Tezos Commons :: Enter the Emergents Universe: Trading Card Gaming on Tezos

Tezos Commons :: Enter the Emergents Universe: Trading Card Gaming on Tezos

March 15, 2023 0 By William McKenzie

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A closer look at the Emergents TCG and how Tezos is becoming the hub for blockchain-based gaming

In case you haven’t heard, Tezos is quickly becoming a home for gaming. With key players like Ubisoft and more recently Unity offering an SDK for game developers on Tezos, the scenery could not be any more appealing for those looking for a place to launch or create their blockchain-based game.

One could say it’s almost perfect timing as we have just witnessed the public launch of Emergents TCG by InterPop. After the long-awaited launch, the game is ready and playable today.

Let’s dive into the game and see what it’s all about!

Inside the Emergents Universe

The Emergents TCG is a new digital trading card game built by InterPop and powered by the Tezos blockchain. At the forefront of the newly released game, the focus has been very much geared towards reducing barriers of entry for the non-crypto native, while being streamer-friendly, and incentivizing more player interaction and activity.

The game itself also has some unique aspects that make it quite addictive and fun.

Deep and fast-pacedRegular releases of new cardsTrue ownership of cards with the ability to buy, sell, and tradeAbility to flex special cosmetics for individual cards unlocked by completing quests

On the point of obtaining true ownership over cards, The Emergents TCG has its very own in-house digital marketplace where you can purchase characters to add to your decks and be on the lookout for new characters which are regularly released (every single week, M-F). This can be purchased with tez (XTZ) or a credit card.

https://emergentstcg.minterpop.com/

The cool thing about using the Emergents TCG Marketplace is let’s say you want to buy a character and you end up disliking it. That’s no issue as the InterPop team offers up to 90% of the value of the card if you want to sell it back to them immediately. Secondary options could fetch much higher via OBJKT, but this added level of security is truly unique, especially for new players navigating through the game and marketplace.

Launching the game, you enter a whole new world of digital experience and fandom. When you start a game, your rival and yourself, each start with 4 cards in hand. An additional card for each faction you’re playing also is added to the hand. One can notice in their hand of cards there are different colors of cards and the same for their opponent.

Each of these colors is called ‘factions’. There are several different factions including Strongarms, Acolytes, Tinkerers, Non-Stops, and Sculptors. Strongarms are the heavy hitters/brawlers and provide ultimate strength and defense. The Tinkerers are masters of technology. The Acolytes are keepers of arcane knowledge. Sculptors are the ones who can control the elements. Lastly, the Non-Stops are the speedsters and time travelers of this universe, often evading any attempts to block them as they race to kill their rivals.

In the Emergents TCG, it costs resources to play a card. Looking at the green number on the ‘Shy Freshman’ card represents the energy resource cost to play a card. As long as you have played a card there’s a step after the recruit step called the build step. If you have played a card during a turn, ultimately an energy resource gets distributed.

Additionally, looking at the square in the bottom left side of the screen represents one’s chances in percentage ‘wildcarding’ a card. This mechanic is very fundamental to the game and allows players to drag cards from their deck to the cube with the possibility of being able to play them for free. Even if you fail it still counts as playing a card to develop your resources — failing a wildcard also increases your chances of success by 10%. As we can tell from the screenshot, the chances I have is currently 10%, but that percentage will increase to 20% if I failed to wildcard.

The number next to this square over your name also represents your life points. In the above screenshot, my life points are at 25. At the core, the end game goal is to dwindle the opponent’s life points. What’s neat is your life points can essentially be used as additional resources within the game, buying yourself more turns to allow better cards to come online without having opponents disrupt that from purely attacking. There are lots of strategies and I have barely even touched the iceberg!

Speaking on the recent public launch of the game, one of the driving forces behind the game, Brian David-Marshall of InterPop shared a few words on the release.

