About Galactic Acres
It’s time to talk about Galactic Acres! Let’s start with a high-level overview of the game:
WTH Is Galactic Acres?
Galactic Acres (GA) is set to be a free to play idle clicker game which will be available for Android (at launch) and iOS (later). In Galactic Acres, you run a sanctuary for creatures around the universe, protecting them from the dangers of space. The creatures in your sanctuary are productive and generate revenue, which you can reinvest into recruiting even more creatures.
But Galactic Acres isn’t all peaches and roses. There are many dangers lurking in space, threatening the community you’ve built. To protect your sanctuary, you’ll have to employ armies of aliens to battle it out with space pirates from across the galaxy. Fortunately for you, you’ll be able to plunder the plunderers you defeat for handsome gold rewards!
Who is Galactic Acres for?
GA is for everyone, not just Web3 gamers! It’s also free to play, so there needs to be as little friction to playing as possible to achieve adoption — and pre-requisite knowledge of Web3 is a major point of friction.
With that in mind, even though GA contains NFTs, it requires ZERO knowledge of Web3 to play, and there are also NO transaction fees or any other blockchain requirements in the app.
Additionally, we are collaborating with ViaOne, who’s Assist and enTouch Wireless companies provide free, government sponsored phone service to low income individuals and families. Our games are going to be pre-installed on tens of thousands of their devices every month, and will possibly exceed 100,000+ per month in the future. While exciting, providing games to this audience creates some interesting design challenges that are worth talking about, so you know what to expect when GA launches.
GA Design Challenges
The first big design challenge was the spec challenge. Because these government sponsored devices are not as high-end as a flagship smartphone (often $1000+), we needed to create a game with simple 2D graphics that could still be successful with general consumers on higher end devices. Luckily, some of the biggest successes in clicker games show that not only is it possible to succeed with simple graphics, it’s often preferable in this genre.
Next, we needed to keep our vision for Web3 alive while appealing to an audience that has likely never engaged with Web3 before. This is where we “abstracted” away all of the complexity of blockchain from the user’s view. The game will play exactly like a traditional mobile game. It will be monetized exactly like a traditional mobile game, except with one critical addition — If you are interested, you can withdraw certain in-game assets to the blockchain, or deposit them from the blockchain back into the app.
What are the in-game assets?
The first items we are tokenizing in the app are skins. You’ll learn more about skins as we reveal gameplay, but they are essentially cosmetic enhancements for your character that also grant a myriad of gameplay bonuses. Skins are going to be a really important element in Galactic Acres, as the gameplay bonuses let you custom tailor the gameplay to your preferences, and the aesthetics let you achieve the look you desire most.
Every skin drop will be sold as an in-app purchase through the standard Play/App store, but with a limited supply! If there’s a specific skin you want that is sold out, you’ll either have to settle for another skin or trade for the one you want on the blockchain.
GA will also feature an optional “vault”, so that if you do choose to get into the blockchain side of the game, you’ll be able to setup and manage a GA specific crypto wallet directly from the app. The vault will be able to send and receive in-game assets over the Polygon network.
The entire skin system won’t be immediately available until shortly after launch. MicroBuddies Divine holders (and possibly other types of MB holders in the future), will be entitled to exclusive, MicroBuddies themed skin drops when they connect their accounts (100% free).
In Conclusion
On a personal note, the MicroBuddies community is at the heart of the work I’m doing here. Improving the core experience in the MicroBuddies base game is also top of mind, such as reducing gas fees, fixing long standing bugs, and addressing GOO inflation/maxed out buddies. I’m sure we will have more discussions on this topic in the future.
We as a company are excited to bring you all Galactic Acres and offer free drops for our community. GA is just the first part of a larger, long term vision for Good Gaming, and I hope the MicroBuddies community will stick along for the journey.
Thank you GOO farmers!
