Momentum 6 Portfolio Highlight: Ascenders

Overview

Ascenders is a sci-fantasy, open-world action role-playing game (RPG) with a fully decentralized, player-driven economy. Ascenders is powered by the Avalanche blockchain.

The creators’ vision is to build an AAA game in terms of graphics, scope, and quality. The game is being created on a truly decentralized, revolutionary, and crypto-powered economy.

The team behind Ascenders believes that a truly Metaverse economy with a play-to-earn model should empower and engage players. Unfortunately, most of the games out there provide just a single path to play-to-earn; this approach is limiting in a world where different players have varying interests and skills.

Ascenders offer various economic ‘lanes,’ and players can decide to take varying routes such as building, exploring, or even fighting. Every ‘lane’ on this game has a play-to-earn loop, and you will also come across different rewards and challenges. It is the interaction with these ‘lanes’ that creates an economy that is dynamic and lasting.

How it works

Ascenders combined “Zelda: Breath of the Wild” overworld with an “Eve: Online” MMO economy to bring:

• Open exploration. Players can freely explore to discover hidden dungeons, rare resources, and new lands in Ascenders’ rich open-world environment and find what Ascension’s far-flung corners offer.
• Dungeon clearing. Some dungeons have infested the land, and they need clearing to make them safe for the community to begin construction. Players are tested for rich rewards that can even be land. Fighters will be seeking challenges and battles across Ascension. They will be in search of the rarest loot that monsters can provide. The best place to locate these players will be in dungeons as they slay monsters with an array of weapons.
• City building. Players can build structures on the lands that they own. There are different types of buildings that one can develop, such as Armorsmiths and stables that enable players to craft new items, refineries & silos that improve productivity, Guildhalls that create community, and shops & hospitals that offer services. Builders take advantage of the market economy and in-game resources to mint, collect, and trade.
• Decentralized economy. Players are in control of supply and demand. Players trade and find resources from around the overworld. All the items in this game are player distributed and player minted and come with player-designed specializations.

The terrain

The game’s overworld is built to AAA standards, and players experience lush, varied terrains with lots to explore and find. Players come across unique resources, challenges, cultures, quests, gameplay, and dungeons in every area. Some landscapes will be familiar, while others are alien and filled with ethereal creatures.

This overworld is always active and alive, and Ascenders will add terrains over time with frequent world events that bring new storylines, challenges, and changes to the map.

Land Parcels

Players can own a land parcel in the contiguous Ascenders overworld. Each parcel of land is unique in layout, size, terrain, and resources. Land parcels vary in size, from sovereign lands to modest-sized estates. Players can even merge adjacent lands and create a bigger area.

As a land parcel owner, you collect passive income. Landowners can also erect buildings on the flat buildable space to increase the value of their land. The finite buildable space limits the number of buildings you can construct. Upgrading a building also takes more footprint, reducing the buildable space. Landowners are advised to evaluate the market well before deciding what to upgrade or build:

• Guildhalls act as social hubs governed by their own rules and have local economies.
• Customizable houses where players can relax and show off their prized possessions.
• Temples, hospitals, and fast travel ports provide gameplay services.
• Armor and Weaponsmiths, where players can use the available resources to mint items.
• Player-managed shops that will act as the local marketplaces.
• Refineries and Silos that improve resource production of the Land Parcels.

Battle for Land

The Ascenders overworld is vast. However, the ownable land is limited. The good news is that those who miss out on the initial land rush do not have to worry. ‘Battle for Land’ is one of the core systems in Ascenders where players can compete to unlock new lands.

Players can explore the map’s far reaches to unlock and discover new and challenging dungeons filled with some of the most brutal enemies.

The ‘Battle for Land’ tournament will begin once the dungeon is unlocked. The players will then start competing. Tournament winners get a token that can be used to buy a brand new Land Parcel. Winners can also sell the ‘right to buy’ token to another player at a higher price.

