PixelVault to Launch ‘BattlePlan!’: A Strategic Auto-Brawler with On-Chain Rewards

PixelVault, makers of Punks Comic and The Inhabitants Universe, will be releasing their long-awaited game, “BattlePlan!”—in the next few weeks, after an ongoing, well-attended play-testing phase that began in October.

PixelVault calls the Arbitrum Nova-based game, which features the core heroes of its universe and is drawn in its instantly recognizable classic comic book style, a “chaotic and addictive superpowered auto-brawler.” Despite the automated nature of its battles, the game takes some strategic know-how: you’ll need to customize your fighter by loading it with a set of “skills” that give it an edge when battling a particular opponent.

BattlePlan! puts as much as possible on-chain, powered by technology provided by blockchain gaming framework Reboot: processes ranging from the random number generation that determines the outcome of a battle to player ranking and matching, and even anti-cheating measures are executed on-chain—and are publicly verifiable.

The game, which will be playable by anyone—even if they don’t hold a PixelVault NFT—has enjoyed a successful playtesting period, in which beta testers from PixelVault, Wolf Game, and other communities have had the chance to try it out—without the rewards that will be on offer after launch.

“The community has come out in overwhelming support of the game and PV. We’ve had sort of a rocky year in terms of sentiment, but when it was clear the game was fun, and we were delivering a no-bullshit serious product, they dove in head first,” Aaron St John, PixelVault’s VP of Blockchain Gaming and Tokenomics, told nft now. “Typically, a playtest involves a few people playing the game a couple of times and filling out a form, and answering this question. For the Battleplan playtest, almost unilaterally, anyone who has played it has started playing it on an ongoing basis. We’ve seen some ‘testers’ put in over 15 hours a week playing the game, and on average, our ‘testers’ are putting in 2 hours A DAY,” he said.

Statistics from PixelVault give credence to the game’s “addictive” nature, according to Chris Beavon, PixelVault’s Director of Marketing. “So far, in two months of closed playtesting, we’ve had over 500 playtesters and clocked over 500,000 transactions on Arbitrum Nova,” he said in an interview.

Besides the game being fun, according to testers, its use of the Reboot system means that on-chain game data is available to anyone, so stats-crunchers can optimize how they play. “What sets BattlePlan! Apart for me is its use of the novel Reboot protocol, which provides dynamic skill-based player matchmaking. This ensures games will be provably fair and is important when the game and prizes for players go live. Since the data is all on-chain, we’ve already seen community-built tools during playtesting to leverage this data in a way the community can easily digest it,” one committed playtester told us.

When the game opens its doors to the public in a few weeks, rewards will go live—and there will be some big ones, says Beavon—redeemable for “tickets” that players receive by winning their fights. With an economy governed by Reboot’s GG token, successful players will be able to earn rewards like rare in-game items, rare NFTs, and other prizes that will be revealed at launch. The prize shop’s prices will be determined algorithmically to reflect market demand, opening up arbitrage opportunities for canny traders.

If you can’t wait to get into the game, the playtest is still open for PixelVault holders and a few other communities—join the PixelVault discord to get set up.