This article details the many exciting and bullish insights shared by Heroes of Mavia co-founders Tristan Chaudhry and Yvan Feusi during a Neo Tokyo hosted AMA on the 19th Jan.
Neo Tokyo were formed to create a networking experience unlike any other, involving the best minds in the gaming and metaverse space, they regularly host AMAs with the most exciting emerging projects.
Founders and Team
Heroes of Mavia is being designed and developed by Skrice Studios who were founded by Tristan Chaudhry and Yvan Feusi. The Skrice team are based largely in Vietnam but also have team members located in many other countries. Their sole focus is building Heroes of Mavia.
The Game
Mavia can be best described as a mix between Clash of Clans and Axie Infinity yet completely unique in many ways. Many game features created are inspired by both titles but not copied. Game players build bases on their land to battle other players. There are 3 types of NFT traded in game — Land, special Heroes characters and Statues with special utilities.
A Unique Ecosystem Model Like No Other
With gameplay aside, the play-to-earn economics of Mavia are what’s truly exciting the first viewers of this project.
There are 2 ways to earn in Heroes of Mavia: equity via your NFTs and rewards in the game in the form of the currency Ruby.
Tristan describes it is as a unique economic model in the P2E space.
Here are some key elements:
- The game has a dual token economy- Mavia token and Ruby. Mavia is the governance token and Ruby is the token you earn in game.
- Mavia is used to buy the game NFTs (Land, Heroes and Statues) and when buying or selling these NFTs there are no fees charged.
- These NFT assets help you earn Ruby in the game with one use case of your Ruby being the upgrade of your NFTs. When Ruby is spent this way, that Ruby is burned (removed permanently from circulation) which avoids inflation of the token.
- Players can also withdraw their Ruby from the game to sell on an exchange. This action incurs a 15% fee, with the fee being burned.
- If someone wants to buy Ruby from an exchange and deposit that Ruby into the game, they receive a 10% Ruby bonus.
- There are multiple use cases to spend your Ruby in the game’s economy all with the goal of increasing your ability to earn more Ruby.
The overarching goal of the economic model is to create a stable Ruby currency. The aim is to discourage people from taking the Ruby coin out of the Mavia ecosystem and dumping it on exchanges. This has been a problem with the SLP token in Axie Infinity.
Players reinvesting their Ruby in the game is the primary target, this is helped by the creation of the barrier via fees to remove Ruby. The reward to buy from exchanges and deposit into the game outweighs the positives to remove Ruby from the ecosystem.
If a player feels the need to free up capital from the game, the model makes it more economically viable for them to sell one of their NFTs back into the marketplace and they will receive Mavia currency. Thanks to Mavia having a larger liquidity pool it is less fragile so can take selling pressure more than Ruby.
Tristan speaks of the weight of expectation they have put on this system delivering a successful play to earn model that breaks the current mould. I agree this could be a gamechanger.
A video demonstration of the economy simulator is shown by Yvan later in the AMA. This simulator has played out the results of 1000s of games, helping the team evolve the economics towards a more stable model.
Have you seen or heard of other projects going this deep with their P2E models?
An Art Style and Game design To Resonate with The Masses
There is no doubting the credentials of Yvan’s and his team when you check out their profiles. There are plenty of visuals available showcasing their previous work.
They have a large, highly capable, and experienced team working on game art and design with everyone focusing on separate areas of the game.
With a Sci-Fi theme for the game, they are separating themselves from Clash of Clans and creating their own identity.
The visual theme for character designs can be likened to ‘Clash of Clans mixed with Pixar Films’. This visual theme can draw on the existing audience of Clash of Clans game enthusiasts and the mass appeal of Pixar film lovers. The Iconic Disney Pixar film character designs sit deeply in the conscience of a large portion of the world’s population. The Visual themes of these designs can resonate with the masses, drawing people towards checking out the game in higher numbers.
Yvan explains how each character is created with an underlying personality which gives that character life through its animations and visuals. Characters with personalities are part of Mavia’s long-term vision for creating a brand with the game and its characters. Think Zelda and Mario.
The vision of the team to build a brand only further cements their true intent to build something seriously big and sustainable long term. Very exciting.
The Game User Interface
Mavia will be available on desktop browser, IOS and Android mobile devices, creating a broader market to capture a user base. The aim is to have a low barrier to entry to play Mavia with the simple process of connecting your crypto wallet with a signature to start playing.
The importance of the game user experience (UI) is fully understood by the team, and this is demonstrated as Tristan runs through the interface during the AMA.
It is clear to see how seamless, simple, and naturally flowing the navigation of the UI is.
Consider the level of information that can be seen on Bscan or Etherscan for all blockchain interactions but now imagine a similar level of viewable information for an entire game ecosystem: This is what is on offer when navigating Mavia’s UI.
Here are some highlights of what can be viewed:
- The ability to Live stream your base battles
- A database of viewable videos of every battle to ever take place within the game!
- An interactable marketplace displaying every NFT item in the entire game, comparable to OpenSea
- A World map overview which shows each base/land and all their current specification levels including value, if they are for sale, in a partnership or available to rent.
- A broad and flexible notification system- ability to set many different types of game event notifications to alert you in various apps such as Telegram, Discord etc.
- A very simple 5 step process to set up Land partnership between a landowner and gamer.
