Hi everyone,

Today’s community update is the last of the year and we take a look at what’s happened this year and the plan for the new year.

Augmentors Token Sale

Augmentors raised $1 million USD (895 BTC) during the 30-day token sale, which ended in February 2017. At the time, it was the most successful token sale ever conducted by a mobile video game project and it was also the first token sale conducted in South Africa.

We created 100 million Databits in total for fundraising and the exchange for 1 Bitcoin (BTC) was 15 000 Databits (DTB). 23 million (22,747,809) Databits were issued during the token sale and the remaining 77 million (77,252,191) were burnt.

Of the 22,747,809 Databits issued, 70% was utilised in the token sale crowdfunding campaign and the remaining 30% will be used to fund the development of the game, to create awareness and for promotion.

For the token sale, 25 of the 50 total creatures were allocated and are never to be re-released.

1st Pre-Alpha

In June, Augmentors held their first Pre-Alpha with a small closed community. Although it was very well received it did raise a number of large issues that forced the team to go back to the drawing board.

The main problem with the turn based dice mechanic was that players would spend a lot of time waiting for the other player which slowed down the game. The mechanic also meant that it was difficult to add a lot of depth to the game, as the strategic options were limited.

After many iterations the team changed direction to the strategic real time game mechanic in place now.

Databits Economy Design 2.0 — Whitepaper

In November, Augmentors published the Databits economy design 2.0 and hosted a live webinar on November 23 to talk through the whitepaper and answer community questions. You can still watch the recording here.

The primary aim of Databits economy design 2.0 is to align the interest of the Augmentors business, the backers, the players and all other participants in the network.

Early Backer Alpha

The main focus of the Early Backer Alpha was to test the strategic real time game mechanic.

Thanks to all the positive feedback, it is good to know that team is on the right track. We also received some very valuable critical feedback, and we have made sure to incorporate this feedback in our planning for next year.

A number of key themes emerged from the feedback. Some of the themes are mentioned below, and luckily none of them are critical and won’t affect our timelines in a significant way.

Matchmaking issues

We picked up issues when people from remote parts of the world connected. Most of the issues were solved during the course of the Alpha luckily, as the team could identify the issues as they happened.

Something that became apparent was the importance of challenging specific people in your friends list, a feature that is already on our backlog.

Augmented Reality

Finding a suitable playing surface was sometimes very difficult (or not convenient).

Depending on a number of factors such as the amount of light available, it would sometimes be very difficult for the mobile phone to pick up a surface necessary for AR to work. As a multiplayer game, this also meant that players would often wait for their opponent to finish finding a surface before the match could start. The team will look at ways to streamline this process, and will also add a non-AR mode for those times when it just not an option to use AR (playing on a train or taxi, or just whilst lying on the couch).

Training/Tutorials

For a number of players the learning curve was a little too steep, making a tutorial very imporant. This has always been on the roadmap, but the feedback has given us insight into the training required to ensure players of all levels can enjoy the game. In addition, some of the spell information was not available on the cards (such as spell duration).

User Experience

“The focus should be on the creatures”

One thing was clear, everybody is excited about how the creatures look. The opinion was divided when it came to other elements in the game such as the platforms they were on, and some of the 2D UI on the screen. Rest assured we are taking your feedback on board, and am already excited about what we will be able to do before the next Alpha.

Roadmap

It has been a busy year, and we are happy that we are still tracking well against our original timeline.

In the 1st quarter of next year you can look forward to the following two events:

Creature swap : this is where you will be able to swap your creature tokens for the actual creatures.

: this is where you will be able to swap your creature tokens for the actual creatures. Databit holder alpha release: Our next Alpha will be open to a much larger community, and we will have most of the gameplay elements in the game.

Some of the gameplay features you can expect

A deck builder, which will let players customize what spells their characters have.

Potions and relics, which will give players extra items to use in game.

Character experience and levelling up of creatures.

Social mode, where players can challenge friends.

Booster packs with spells and items.

Auction house for trading.

Blockchain integration

We look forward to sharing the next phase of the game with you in Q1 2018 and wish you all a very happy festive season!

As always, #KeepBattling!