‘Battle for Land’ fits challenge-loving and skilled players looking to earn big rewards. New areas of the overworld will be added with time, and players will be exposed to new challenges and lands to unlock.

Game Economy

Ascenders will have several types of tokens that will support its broad economy:

• Glow Gems — The utility token and will be used as an in-game currency. The primary economic functions will be building, crafting upgrades, item minting, and buying items from the marketplace.
• Game items — The NFT token that players create after crafting various resources into items. Players can upgrade these NFTs and sell them on the marketplace.
• Land Parcel — A digital piece of land located in the Ascenders overworld. Each piece of land is in an NFT, and people buy them to earn a passive income. Players can build shops, hospitals, and other buildings on a Land Parcel.
• Ascenders Governance Council ($AGC) — The governance token players use to participate in important game decisions by voting. Users can stake this token for rewards, and its supply is capped.

Player-Minted Game Items

There are different game items such as armor, weapons, and heroes, all of which are player-minted NFTs. If players want to mint an item, they have to purchase, pool, or collect resources and then visit a weapon or armorsmith to craft new items in limited runs.

The value of Ascenders’ NFT items is based on utility, scarcity, and its work in the game. Players can upgrade items using resources and level up. As a player, you can find items and resources to upgrade your Ascenders NFT items and then sell them at a higher profit. Provenance, a record of the owners and important history is another determinant of the value of the NFT. Rare items that are held by famous people in important battles will be valuable and rare.

The Ascenders Combat Challenge!

The development team has delivered the first product named the Ascenders Combat Challenge! It is a timed attack against enemy hordes within a small Ascension region. Players are expected to explore the area, defeat the enemies they encounter, and break containers as they collect as many score orbs as possible before time lapses.

A round lasts five minutes, and players will be awarded based on their creativity, speed, and offensive and defensive mechanisms. Players are given infinite tries to as they compete in the global scoreboard.

The 1 million $AGC prize pool will be shared among the top 100 players on the leader board. Ascenders will take snapshots regularly to keep the players on their toes. After the Token Generation Event is over, $AGC tokens will be airdropped to the winners. However, there will be a 7-day cliff vest and a 3-month linear vest to avoid large price swings.

Investors

In March 2022, Ascenders completed a $6.4 million private round co-led by Sino Global Capital, Three Arrows Capital, Paramount Capital, and Merit Circle, some of the leading investors in Blockchain technology and gaming. Other prominent players in the blockchain ecosystem, including Blizzard Fund, Momentum 6, DeFiance Capital, Forward Analytics, GuildFi, Colony Labs, Avocado Guild, Snack Club, Layer X, ZeePrime, and Mintable, were also part of this investment round. The funds will be utilized to hire more developers and allow Ascenders to create one of the most captivating games in the Web 3 era.

Team

Jackson Poon, CEO

Jackson is a serial entrepreneur, longtime crypto investor, and qualified lawyer. He is also Paramount Capital’s co-founder. He has previously held positions at Morrison & Foerster and Spartan Capital.

Chris Rothwell, Design Director

Chris brings 20+ years of experience shipping award-winning AAA games. He was part of the team that created the Grand Theft Auto series. He was also among the four designers of GTA 3 and the lead for GTA: San Andreas. Chris is a lecturer of International Games Design & Architecture at Breda University of Applied Sciences.

Will Davis, Head of Global Development

Will brings 35+ years of experience in the game development sector, topped with director positions at Ubisoft and EA. Will has delivered 200 games, some of the most popular ones include Aliens vs. Predator, Ghost Recon, GRiD, DiRT, and Driver.

Wrapping up

Play-to-earn games have become a hot trend in recent years and Ascenders is ready to join the race. This game brings NFT interoperability, making it unique and allowing players to use external NFTs to mint an Ascenders hero NFT. The hero will still maintain the name, rarity, and value of the original NFT.

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