MIP-3 - Development of Eldritch Arena for the Mythos Ecosystem

[pirovano]

Presented to the Mythos DAO by

Ryan Waller
Chairman of the Board

Forthright Entertainment
Skype ID: rwaller211
Mobile: 628-400-7279
Ryan.Waller@Forthrightentertainment.com

Click the button below to view the Game Development Document.

SUMMARY

Eldritch Arena is an eight-player competitive auto-battler card game mixing elements of strategy, RNG, and card interactions inspired by Hearthstone Battlegrounds; all themed in various horror mythos.

Each round, players call creatures from the void and strategically position them throughout an arcane circle in preparation for combat. Combat then carries out automatically.

The cycle repeats until players whittled down until one player remains. The remaining player must then choose whether to settle for victory over their Earthly opponents or wager the spoils of war in a fight against Cthulu’s champion; an ancient being ripped from the pages of H.P. Lovecraft.

For most players, the closest frame of reference to this game is Hearthstone Battlegrounds.

Eldritch Arena differs from Blizzard’s battler in a few key ways:

• It Was a Graveyard Smash: Eldritch Arena pits history’s greatest earthly horrors against cosmic horror’s from Lovecraftian fiction.

• Facing the Champion: the last player standing in each match can wager their winnings in a battle with Cthulhu’s champion. Competitive players may adjust their strategy, reserving stronger creatures in anticipation of facing the champion.

• The Void Stares Back: the creatures of Hearthstone Battlegrounds are assigned to a tier, growing progressively stronger. In Eldritch Arena, staring deeper into the void to summon stronger creatures incurs a cost in the form of a player’s sanity. A player’s sanity score equals the sum of creatures’ void tiers.

Forthright Entertainment is seeking $400,00 to launch Eldritch Arena on iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, and Linux (with potential expansion to consoles) by as early as the end of Q4, 2023; an ambitious feat made possible through its proprietary tools for ethical AI-assisted content production.

BACKGROUND

Based in Knoxville, Tennessee, Forthright Entertainment is a game publisher whose executive leadership team has more than 125 years of AAA gaming leadership experience and who have grossed over 2.4B in their careers.

Forthright has shipped over 75 mobile, PC, and console games. Forthright is developing proprietary tools for AI-assisted production in partnership with Vector AI. The publisher also draws from a talent pool rich in experience with Web3 gaming.

Marketing for Eldritch Arena will be spearheaded by Lee Kirton as part of a broader partnership with 4media Group; a world-class marketing and communications firm. Lee is an alumnus of industry leaders such as Bandai Namco, Atari, Infogrames, and GT Interactive. His track record of success as a marketer in the gaming industry includes contributing to the launch of Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Tekken 7, and Dark Souls III.

OBJECTIVE

The objective is to add an immediately-playable, sustainably-profitable addition to Mythical’s ecosystem while enhancing an AI-assisted content pipeline throughout each 90-day competitive season.

MONETIZATION

In terms of monetization, the game follows a freemium model. The base game is free.

The following items will be purchasable via fiat currency:

• Battle Passes: players may choose to purchase battle passes for seasonal competitive play, granting them access to a limited-time unlockable hero, two additional hero options at the start of each match, and other exclusive perks.

• Oracle Pacts: players are shown the best moves they can make during the Preparation Phase. This does not guarantee the player’s victory in that round. Use of a pact is recorded in a player’s stats. Player’s may choose to disable this feature and be matched with opponents who’ve done the same.

Wins in which a pact was made at any point throughout the match are denoted on leaderboards. Players may choose to disable this function in the settings. The number of oracular pacts per game is shown in players’ profiles.

The following items will be purchasable from the Mythical Market:

• Hero Enhancements: players can purchase vanity upgrades to their favorite heroes, swapping their outfits, vocalizations, backdrops, and more.

• Collector’s Edition Battle Passes: players may choose to purchase “Collector’s Edition” passes for seasonal competitive play which feature exclusive vanity upgrades. Collector’s Edition battle passes will also record a player’s performance statistics at the end of each competitive season.

