New Logo!
Hey guys, things are going extremely well! We're making good progress on a lot of fronts and we want to check in with stakeholders to see if the will of the community is behind us in our current plans.
For fun, let's start with this as a new amazing logo created by our Creative Director, @nateaguila!
We have also purchased the green logo from @mrgodsby and have the rights to that too. As part of a whole branding initiative we're planning on rolling this out as the official logo. The Godsby one looks great but it doesn't fit as well with the overall branding that we are going for. That said, it's ours and free for the community to use for promotional purposes.
We're also in the process of updating the design of the entire SteemMonsters.com website to provide a cohesive and fully immersive experience and we're excited to get that rolled out to everyone in the next few weeks. In the meantime, let us know your feedback on the new logo!
End of an Alpha!
We're quickly approaching the end of the Alpha period of the project. September is right around the corner and we're targeting October as the start of the Beta. Our plan is to start the Beta period after either 300k total Alpha booster packs are sold (~200k more than have been sold already) or on October 1st, whichever comes first.
As you know, once the Beta period starts then the Alpha editions of the cards will no longer be purchasable on the site. All packs purchased after the start of the Beta will contain Beta edition cards. We will be adding some type of visual indicator on the cards to easily identify which edition they are from.
That brings us to the question of how to handle combining duplicate cards from different editions. Our goal is to ensure that combining cards to level them up for use in gameplay is not at odds with preserving their potential value as collectibles.
In order to achieve that we propose the following system:
- Alpha and Beta (as well as future edition) cards of the same type may be combined together as normal to create a single card with more XP which will unlock more stats and abilities in the game.
- When viewed through the website each card will show what percent of the card is made up from each edition. For example, if I combine 10 Alpha Fire Beetles with 30 Beta Fire Beetles, the resulting Fire Beetle card will show 25% Alpha and 75% Beta.
- The visual edition indicator shown on the cards will show whichever edition makes up the majority of the card. In the example above it would show the card as Beta edition because it is made up of more Beta cards than Alpha cards. If it is made up of an equal number of cards from one or more edition it will show the earliest edition.
- Most importantly, we will begin to allow un-combining of cards back to their respective editions. In the Fire Beetle example above, this means that you will be able to un-combine the Fire Beetle into two cards - one made up of 10 Alpha Fire Beetles and one made up of 30 Beta Fire Beetles. You will not be able to un-combine any further than this.
- If a card has gained additional XP through gameplay and is un-combined back into its separate editions, that XP will be split up among the un-combined cards based on the percentage they comprised of the original card. Again using the Fire Beetle example, the card made up of 40 Fire Beetles combined will have 80 XP. If another 20 XP is earned through gameplay and the cards are un-combined, then the resulting Alpha card will have 25 XP (20 from the 10 Alpha Fire Beetles combined into it and 5 representing 25% of the additional 20 XP earned) and the resulting Beta card will have 75 XP (60 from the 30 Beta Fire Beetles combined into it and 15 representing 75% of the additional 20 XP earned).
We feel that the above mechanism best achieves the goal of allowing players to combine their cards to use in gameplay while still always having the option of retrieving the cards from a specific edition to sell or trade if desired.
Game Roadmap - What's Coming!
- Fighting is on track for September (though the UI might be a little rough at first!)
- Kickstarter is on track for September (we'll accept crypto too for sure, but the main purpose of this is to attract players from outside the Steem and crypto communities)
- The gameplay mechanics and initial card stats should be available later this month!
Kickstarter - All of September!
Here's a preview of what we're thinking- It's text only for now. Art and video are coming.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/526764488/995767096/edit?ref=pbuild_dashboard#project-preview
We'll also make it available on Fundition and accept crypto with the same rewards available, so don't freak out that we're doing this on Kickstarter. The whole point is to get non-crypto people onto Steem and using it. Can't do that on Steem-centric platforms!
Game Jam - Late August!
