The Shatterlands Harbinger #1
LET US REWIND
May 16, 2022, will always be a remarkable date. For months, we kept silent, kept our heads down and kept plugging away, until we finally revealed our game — the day we announced Fableborne.
Founded and led by Kam Punia, we, Pixion Games, a team of industry veterans entered the stage to challenge the Web3 gaming and mobile game esports market alike.
The direction was clear — to build a new category of competitive gaming that can be enjoyed by everyone in short, snackable sessions, to create a title that is fun and immersive for players, and accessible to many as possible, to develop a mobile-first game that is Free-to-Play but also integrates Blockchain technology with the Play-To-Own model. But most importantly, to make a game that will stand the test of time.
This all sounds great, but nonetheless is a challenging feat to achieve, even with such a capable and enthusiastic team. We needed a partner — Avalanche was the perfect fit for us, due to its seamless, customizable, scalable nature. We know we need a highly speedy transaction per second to be able to process the huge amount of users’ transactions.
Over the last months we introduced you to the Shatterlands, the realm scattered into pieces, brimming with as much beauty as they do danger. The lore of Fableborne and the story of how this realm and its four factions came to be, is an integral part of the game, and we want you to uncover the Shatterlands’ secrets next year.
We showed you a peak behind the scenes and talked about how we developed our prototypes and why we decided that the prototype that would become Fableborne had the potential we were looking for. The Build-Test-Kill cycle was our relentless approach over the past few years in our pursuit to find a fun game experience. We were not satisfied with creating clones of other games, we wanted to be agile and empirical when it comes to prototyping. We tested several gameplay modes and finally, we found the right gameplay loop, that was offering the fun experience we were looking for.
In June, we finally unveiled the gameplay, which had been a well-hidden secret thus far, and talked about the vision we have for our game. Fableborn’s core gameplay loop << Build & Upgrade — Raid other Players’ Bases — Get Resources >> is easy to understand, but adds layers of complexity and long-term progression that makes the game difficult but rewarding to master.
One fundamental change from the prototype version of the game to its current state is the impeccable art style of Fableborne. It was a difficult challenge to find the right style for the game and make the transition, but the team worked relentlessly to create a character-focused game with a diverse, interesting roster of Heroes which caters to different playstyles.
We also showed you the first glimpse of our Echoes of Heroes, the playable NFT characters in Fableborne and how we envision giving them gameplay depths and utility, while making sure the game stays accessible, even if you do not want to engage with the Blockchain-side of the game.
And finally, in September we invited you to the first playable demo of the game, the exclusive and time-limited Pre-Alpha Playtest! Over two weekends, a select few were allowed to delve into the Shatterlands. It was the first time, we gave content creators, and players from our community access to our game, while we teamed up with ReadyPlayerDAO, Merit Circle, IndiGG, Promisphere, Metanomy, Coeus Guild, WolvesDAO, and ODA Clan to bring you the Shatterlands Invitational, a competition over a single weekend, where players competed against each other for bragging rights and a generous price pool.
The Pre-Alpha was a huge success, and it was a delight to hear and see how much everyone was enjoying Fableborne. The team was blown away by the overwhelmingly positive feedback,
seeing that almost everyone enjoyed the small content of Fableborne that we chose to showcase reassured that we were on the right tracks to create one of the best mobile experiences and become a new benchmark in the blockchain gaming space.
JOIN AS AT THE TOWNHALL
This year was a wild right, so let’s recap and come together in our new discussion panel format!
Make sure to watch the Fableborne Townhall from December 19th, at 12 PM UTC where we discussed everything we achieved, what we are working on and what we will be revealing in the near future. Don’t miss out on the fun anecdotes and internal chatter!
TRAILBLAZING AHEAD
The team has a lot of plans for 2023, it will be an exciting time to be part of the project. The goal is clear — grow our community to new hights and involve our players much more going forward.
We want you to become part of the project, and the new Fableborne Townhall, which will be held frequently over the next year, is just the beginning. We will be sharing updates on the development of the game much more regularly and keep you in the loop of what’s going on in the team, to get as much feedback from you as possible
Partnerships with the people who align in our vision of building an accessible and competitive web3 game will become key in the strategy going forward, and we will continue to team up with even more guilds and DAOs. We are proud to say that we will be announcing a few very special partners next year, that we cannot unveil just yet, who will help us storm to the forefront of competitive gaming in the web3 space.
The team is working hard to prepare the next playable build and the Alpha Playtest which is targeted for the first half of 2023.
We will talk about it in more detail next year, but we are happy to announce that we will be finally introducing you to the long-awaited builder feature and letting you create your own strongholds with an array of already known and new towers alike. We are not neglecting the raiding experience either, and are currently working on the balance and gameplay patterns of both existing Heroes, Avi and Kiara. We already improved the controls and aiming system based on your feedback from the Pre-Alpha and continue testing new mechanics.
But that’s not all! The third Hero, who will be unveiled in the first half of next year, will also be playable in the next Alpha Playtest, and hopefully will smash your expectations! To spoil some more, our game designers and artists already started on the fourth Hero, and we cannot wait to show them to you.
Next year, we will dive deeper into the upgrade systems for Heroes and other ways to create unique versions of them. Last but not least, counter cycles between Heroes and defense units will become a bigger part of the picture, as we want to improve the tactical component of when to choose a specific Hero over another. There is still a lot more to reveal, but this should be enough of a tease.
To summarise, our core Build-Raid-Upgrade gameplay is coming soon! Some will be able to experience it sooner than others, so stay tuned for a special announcement for our most loyal community members.
… so wen sale? The team is putting a lot of effort to prepare our first Mint, and we are proud to say that it will be something very special. We don’t believe and don’t want to introduce NFTs without any immediate utility and therefore limited value for our community. Previously we announced that our first sale will be focused on the Echoes of Heroes, our playable characters, but after careful consideration, we have decided to go another route to make sure that the first mint gives our community enough benefits right now before the game is launched publicly. This does not mean, Hero NFTs won’t be sold, but they will be sold when it makes sense for you to use them. We hope you are excited as we are about what we have in store for you.
Make sure to subscribe to the newsletter, join our community on our Discord server, and follow us on Telegram and Twitter to stay up to date with Fableborne!
Let’s embark on an exciting journey together, let’s #becomefableborne.
THE FABLEBORNE TEAM