Collector’s Edition passes will also serve as the only means of recording and accessing a subset of players’ stats, unlocking exclusive columns on all official Eldritch Arena leaderboards.

TEAM

Ryan Waller

Founder & Chairperson

Ryan Waller has been an entrepreneur in game publishing for over 15 years, driving development and publishing for over 75 titles across PC, mobile, and consoles. He is actively involved in the application of the franchise structures and marketing disciplines of mainstream sports leagues to the esports sector.

Ken Rosman

Chief Executive Officer

Ken has over 20 years in the interactive games industry, shipping over 25 titles across platforms. He previously ran Radical Entertainment for Activision-Blizzard. Key titles include Neverwinter Nights, Sunset Overdrive, Quantum Break, Prototype 2, Empire Earth, F.E.A.R and SWAT.

Scot Bayless

Director of Growth

Scot has been a technical and creative leader for 30 years, producing hit games at Sega, Microsoft, EA and Capcom. He has collaborated with Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Kathleen Kennedy and others.

Troy Dunniway

Director of Product

Troy is a 25-year industry veteran with experience at major studios including Microsoft, EA, UBISOFT, Disney. He has overseen the design and development of over 100 AAA games on every major platform. Troy spent 10 years growing a 300-person team building PC client F2P MMORPGs and F2P mobile games for the Chinese market.

CORPORATE PARTNERSHIPS

Gaming Technology

Influencer Platform

Global Game Hosting

Talent Sourcing

SPECIFICATION

The project, its development, the use case, features, and changes being proposed are addressed in the Game Design Document.

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

See Section 1 of the Game Development Document.

Forthright Entertainment is passionately committed to showcasing the unique advantages of Web3 integration in elevating player engagement and immersion. At launch, this will be achieved to the greatest effect via Collector’s Edition Battle Passes which serve as the exclusive means of documenting a subset of players’ performance metrics each season. The team is excited to explore new avenues for the creation of unique value through thoughtful integration of Web3 technologies in future releases.

COST

See Section 8 of the Game Development Document.

[Blueblood]

• Are there any plans to integrate MYTH into the game economy of Eldritch?

• Would the Collector’s Edition Battle Passes be tradeable as NFTs since they are on the Mythical Market?

• What can players can earn from playing that would lead to a sustainable game economy?

[pirovano]

Hey Blueblood! Thanks for the questions!

Are there any plans to integrate MYTH into the game economy of Eldritch?

Yes! The GDD currently lists two ways in which the game would allow players to spend MYTH.

• Hero Enhancements: players can purchase vanity upgrades to their favorite heroes, swapping their outfits, vocalizations, backdrops, and more.
• Collector’s Edition Battle Passes: players may choose to purchase “Collector’s Edition” passes for seasonal competitive play which feature exclusive vanity upgrades. Collector’s Edition Battle Passes will also record a player’s performance statistics at the end of each competitive season. Collector’s Edition passes will also serve as the only means of recording and accessing a subset of players’ stats, unlocking exclusive columns on all official Eldritch Arena leaderboards.

Would the Collector’s Edition Battle Passes be tradeable as NFTs since they are on the Mythical Market?

That’s a good question. I suppose they would be, but it would be tantamount to buying someone else’s VIP lanyard to Coachella 2006. You could, but why would you?

Still, I think I can speak for the team when I say we want something that promotes interaction between players on the Mythical Marketplace. That would most likely be the trading of heroes earned or acquired throughout the course of the competitive season.

I believe the best action in this case would be to make the heroes acquirable or tradeable on the NFT marketplace. I think offering them via fiat currency is still a good idea to promote the game to a wider audience.

I also think there needs to be a way to upgrade the heroes in some way such that it creates intrinsic value to the owners. We want players to grow with their NFTs and form memories around them to give more weight to trading them away.

What can players can earn from playing that would lead to a sustainable game economy?

