Project update: $SAND IEO launch, Game Maker Alpha and VoxEdit Beta updates
We’ve had a busy month that brought lots of new updates for The Sandbox! We launched our SAND token IEO, released new updates for both Game Maker and VoxEdit, and have an upcoming round of LAND presale.
$SAND Release
Our SAND token has launched following the announcement that our IEO would happen in partnership with Binance. Starting from August 6th till August 13th, users had their first opportunity to purchase $SAND tokens.
In total 23,249 users participated in the sale with a total of 15,000 winning tickets drawn out of 164,893 tickets claimed. On August 14th we had 12,225 total winners before we officially listed the $SAND token on Binance, our official exchange.
Trading has started for SAND/BTC, SAND/USDT and SAND/BUSD.
Soon we’ll include more exchanges within our ecosystem and move forward with the SAND token that will play an essential part in The Sandbox metaverse, so stay tuned!
Our ERC-20 utility token will be used in three main ways: as a medium of exchange, for governance, and for staking. To learn more about our $SAND token, you can read check the research paper detailing all there is to know about it!
Presale 4 Round 1
On August 4th, we launched the first round of our 4th LAND Presale. The popularity of LAND was once again confirmed as 75% of available LANDS were sold in the first 30 minutes and it took less than 24 hours for the 4,536 LANDS for sale during this round to sell out.
This round was also special because it was the first time that we introduced our new concept: Premium LAND. These Premium LANDS had especially attractive locations (close to The Sandbox hubs) and an accompanying bundle of 4 Premium ASSETS. 1,134 of these Premium LANDS and 4,546 Premium ASSETS were released and sold out.
Among these ASSETS were coveted legendary Dragons consisting of six different breeds of powerful Dragons with only 200 copies that can ever be minted of each of them.
These 1,134 Legendary Dragons are now in the hands of lucky LAND owners; you can read more about what makes them so special in our recap article on the first round of the 4th presale.
The second round is launching in a couple of weeks so be ready for even more special rounds, new premium ASSETS and the introduction of our big new partner: Care Bears™!
Make sure you don’t miss the launch of the presale by pre-registering your wallet here!
Presale 4 Round 2
There are many reasons to be excited about this second round of the fourth LAND presale!
- It will be the first presale where users will have the opportunity to purchase LAND using their $SAND tokens. Starting from this round going forward, LAND will be sold on our platform solely using $SAND.
- This second round of fourth LAND presale will occur in four separate waves for four consecutive days. Each wave will start at a different hour in order to accomodate the most people around the globe timezone wise. We want a maximum of people to have the opportunity to participate in this special event.
- Premium LANDS will also be available during this round. They are all easily recognizable thanks to their yellow color on the map.
- These Premium LANDS will be bundled with exclusive Care Bears™ ASSETS.
This presale will be divided into several small rounds that will launch throughout the upcoming weeks.These will be the last rounds that will have a 10% discount and will be the LAST discounted events before public sales begin.
During this presale we are introducing Premium LANDs that come with a set of four exclusive Care Bears™ ASSETS at prime locations. A total of 4,536 LANDS will be for sale, including 1134 Premium LANDS. To read the breakdown of the presale and learn more about Premium LANDs and ASSETs read our dedicated articles here:
Game Maker Alpha Version
The next update of the Game Maker Alpha is scheduled for release in mid-september, along the same time as the next round of presale 4! With this new update our teams are fine-tuning the Game Maker for smoother game play, easier understanding, and more features to further improve the creation of users’ game experiences.
Version V0.2 of the Game Maker already implemented great new features for avatars, biomes, and improved fighting systems, added sword-wielding among other cool improvements.
Avatars
Avatars are the characters that you will play as within your game experiences. With each new update we are improving their capabilities and overall feel for better gameplay.
This update is no exception! We are upgrading avatar movements and adding new attack combos. The avatar will now have the ability to attack mid-air and have heavy attacks. This will bring a more immersive feel to the game experiences created and even more thrilling fights.
Gallery
With this release we will be introducing the first version of the Gallery section that will allow creators to share their game experiences with players for the first time. Located in the main menu, the Gallery will give visibility to creators’ experiences for any player to try.
This is the first phase in which our creators will have the chance to share their creations with the world and receive their first players in their experiences.
This update will also bring better climbing techniques for avatars. With more freedom of movement as well as the possibility to move horizontally, your avatar will be ready for epic adventures!
Fight System
During game experiences, the avatar often encounters enemies and foes that they need to slay. To make these fight sequences more exciting, we have refined the fight system. Your enemy’s behaviour shows more variety in order to be less predictable and gives a better range of movement for some sneaky attacks. You will now have to use your skill set to overcome your foes — and to add more urgency during fights, damage dealt will also be more visible.