- The simple ability to authorise another wallet address to play with your assets on your account and but not give them access to your NFTs. Imagine Netflix account sharing but with a game instead.
The Platform User Interface
A key feature for any Landowner will be the ability to stake their Land for rewards. Mavia have created a simple feature known as soft staking. Soft staking will be a gas free way to earn rewards by simply not selling your NFT for a stipulated period.
Process as follows:
- On the platform select the Land you wish to stake from your wallet
- Select a period of time for staking e.g 6 months
- Click stake now
- Select the wallet address/s where you intend to store your Land, and your land is staked.
You will receive your token rewards at the end of the time period whilst you are free to sell your NFT at any point, you will lose any chance of rewards.
Other staking pools will be available, most notably one to stake your Ruby. People will be rewarded with more Ruby by creating Ruby liquidity. This earned Ruby can only be spent in the game- protecting people from it being dumped on the market and forcing them to reinvest in the ecosystem.
Gamification of the staking process has been created through a viewable staking leader board. With the recent big success of gamified DEFI exemplified by Defi Kings this is a clever added feature.
To keep micro transaction costs down, the game ecosystem runs on Ethereum layer 2 solution Arbitrum. Mavia have built a bridging solution within their platform making it simple and easy for users to bridge their Ethereum over to Arbitrum wrapped Ethereum.
Making a Seamless Transition for Mainstream Gamers
Giving mainstream gamers the same user experience they are accustomed to with existing AAA games of the Non-crypto space, is clearly paramount to what the Mavia team are looking to achieve. For the transition of these gamers the experience of the UI and UX must be what they are used to, so it doesn’t present an obstacle to slow down the adoption of Mavia.
Mavia have clearly taken a deeper and more well thought approach to the UI compared to most new Crypto games.
Yvan, a Founder With Nothing To Hide
An Openness and willingness from Yvan to share the development process of Mavia is becoming an early defining feature of this project.
It has been a breath of fresh air seeing the founder of a project frequently live streaming his work screen to the Discord members to watch for hours at a time.
This approach shows confidence in what the team are building, and this confidence is flowing from these live streams into the community. The interaction between Yvan and community members on these live streams has even led to Mavia making changes on asset designs based on feedback.
This early feedback loop created is a great signal of intent from the Mavia team to listen to the community.
Trailer
Yvan showcased the upcoming trailer in a drawn animated storyboard version and in a basic 3D animation version.
It was very interesting and educating to see the process that takes place when creating a game trailer. The trailer flow was very fluid as it showcased the game characters, game environments and game features in a dynamic sequence. I am impressed with what they have created so far.
The first trailer should be released by the beginning of March, and they plan to do 10 to 15 trailers in total.
Introducing the game characters’ personalities and getting people engaged with the brand is the goal of these trailers. A target of 1 trailer per month and a trailer to be released coinciding with game updates that are added every 3 months.
The game trailer strategy shared by Yvan makes it clear they have a big marketing plan! Very good news.
Game Characters
Building a deep persona for each character epitomizes the depth and seriousness Yvan and the team take all elements of the game development.
Each character draws inspirations from iconic characters of the past such as Crash Bandicoot for example.
Here are some cool character concepts shared by Yvan including Crypto inspired ones:
- A Gorilla King character with Diamond made hands
- A whale type character symbolising the Crypto Whales
- A suicide car asset that behaves like a puppy and explodes with a smile!
Neo Tokyo Questions and Answers
For the last part of the AMA, Yvan took a couple of questions from the Neo Tokyo Discord.
Q. ‘What sets Mavia apart from Clash of Clans?’
A. The key difference is the play to earn aspect. He further added that through the inclusion of the play to earn mechanics they were forced into creating defining features that put Mavia into a unique gameplay model.
Examples given were the inclusion of ‘Wager matches’, the War chest concept (used to balance the ecosystem), the ability to steal Ruby from someone else in the game, the much deeper character customisation compared to Clash of Clans to help with the levelling up features.
Yvan also hinted at new features coming that he cannot disclose yet.
Another question asked:
Q. ‘What are Mavia’s plans to keep the community engaged between now and game launch?’
A. To share consistent sneak peaks of all aspects of game design and art, to maintain a positive feedback loop with the community.
The plan is to release many trailers as discussed before but it will be difficult as they are upgrading the games graphics from a version 1 to a version 2 and want to share assets in the V2 form.
A clear strategy of sharing lots of content on the build up to game launch.
A Game That Stands Out From The Crowd
Halfway through the AMA the Neo Tokyo host nailed it on the head when he summed up why this game stands out from the crowd and has the overwhelming hallmarks of a project that can succeed.
Every aspect on every front of this game is so well thought out and most projects don’t have the depth and planning the Mavia team has carried out.
This was exactly what I concluded when I carried my own due diligence research, shared on my previous article.
There have already been partnership announcements from the leading gaming guilds confirming large amounts of Land ownership in the game. Tristan even had to leave the AMA after 1hr to join a call with the largest Clash of Clans Guild! This is great news for the initial volume of game users
Both founders are showing great leadership driving this project. With Tristan talking with authority and confidence about the business and economic side and Yvan showing the teams true creativity and authenticity through his sharing of the visual evolution of the project.
With Internal testing in Q2, Private Beta testing Q3 and full game release in Q4 I suggest sitting back and enjoying the story as it unfolds with up to 15 trailers to enjoy in the build up to release!
This game will be big!