Players can earn craft points which determine their competitive ranking. Players who want to invest in getting good at the game can purchase Collector’s Edition Battle Passes to view and an exclusive subset of stats and record those stats on the leaderboard for that competitive season. If we allow players to purchase new heroes each season and upgrade or customize their hero portraits/vocalizations/card effects, this should create demand for buying and selling those heroes on the NFT marketplace.

Let me know what you think. I’d love to use the community’s input to further polish the game design.

[gamestx]

I think the main question here is 1) Is this something for the existing community or 2) Is this something to attract new audience?

It could work for 1) but I just don’t think another TCG is going to be very attractive for 2) given the larger number of high quality existing products – Gods Unchained, Skyweaver, Splinterlands etc.

I’d also argue $400k is a large outlay for 1) but not enough for 2)

Either way, the payment should be phased on milestones with a max of $100k for the release of an Alpha build so people can decide whether they think this is of sufficient quality to discuss the remainder (or more) funding.

[pirovano]

Relaying a response on behalf of the team.

The reason we’re creating Eldritch Arena is due to the amazing Battlegrounds game mode in Hearthstone. We amped it up (HS is too slow for us, tbh) and attached a Lovecraftian theme. So would this game be one that can survive and differentiate itself amongst all the other BCG games out there? Absolutely!

Would this attract new players? Yes, definitely.

We are targeting the gameplay for mainstream traditional BCG players; not Web3 players. We don’t push blockchain in front of the players, and don’t make it a key aspect of the game. By targeting the mainstream players, we grow the Mythos Ecosystem instead of stealing players from another Web3 game.

This game is all about content development. And content requires funding to build. The team is extremely experienced in optimized game development–we are making complete use of the funds allocated to make an amazing BCG that will engage and delight players for years to come.

Regarding your milestone payment plan–by limiting the initial funding to $100k, that limits what content can be developed, making the game smaller in scope and less appealing. I would argue that $250k is required to get to alpha with the necessary content and marketing exposure, so the community can play and evaluate it. Then the remaining $150k would be for game polish, scalability and marketing efforts.

[gamestx]

Thanks

Can you be more specific about how Eldritch Arena would differentiate itself from these other projects? Obviously, it has a different art theme but in terms of gameplay and mechanics?

My general feeling is TCG is a genre that developers like to make games in because it’s relatively easy to build and cheap in respect to art costs. However I don’t see any mass market for such games. I see a large niche audience for Hearthstone and Magic but I don’t see any movement of that fanbase to other games. Even the best developers fail at this - Valve & Artifact.

Of course, Eldritch Arena might the exception that proves the rule but I think $250,000 is quite a lot to invest to find out whether or not that is the case.

[Blueblood]

Mythos also has another TCG releasing in 2023 named Epic Spell Wars: Magic Fight that could take a lot of the attention on already niche audience.

[gamestx]

Is Epic Spell Wars: Magic Fight still in development? Mythical has been very quiet about it recently.

[Blueblood]

It should be, I dont think anything has changed there.

[pirovano]

Can you be more specific about how Eldritch Arena would differentiate itself from these other projects?

I’ve had a lot of people message me saying they love the madness mechanic (which is unique to the game). Calling stronger creatures from the void increases the risk that the player will trigger a random “chaos event” (which, in most cases, means taking damage or incurring a penalty).

One thing I know we want to lean into is the “battle within the battle” taking place within the minds of each player; that feeling of trying to read the other player and anticipate their thoughts three moves in advance. The madness mechanic cultivates a brinkmanship between players which evolves with each round of combat.

Another way we might play with the “battle within the battle” idea is by introducing a bluffing element for creatures known for shapeshifting, impersonation, or otherwise getting inside their victim’s heads. I’d love to see the team incorporate multiple meta-games/mind games, as each will add a layer of depth and nuance for competitive players.