When you buy a card from the marketplace, we’ll buy it back from you for 90% of the value of the card. There’s no worse feeling than playing a free-to-play trading card game and spending money on it, using up resources on it to complete a deck, and having that deck or strategy end up being very bad. You are essentially stuck with no digital autonomy over those cards. You just have to spend again. This discourages players from experimenting and exploring all the deck-building design space the game has to offer. You have to optimize your spending at all times to build the prevailing best deck. We did not want this experience for players.Even if something is the best card in the game, it might not feel good for you as a player. So, you can take this tez that you get back and send it back to the marketplace for new cards. We will always buy that card back from you based on that percentage of the marketplace price.This is a massive differentiation from virtually every game on the market. Not only can you sell your cards back in our marketplace but you can level up the cards you do decide to keep with achievement-based cosmetics and variant arts. Players can show off those achievements by playing with those leveled-up cards in their deck or they can take those versions and trade or sell them on the secondary market.Our goal was not to build the best blockchain game ever but to build the best game we could make. Our aspirations are to be mentioned in the same breath as the evergreen trading card games that we have a ton of respect for. And uses this new technology to create something fresh and exciting in the process.

Meet the Inspiration Behind Emergents

The core team and inspiration behind the Emergents TCG universe is an all-star cast. While doing my research on some of the active team members/contributors, I was surprised to see the level of talent and the amount they have to offer the blockchain-based trading card landscape as a whole, especially within Tezos.

Let’s have a quick rundown of some of the highly curated list of awesome designers and game developers at InterPop.

Zvi Mowshowitz

Zvi Mowshowitz is a former Magic: The Gathering professional player, hall of fame member, and columnist, and has held an R&D position in multiple games including MTG. In April 2006, Zvi decided to quit the R&D scene, a previous “dream job” of his, explained in greater depth in a column post. Zvi currently serves as a writer and game developer at InterPop.

BDM

Brian David-Marshall was a founding partner of Malibu Comics in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Malibu Comics was later bought out by Marvel Comics in the early 1990s. Brian has more than 20 years of experience in the comic and gaming industry at companies such as Marvel and Crusade. Brian also serves as the Founder and Chief Creative Officer at InterPop.

Corey Burkhart

Corey Burkhart has been a professional card gamer from a very young age and is a Magic Players Tour Champion with many other top finishes on his resume. He was also the World of Warcraft TCG North American Continental Champion and was the highest-rated player in the world at one time. As a game designer, he has more than 11 years of experience building games and TCGs and was the design lead for two games before joining InterPop as a Senior Game Designer.

Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa

Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa has been a Professional Magic: the Gathering player for about 20 years. He is a member of the MTG Hall of Fame and the #1 money-earner in the history of the game. He’s the 2020 world champion and a four-time Brazilian National Champion. He was one of the designers for the Elders Scrolls TCG for a little over a year. Nowadays, he works at InterPop as a game designer for the Emergents TCG.

Drew Nolosco

Drew Nolosco served as Game Designer at Wizards of the Coast and Global, lead Game Designer for Magic Duels, and Global Brand Manager of the Transformers trading card game before taking on his current role as the Head of Product for InterPop.

Leonard Perez

Leonard Perez has more than 10 years of experience as a product manager from leading complex, multi-country software integrations in the finance and IT industries to leading monetization strategy and live ops for Star Trek Fleet Command for Scopely. There he created live events at STFC that ranked #1 in mobile gaming at the time. Leonard joined InterPop to become the Senior Product Manager for the Emergents TCG.

Looking Forward

As you can see, the InterPop team is loaded with talent and has made Emergents a truly unique experience. As the Tezos ecosystem continues to evolve and grow, so will the gaming and NFT applications with the likes of exciting games such as Emergents. It will be exciting to see the future of gaming and NFTs on Tezos as we progress further. Until next time, stay tuned for more!

Enter the Emergents Universe: Trading Card Gaming on Tezos was originally published in Tezos Commons on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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