Game Environment
While creating your game experiences we have introduced some new rules and behaviours to make your quest system more complex.
- The rarity component that helps creators visualize their precious ASSETS in The Sandbox is improved so that now they can easily visualize them and know if the ASSET used is common, rare, epic, or legendary.
- We have introduced a question behaviour in which asking a question to one of the NPCs will clue you in as to what is the next step in your quest.
- When starting to create your experience you can now set one of the objectives to trigger the victory to be a collectible behaviour such as collecting a certain amount of SAND coins, picking up a key, or finding a sword.
A huge refactor will improve the performances of the Game Maker to improve the building experience
This all gives more layered storytelling to allow more room for your creativity to shine when using our Game Maker.
Multiplayer
Last but not least, it is with great excitement that we will be introducing the very first version of multiplayer gameplay. Along with the Gallery feature you will now have the chance to pick your avatar and go interact with other gamers in our main hub. For the first time ever, you will be able to share in-game experiences with fellow players. That is where the metaverse revolution starts!
Exploring your LAND while fighting goes has never been more satisfying. Be a part of The Sandbox history !
If you want to create games, share your gaming experiences and be part of the first game developers of The Sandbox, you can apply to join our Game Maker Fund and receive a grant of up to $30,000 USD.
Apply to The Sandbox Game Maker Fund program today
Game Maker Fund Creations
Lots of worlds and game experiences are being imagined and created by our community as we speak.
Our Game Maker Fund is full of talented artists working on building awesome game experiences that are scheduled to become playable upon the launch of our platform in Q4 of this year. While we wait to play these experiences, here are a few exclusive images to keep you on your toes!
Uncharted World — Gatostao
Viking Fjord — Alina
Black Town Old West — William Santacruz
Dashboard Update
Great news on the Dashboard side as well! Our team has integrated a new login solution, the Arkane wallet, which makes it even easier to connect with The Sandbox. Now it is possible to connect using your favorite social network accounts: Facebook, Twitter, or Google. This will further easen the onboarding process of our $SAND token, thus facilitating a mass adoption of The Sandbox ecosystem by mainstream players.
VoxEdit
The latest version of VoxEdit is already up and running. With this update, users are introduced to a new and revised timeline that can now accurately drag keys without moving the playhead. They also have access to a zoom area control with smooth scrolling and a playhead that instantly jumps to any timeline click. The new VoxEdit also lets you see the full 20 seconds animation time frame or fit your view to a key sequence. It even gives you the ability to input a loop area in order to replay specific sections!
New Timeline
The new timeline is here!
The Timeline Panel takes up the whole bottom of the VoxEdit window and its panel is made of five main sections:
1. Animation Selector
2. Timeline Viewer
3. Node Selector
4. Keyframe Editor
5. Playback Controls
When animating an ASSET each frame has a specific type of animation — linear, instant, or quad in. These animation types will be displayed on the new timeline.
On this update, two additional options are introduced, one to limit the loops of the animations and a new window to keep track of all the animations a single rigged model has. The options to create, delete, or duplicate an animation will remain on the timeline.
Timeline Viewer
VoxEdit supports animations up to 20 seconds in length. Each second is 24 frames.
The timeline is divided into three strips. From top to bottom, they are: Zoom Area, Loops Area, and Timeline Ruler. The timeline ruler displays a vertical dash for each frame (depending on how close you zoom in) and a number for each second.
You can easily control how much of the timeline is visible with the Zoom Area strip. The left handle sets the starting frame and the right handle sets the ending frame for what’s visible.
The Loop Area strip is used to select a group of frames to replay without playing the whole animation. Artists can use this to focus on small portions of longer animations. Playback will automatically loop at the last keyframe if the loop area ends after the animation completes.
There are even more features planned for the future of VoxEdit’s timeline, so be sure to check for changes when a new version is released, and visit our Discord channel for the helpful VoxEdit Support!
VoxEdit contests
We are running weekly VoxEdit contests over on our forum page. Every two weeks a new theme is announced and everyone can submit their creations. Three winners are selected via votes to win a LAND and the opportunity to upload their ASSET to the marketplace! If you want to try your hand at it don’t hesitate to participate for a chance to win a parcel of LAND!
2 contests happened this month: the previous Contest theme was “Giants”
1st Place: Krad_Supersoldier’s Guardian Gorjan:
2nd Place: Clan_Kersh’s Labyrinth Minotaur:
3rd Place: Remigio’s King of the Abyss:
And we also revealed the last week’s contest winners! The theme was “Under the Sea”
1st Place: Chimpabastian’s Triton Prince:
2nd Place: Nexonik’s Sea Explorer:
3rd Place: Sisapi’s Siren:
This week’s theme is: Voxelize Yourself! Contest details and more information here!
Join our community
Be sure to check out our community and join the discussion:
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/sandbox
