NFTs: This year was crazy in different ways, and one phenomenon a lot of us don’t understand is the insane booming of the NFT market. I got approached on multiple occasions asking if our characters can be used and sold as NFTs, and even though the general use-case is covered in our EULA, there is no specific clause for NFTs (yet). In short, you can use characters in any commercial project, but you need to make sure the characters are not the focus of such a project. So for instance, creating character images and then selling them as NFTs or stock assets isn’t allowed as per the EULA. On the other hand, if you create a game where the characters are the avatars, and you are selling the game as the product and the characters are only there to enhance the experience by visualization, then it’s completely fine, and is actually a use-case the software is designed for.

Speaking of NFTs, while I was at it, I also thought having a collection would be cool, so in September I created the ePic Characters collection on Ethereum and made it available on OpenSea. The collection is made of the original Trading Cards we created for Steam when we released the software there back in 2015. If you aren’t familiar with that system, games on Steam can give specific trading cards to that title after a specific amount of time spent in-game. Since our software is free, users were only able to get these cards by purchasing DLCs initially, however, Steam moved away from distributing trading cards for DLCs, and now the only way to get these are via in-app-purchases – a system we haven’t integrated. Once all cards have been collected, they can be used to craft badges, and subsequent crafting will increase the level of the badge. Today, the only way to acquire ePic Character Generator trading cards is by buying them on the community markets, but as there are no new drops, the number of cards on the market is constantly decreasing, and at one point they will probably be all gone! So I thought preserving these cards in a form of persistent digital collectibles could be a good idea. If you are into these, and also enjoy using the software, owning a unique, one and only copy of the 13 available cards can be tempting! Check out the collection here, and bid on the ones you like the most.

Our new project: Besides the above, most of the year was spent on us working on our new game, as we were experimenting with art styles, animations, and different game mechanics. We also spent a lot of time discussing the world, narrative, overarching story as well as the characters and the way we present dialogues. One area where I was looking to innovate is the presentation of dialogue trees and give more freedom to players to interact with NPCs and explore all the chats they offer, so a lot of time was spent on prototyping different ways to put my ideas into practice. We are at a very good place with the game right now, have the first few characters, locations, plots, and all fleshed out, so what we aim to do as a next step is create a vertical slice, where we can present a fully working, but smaller section of the game. Once we get to a certain point, we will also be looking for people who are into detective games to help us shape the game so it can become a very enjoyable experience by taking their feedback and suggestions, and we will be using our discord server for that, as constant communication will be key in this stage. We don’t have our roadmap set in stone, but we expect to reach this stage probably by the end of Q2, 2022.

I think that’s it for now! I’m really looking forward to seeing what the next year will bring us all. Until then, wishing you a very happy celebration of the upcoming holidays, if you happen to live in an area where they are celebrated!