game a reality. Apeiron’s team has both.

Frank’s passion can be clearly shown during AMAs sessions when discussing Apeiron and the fact that he left behind a lucrative job in private equity to realize his vision is further impressive. The lore behind the gameplay is extremely detailed which can only be found in truly passionate teams. Moreover, the team already had capabilities shipping multiple Web2 mobile games and its indie studio had further shipped an in-house developed game previously.

In addition, the team has proven that they are in it for the long-term with an 80 month (6.6 years) linear vesting to cover the entire expansion pack launch. This is unusual as most Web3 Gaming projects has 24–36 months of linear vesting but it goes to show that the team at Apeiron has a long-term horizon mindset that matches our investment criteria.

Given the team’s capabilities, passion & long-term mindset, we are confident in Apeiron’s ability to be a top gaming project in 2022 and beyond.

Competition

There is currently no other project developing based on the God Game genre. The unique gameplay further provides a refreshing take for players as opposed to the same card-based & racing-based genre we’ve seen being duplicated multiple times lately. Given that Apeiron was in development since 2016, it’ll certainly be difficult for anyone attempting to “fork” it.

In addition, the last god-game which took off was Spore, which was released over a decade ago. There is certainly some nostalgia for god games as recent gameplay videos on Spore had racked up over hundred thousand + views. This certainly confirms the addressable market in the God Games genre. Given the unique position that Apeiron is building on (Play & Earn x God Game), we are confident that Apeiron can onboard not just crypto-natives gamers but also trad-gamers who are nostalgic towards god games.

Opportunities beyond Gaming

Every game has a life cycle which is between 6 months to multiple years, depending on how expansive the game is. What most web3 gaming projects failed to understand is this life cycle which ultimately leads to their demise. In Apeiron’s case, their aim is to build a strong IP firstly through its game with further plans in toys, media & entertainment (short films). Thankfully, the team does have the necessary network and experience in this given that they have gone through this route for their other in-house developed mobile-game Acid Rain World.

In short, having a strong IP provides Apeiron with optionality which allows potential future licensing deals that churn out derivatives work (for example, physical toys on your Apeiron Avatar or an anime series). While it’s still early to tell if the value will be accrued back to the governance token, it’ll certainly expand the addressable market for Apeiron & generate greater interest.

Others

• Apeiron’s content & graphics on its gameplay is way ahead of many in the web3 gaming space, with an actual playable demo launching soon.
• The Tri-token model is unique and we believe that $RNGU (Ringularity) which derives from Guild-based gameplay will promote more engagement in a multiplayer setting. For GuildFi, this will further provide exposure to players who weren’t previously familiar with our Guild.
• Given that the game is built on the Unity game engine, it allows the game to be playable on PC & mobile. Mobile is particularly important given that there are far more mobile gamers than games on PC or consoles, thus games that are on Mobile are able to reach a wider audience.

Closing Thoughts

Apeiron is taking a unique path in building a new genre in the blockchain gaming ecosystem. With content on gameplay planned for 12 galaxies and each galaxy containing its own expansion pack, Apeiron aims to promote longevity in gameplay which the lack of thereof has plagued many gaming projects out there. With a strong community that Apeiron has built up so far stands that stands at a strong 69k Twitter followers & 54k Discord members along with support from multiple guilds, we are confident in the project’s growth prospects. Lastly, the passion and dedication the team has shown throughout the multiple AMAs make Apeiron a very exciting project to watch out for this year.