How Basic Beasts uses the Filecoin Network To Design the Next Generation of Decentralized Gaming
Jul 31, 2023
Basic Beasts and the Filecoin Network: Designing the Next Generation of P2E Gaming
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which emerged a decade ago, gained global attention in 2020, spurred by the pandemic-accelerated digital shift. NFTs have revolutionized art collection by providing creators unique ways to engage audiences and monetize their work. Their non-fungibility ensures each piece is unique and irreplaceable, akin to original artworks.
Although NFTs are often associated with digital art, their application extends to metaverse worlds and play-to-earn (P2E) games where users can collect, trade, and interact with unique digital assets. However, the P2E gaming industry faces challenges due to limited NFT usefulness, affecting user engagement.
That’s where Basic Beasts enters the picture. Created by 10-year-old gamer beastkid21 and his brother, bz, who took their inspiration from the popularity of beloved classics like Pokémon and Tamagotchi, Basic Beasts aims to bring fun back to gaming while enabling players to profit from their participation. When players take ownership of a beast and join the community, they have a say in the future direction of the game. With a community of more than 4,500 Discord members, 3,000 Twitter followers, and 700 NFT holders, plus collaborations with Flowverse, Emerald City, and Flow, Basic Beasts is made by gamers for gamers.
Frustration Breeds Creativity
Tired of playing P2E games focused primarily on profit, leaving the community inundated with low-quality cookie-cutter NFTs that offer limited gameplay or collectible value, Basic Beasts introduced a game that is enjoyable to play, encourages community involvement and introduces more people to the magic of blockchain and NFTs. P2E gaming enthusiasts worldwide have been clamoring for a game that combines profitability and genuine engagement, where NFTs hold unique value and players’ choices directly impact the game.
How is this possible? The evolution mechanic of the game directly affects the scarcity of the beasts, and interactions through breeding and trading contribute to a player’s collector score. Basic Beasts employs an iterative development process that includes monthly product drops to grow the user base, gather feedback, and refine the game, keeping players engaged.
Basic Beasts has been a labor of love for its creators and the entire team, which includes a front-end/blockchain developer, community lead, and a graphic designer. Designing a game that introduces a fresh gameplay perspective while remaining familiar and engaging to players of all ages comes with challenges that the team has focused closely on overcoming. To strike the right balance between novel gameplay mechanics and familiar features, Basic Beasts conducted extensive market research and tested multiple iterations with its target audience, using their feedback to create an innovative, intuitive gameplay experience. The vast knowledge of the team, specifically those with a blockchain development background, was crucial in properly integrating blockchain technology and NFTs. The hard work paid off, as Basic Beasts won the Mercury Hackathon, the Hyperhack, and the Flow Hackathon 2023, validating the concept and providing valuable resources and greater public exposure.
Basic Beasts Meets Filecoin
Basic Beasts uses Interplanetary File System (IPFS) through pinata.cloud to host its NFTs. The decentralized nature of IPFS ensures players’ security, reliability, permanency, and efficiency when storing their unique beasts’ images and videos. Thanks to a Filecoin Developer Grant, Basic Beasts was able to bring on experienced, talented developers and graphic designers, significantly expediting development. Filecoin’s support was crucial to implementing the game’s core features, including the NFT management system, scoring system, marketplace, evolution, and breeding mechanisms.
By building on open-source code and IPFS for storage, Basic Beasts is designing a blueprint for future developers and projects in the Filecoin ecosystem and showcasing the vast potential of IPFS and the Filecoin network in a web3 game environment. The result has been overwhelmingly positive, with gamers praising the unique combination of NFT and gaming mechanics and expressing excitement about the marketplace, and the beast breeding feature, inspired by CryptoKitties and Axie Infinity.
What’s Next?
The long-term vision of Basic Beasts is growth beyond being a collectibles game to become a gateway to a world of greater opportunities in the Web3 space. The game will serve as a medium to onboard people from Web2 to Web3 and foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of NFTs and blockchain technology. In the next six to twelve months, the Basic Beasts universe will continue to evolve with new features, including expanding into an interoperable metaverse and developing a battle simulator game. New features offer users more ways to interact with their NFTs, creating an even more immersive and engaging experience. Another major checkpoint will be expanding the team to speed up the implementation of core features and boost user adoption.
As the Basic Beasts universe expands, so will their use of the Filecoin network as additional data storage and retrieval needs arise. Users can join the Discord community and follow along on Twitter for updates on progress and upcoming features. Additionally, developers interested in contributing to the open-source code can visit the Basic Beasts GitHub repository.