This is a heads up that we're going to be running a game jam at the end of August. A game jam is where people get together to make teams to make mini games. We're going to sponsor one with Steem Monsters. Make a runner, an old school rpg, or a card game. We'll choose winning teams and give them up to $1000 worth of stuff! If things look promising we'll figure out a way to collaborate and either pay for some of the development or help you get some marketing going for your game.
Thank you for your continued support!
Steem Monsters Contact Info
Official Account: @steemmonsters
Website: https://steemmonsters.com
Discord: https://discord.gg/CAFJRjY
A Steem Monsters identity design for all channels is great news! This should really push forward branding of it.
The irreversible operation of combining remains like now and i'm fine with it til the point where you make a mistake. I had such situation with trading cards and wished we (i and @nikokafka) could un-combine these cards to immediately see what went wrong. Imagine the following situation:
Un-combining in this situation would be really helpful but i think not necessary if you have the right tools and visualization of combining history on hand. Please take this in consideration. It would be also interesting for collectors to see family tree of combined cards with all buyers, sellers, last ownership for example.. and would be real life saver for such mistakes, which can also happen with wrong pricing a leveled-up card.
Currently it's quite hard do determine the market value of a combined card because you don't know how many cards are inside a combined if you don't know about the level-up-system with number of needed cards in detail. It's also hard for buyers to realize the value of such offered cards, often they remain in the market (my experience with offers), because i guess not many can calculate it or want calculate it.. and missing a steal. It could also be helpful for the market to give an estimate for sellers what their card (e. g. lvl5 rare) is worth with the currently cheapest price for a single cards (x combined cards).
So maybe it's worth a consideration to make un-combining possible to single card level for all cards. Imagine the first card ever created in the game is stucking in a combined card and you cannot extract it and it could worth $1 million for a collector? 😂
Another topic are statistics. There were distorted views regarding the number of owned cards in some statistics because of forgetting counting un-combined cards owned by a collector/player. You can have just 1 cards but in reality you own 379 single cards combined in a max-lvl common. Key numbers could be:
Game Jam looks like building alternative games in the SM universe as i understand right?
Thanks for limiting supply to a definite number of 300k packs or below now and a alpha sign. But i thought the current edition with the individual characters would be not available anymore. What is the reason to distribute them further in beta? I thought of whole new editions and that the alpha cards can be freely traded between collectors and player like now. Is there a certain point when current characters will be stopped completely?
It would be also interesting for collectors to see family tree of combined cards with all buyers, sellers, last ownership for example.. I think this would be a great tool. Maybe there's someone in the community that would be able to create this, and let Steemmonsters focus on making a great game. I would be willing to sponsor someone to create this, donate time, funds, etc..🔥
@steemmonsters, I hope this also includes accessibility improvements. As a visually impaired person and a screen reader user, it's very hard for me to browse the website and know which card is which, because the filter icons and cards are clickable images that can't be interacted from the keyboard and have no text for the screen reader to identify them (at least some alt text with the card's name would be nice). This happens on the "My Collection" page, the "Card Packs" page when opening packs (inability to identify the cards removes most of the excitement of opening a pack and checking what cards are in it), and also the market!
I had suggested a simple fix on this other post's comment, but don't know if it was taken into account or not. This whole struggle even got me into writing a post about how to make clickable objects accessible to screen readers, which might also be useful for understanding the problem and implementing the fixes.
I really hope that the website becomes more accessible, and that battles will be accessible too.
I'm looking forward to this!
Oh wow! such a great update , I really love the new logo by @nateaguila ! love the one by @mrgodsby , I actually created a fire logo from that in toolwhiz photos I will show below, I did a post about it a while back 13 days ago. Im having fun right now collecting cards and still looking for my first elusive gold legendaries ! I have never played these games before , I hope they are not to difficult or complicated, I will see when the time arrives in September , what its all about! great post @steemmonsters !upped and resteemed👾👹👿💕👍
https://steemit.com/steemmonsters/@karenmckersie/5-steem-monster-images-i-created-art-contest-entry
Hey guys it's actually @mrgodby not Godsby! Check him out and show him some love.
