Metaverse NFT builders going all out with Dethrone, an epic voxel RPG in The Sandbox — Creators Interview #2: Polygonal Mind
Welcome to our Game Creators interview series, where we feature creators and members of The Sandbox community, giving them a platform to share their stories.
In this edition of Game Creators, we speak with Daniel García, CEO and Creative director of Polygonal Mind, a creative development studio.
We talked about Polygonal Mind’s upcoming project for The Sandbox, Dethrone, as well as Daniel’s path to becoming a game developer and his goals for 2021. Read on to find out more!
The team got very creative when building Dethrone lore, adding factions for the player to choose from. This led us to a more complex design scenario; we wanted the players to choose one of the factions.
Daniel García, Polygonal Mind
What attracted you initially to The Sandbox?
I found about The Sandbox on Twitter as I was already involved in the NFT ecosystem for some time. The project seemed really interesting because it was being developed by a company with a lot of background in traditional game development.
How easy/difficult was it for you to get started with it, how much effort did it take and what skills you have already?
Once I started my proper game development education everything became easier in a sense. But getting there was the trickiest part. I’ve been attracted to videogame development so long I can’t remember, but I was a really bad student in school — World of Warcraft was a very demanding activity.
Once I failed hard at school, I went to learn IT. I finished the course, but it wasn’t for me either.
Then I went to study 3D modelling and programming at once. Those years were very intense. I gave up a lot of my sleep to keep up with both skills, but finally decided to go with 3D modelling and character design in particular.
I invested long hours learning anatomy, proportions, and the technical sets required to create hyper realistic humans. But after creating a few of them, I lost interest and changed my focus to cartoon and lowpoly creations. It was a personal decision, but also very important if I wanted to create indie games. Realism takes time, and when you are an indie developer you need to create a lot of content yourself.
Working with clients taught me even more skills. Environment design, production, marketing, team and project management, crypto and others!
My current skills took a lot of time to develop. I got deep knowledge of various different aspects of game development as well as concept design and technology. Even though I don’t have a proper title to hang on my wall, the experience I gathered turned me into a resourceful person.
What are you building now?
There are always many things going on at the same time in the studio. But everything is related to the Metaverse.
Building Art galleries for Crypto Art collectors, designing HQ for Blockchain companies in different places, Virtual Reality avatar making with CryptoAvatars, game development with The Sandbox, and some NDA work. I’m very excited to see all our ideas turning into finished products in a way or another, and the team is also very hyped about the studio evolution over last year.
How has The Sandbox helped you cope over this past year of uncertainty?
It has helped us to add new members to the team. The projects we are involved with are very ambitious and The Sandbox team provided the push we needed to sustain the development.
I’m always glad to provide jobs for artists, especially if it’s for exciting things in this weird situation we’re living with right now in the world.
What are your goals for 2021?
At this point, everyone will agree that 2020 was a very shocking year; a lot of changes at super fast speed. It made me reflect and led to taking a lot of gut decisions which led me to create A LOT of different stuff.
The goals for 2021 are very clear: we want to create even more things for the Metaverse than last year.
Also we want to be more vocal about what we’re doing in the studio. We’re working on many cool things these days; we want others to know and get excited about it too!
Do you have a major game project that you’ll publish on The Sandbox platform?
Yes, Dethrone, and it will be one of the very first projects released on The Sandbox. We’re all very excited about it. It’s been in the works for months. The world of Bylta is changing; a new Deity appeared and its presence is disturbing reality and polarizing everything.
The project started as a “simple” RPG project in The Sandbox — a one character story with some bad guys that you have to fight. But the team got very creative when building the lore, adding factions for the player to choose from. This led us to a more complex design scenario; we wanted the players to choose one of the factions.
This will be the first step into the project. For the next iteration, we’ll experiment with factions and NFTs, creating new utility for The Sandbox LAND that will lead into a decentralized evolution of both factions in conflict. Gonna be fun to see this.
We thank Daniel for taking the time to speak to us — and look forward to seeing Dethrone on The Sandbox in the future! We’ll be back soon with more Game Creators interviews.
Follow the Dethrone project https://www.polygonalmind.com/dethrone.html
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