From Breakers to Gribbles and Beyond

As The Gribbles NFT launch approaches, we are excited to share our perspective on the state of the market, updates to our roadmap, and general thoughts on the wacky yet exciting world of web3 games.

Over the past six months, the nascent web3 gaming industry has been facing turbulence and adversity. Macro conditions are poor, the majority of existing play-to-earn games aren’t fun, and simply attaching a standard dual-token model doesn’t work. In light of this, our team has opted to spend more time evaluating sustainable token models that support and enhance gameplay over rushing out systems that do not. In parallel, we will double down on building out core game experiences while experimenting more with NFT utility.

We remain committed to building the ultimate DuskBreakers experience, focusing on games that embrace what web3 can enable — identity, ownership, interoperability, composability, and more — built on lasting systems that are transparent and fair. We are determined to build deeply immersive worlds around the most practical web3 game systems in the industry. Our mission is to help onboard the next billion players into web3 by championing fun, free-to-play (F2P) games, amazing storytelling, and interactive experiences.

For Holders

NFT utility is at the core of our experiences — we want all of our NFTs to play an important role. Holders of Breaker and Gribble NFTs will continue to receive early access to our future games and interactive experiences and enjoy holder-only benefits in each. Further, we are building a universal account system to serve as a hub for our users. We want community members who engage with our games, interactive adventures, and other experiences to be recognized for their efforts.

Beyond gameplay — the Breaker and Gribble NFTs would serve as digital passports to the broader DuskBreakers universe. As such, in addition to gaining early access to the many games and interactive experiences we are building, Holders would play an essential role in shaping the interactive media narrative, engage in our composability and interoperability experiments, and directly influence how the universe evolves. We also plan to bridge the gap between URL and IRL with real-world opportunities including special events, merch, and more.

Growing, Building, and Delivering

Since our funding announcement in May 2022, we’ve been hard at work expanding our team and building fun games and experiences for you. Our global team represents talent from 14 countries and is now 57 strong. We’re on a mission to build for and with our community, and intend to create foundational systems that would allow us to adapt our development to where our community wants to go.

As of August 19th, one year after we started Metatheory, we will have released:

• Our first PFP collection (The Genesis Breakers)
• A world first Play-to-Mint arcade game — The Breaker Recruit Simulation
• An additional arcade game mode (Beast Battler)
• The DuskBreakers games launcher
• 7 full-color webcomic issues, Joli’s Journey, which canonized several of our community’s breakers
• Amazing 3D animation and cinematics
• And on August 19th, we launch our evolving and dynamic 3D, fully-rigged NFT collection — The Gribbles — which launches alongside another Play-to-Mint experience -> Twilight Shift!
• Our newest game, Twilight Shift, a roguelike dungeon crawler in which you defy DuskTech corporate overlords to quest for precious materials in a forbidden region of the Dusk while avoiding the alien denizens whose nest you’re trampling through

Launching Friday with The Gribbles mint is an interactive Play-to-Evolve experience complete with a choose-your-own-adventure visual novel. That’s three games, tons of content, and an interactive NFT gameplay experience. Probably nothing 👀.

*Clip from Twilight Shift, our Play-to-Mint experience launching August 19th, 2022, at 6pm PDT (August 20th, 2022, 1AM UTC)

So what’s coming next?

We have multiple initiatives in development, including several games and interactive experiences that we aim to release over the next 12 months.

1. Genesis Breaker NFTs — PFP to 3D

• Genesis Breaker NFTs are the primary access passes to our broader universe and community experiences. Genesis Breaker holders would continue to get all the cool benefits mentioned above and more as we build.
• 3D rigged models of Genesis Breakers are also in development for Breaker Holders. These models would be playable in-game assets, interoperable across our future games and experiences. Coming soon™.

2. Original Gribble NFTs

• Launching August 19th, the 20,000 Gribble NFTS — aka the Original Gribbles (OGs) and denoted as such in metadata — will evolve over the incubation experience and then hatch as fully-rigged 3D models with distinct visual aesthetics and an “OG” trait. Play Twilight Shift and our other Gribble Egg experiences to obtain OmniGrow to evolve your eggs.
• The broader Gribbles NFT collection is built on an uncapped smart contract, from which future non-OG Gribbles may be minted via breeding and potential future drops.

3. Gribble Games & Experiences

• After your Gribble eggs hatch, we will release an interactive environment for Breaker and Gribble Holders along with 3 mini-games that are designed to be quick, fun, daily experiences.
• Through the interactive environment and the mini-games, Breaker and Gribble Holders can track their progress and eventually obtain achievements and upgrade their Gribble NFTs.
• We plan to release additional mini-games and multiplayer competitive games. These are in the early development phase.
• Oh and one more thing…. breeding! We’re designing a Gribble breeding system powered by a generative art engine and a dynamic genetics system.

4. Twilight Shift

• Our initial roguelike dungeon crawler releases to the public August 19th, 2022, which includes a Play-to-Mint experience to obtain OG Gribbles.
• Twilight Shift will expand to offer multiplayer PVE and PVP play. These experiences would eventually incorporate Genesis Breakers and their traits, stay tuned!

5. Ever Expanding Storyworld

• We’ll continue to publish and distribute web comics and animated cinematics featuring different stories and characters.
• We’re tinkering in the lab to invent more innovative formats and new ways for Holders and community members to influence the story.

6. DuskBreakers Universal Account

• We encourage everyone to create a DuskBreakers account and play, engage, promote, provide feedback, and otherwise help grow the project.
• We are designing a system to ensure that our most engaged Holders would be recognized for their support, to empower them with further access across experiences and more influence in our universe.

7. Experiments with interoperability, composability, and community co-creation

• Beginning with community Breaker canonization, inclusion in our webcomics and mad libs contests… we continue to dream up ideas for how web3 levers can enable games and media experiences to be more fun and interactive.
• We’re also inspired by our community’s creativity and encourage you to BUIDL with your DuskBreakers NFT art!

Final Thoughts

Our industry is still very young and can be volatile, yet our belief and determination are unwavering. We at Metatheory continue to believe in and support what web3 technologies may enable — that next generation of entertainment where we can play, create, share, and be rewarded for the value we bring to the communities we care about most. If you see this, you’re still early.