Eldritch Arena also sets itself apart from the competition by giving the winner of each match the chance to wager their winnings in a final battle with a Lovecraftian horror in “Cthulhu’s champion”. Competitive players may choose to conserve their resources and gamble on playing a weaker hand in the final rounds in anticipation of fighting the champion.

Players’ performance statistics for each season are tied to their battle pass. Only those who own Collector’s Edition Battle Passes will have their stats recorded at the end of each competitive season. A subset of stats can only be accessed by those who own a pass. This creates exclusivity on the leaderboard itself. This will be an important purchase for players who aspire to compete professionally or grow an audience on Twitch by streaming the game, but it also does more to foster a dialog around comparing players.

A study published in the Proceedings of SBGames 2018 found that 46.3% of the players responded that they like a moderate level of randomness “used to insert un-predictability, but not in a decisive way…players want their skills to be acknowledged as a key factor for winning matches”. The madness mechanic is a perfect application of that concept of measured uncertainty. I’m really interested to see how players navigate the risk/reward there. The battle with Cthulhu’s champion and exclusivity in the reporting of performance statistics puts a lot more weight on the acknowledgement of skills.

A survey of 107 Cardfight!! Vanguard players found 96% had experience trading cards with other players before. Launching the game in Mythical’s ecosystem allows us to recapture some of the excitement of trading and comparing physical playing cards in a virtual space; something which, to my knowledge, no popular digital card game has successfully leveraged. It’s exciting to find a rare card in a loot box. But the feeling of pure awe and wonder we felt huddling around a holographic Charzard at recess was a special shared experience that Web3 can easily revive. There’s a lot we can do to reinforce that feeling in the UX like only allowing players to show and trade their cards with people they’ve individually added as “friends”.

Regarding the card battler market…

In a 2018 interview with GamesBeat, SuperData Research analyst Carter Rogers said ”Collectible card games have been tremendously popular for a long time, and in its transition to digital has managed to reach a massive audience…the persistent rollout of add-ons and expansions cultivates a loyal following and, subsequently, higher earnings.”

A 2021 meta-analysis from Sensor Tower found the strategy genre had the highest revenue per download in the US and that card battlers grew fastest within that genre by a lot. Card battler revenue grew 17% and 23% Q/Q in Q1 and Q2 of 2021.

The RPD of the Card Battler sub-genre was $17 in the US, a figure close to double the $9 worldwide average.

Strategy is ranked as the #2 genre by player spending; bigger than the “shooter”, “action”, and “sports & racing genres” genres combined. Strategy was also the second largest genre by downloads. Card battlers accounted for 5% of player spending within the genre and 6% of overall downloads.

Based on the data I’ve seen so far, two factors have a massive impact on a card battler’s success:

• Availability on multiple platforms.
  • With funding from the MIP, Eldritch Arena would launch on iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, and Linux between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024 with potential expansion to consoles. How many midcore games can launch on that many platforms in that time frame on a $400,000 budget?
• Translation/localization for Chinese and Japanese markets.
  • China, Japan, and the US account for over 70% of player spending in the “card battler” sub-genre.
  • Forthright Entertainment is fortunate enough to draw upon powerhouse talent in both marketing and APAC-region growth. The $250,000 proposed for marketing couldn’t be in better hands (seriously…they’ve basically got the Justice League on standby; it blows my mind).

[pirovano]

Links to the Cardfight study and the VentureBeat/GamesBeat interview are below for anyone interested (we’re only allowed to include two links per comment).

• http://eprints.utar.edu.my/2628/1/FYP_FORMATTED_DOCUMENT_FOR_HARD_COVER_FINAL_V2.pdf

Hearthstone leads digital card games as they become ‘a dominant category,’...

[gamestx]

Do you have anything playable atm, which would give us a taster for this “battle within the battle”?

More generally, at what level of audience do you think this game would count as a success? As an example, Splinterlands currently has an MAU of 125,000 wallets?

[pirovano]

Response to this coming soon.

[slinger]

Actively under SC Review. Looking forward to sharing updates soon!