What I really like about the @steemmonsters project is that it has a very "rich" and professional look to it... which I believe will help it go very very far. There's nothing here that smells of "made in Bob's basement" (no disrespect to Bob!) and that will carry you forward a LONG way.
It's exciting to see these new developments... and the prospect of what will happen when major exposure outside the Steemit community happens; that's also exciting. And it could just help change the future of Steem, when it really takes off!
And yes, I really dig the new logo!
Strongly agree with this!
Sweet can't wait to battle my monsters!
This all sounds AWESOMMME and I love the new logo :D
Wow what a great logo, congratulations.
nice game and nice logo
So no one is going to ask about the new monsters on the logo?
That is not the droid you're looking for.
I need you to know that this comment sent me off into a land of distraction far, far away...
Looking good!
The new design looks so good!
Logo looks good. Kickstarter link redirects me to https://www.kickstarter.com/#project-preview and doesn't show anything related.
So nice.
Good to know this project is live and running. Both Logos are Great, but I'd like to see a liver font color on the first one. Keep up the good fight. Cheers!
I think the new logo looks great, but it makes me kind of disappointed that I spent time makeing project the uses the original logo. Makes feel like whats the point of haveing a sign with the steem monsters logo if they are just going to replace it. I can also see you are replacing the element symbols which makes it even more irrelevant
wtf this logo is brutallllll, who designed it?
"For fun, let's start with this as a new amazing logo created by our Creative Director, @nateaguila!"
Epic prizes for mini teams eh. Lots of good stuff in this post and the coming of an end of the alpha. @o07 @mattclarke
I'm pumped! Great work everyone!
Congrats, you made the #steemitminute for today!
Click the Image Below to see the Video!
Good plan for alpha and beta combining and un-combining!
So what is the difference between the alpha and beta cards? Will beta booster packs cost more? I bought some packs yesterday and started collecting, but wanted to know what my advantages of buying now is vs buying later is when everything is finished (except for this weeks raffle). Thanks.
Posted using Partiko Android
your first animation pic was well decorated. showing all characteristics of the of the game..
Seems a bit complex, would have been better to just have completely start fresh in next part, imagine 5 different releases; it will just be a mess of different card combined.
The new logo is amazing! Something i imagined like the monsters above the logo, also the element visualization is real game related! 👍👍👍 It is a great improvement in my eyes and comes much closer to the idea of a monster card game, i would immediately prefer this new also very well composed version!
For further improvement, the letters could be more emphasized and more like a real logo design with recognition value, like in the version before -> like a combination of both, but the monster part above the logo is great in my eyes!
Very good info and love the future plans... Keep it up everyone, you are doing fantastic!
This is amazing...lovely
Great read and sounds like it all moving along nicely. Love the new logos and I think I may just have to grab some last minute Alpha pack :) Good luck with september's launch
the idea would be more attractive to play it generate steem or sbd haci it would win to leag of legends or similar games in their theme that offer payments using the chains of blocks
1
Have you thought about changing the artwork a little or even a lot on future editions. I've noticed that other card games do that. Same monster a bit different artwork. Makes those cards even more enticing... to have older versions etc.
2
At first i was a bit skeptical of the combining of editions. However i think this idea of them being combined but seperatable is a very interesting idea. I think there's still room for people to covet a "purebread alpha" for example. At first it seemed like it was just a resistance to uncapping the value potential of the original cards and keeping a ceiling on the value of cards. But I can see that perhaps the alpha cards may still have a somewhat uncapped ceiling to their cards. Obviously not like if they were required to be combined with other alphas. But I can see some reasons behind it and I think they're valid. However my question is what were the Developers reasons? I wonder if they're the same I was thinking
3
Kickstarter link doesn't seem to work for me
And I'm looking forward to learning more about it and seeing a great influx of new users.
Looking forward to it being all over game play traditional and online media, good PR releases and on crypto sites as well.
4
Thanks for setting a goal and date for the end of alpha
The Kickstarter link isn't working. Is this your own preview link or the one Kickstarter provides to share with others? Usually it's a much shorter link too.
THings are looking good by the way :D Logo looks nice.