The Fundamental Bits

Get an inside look at what the BitGuild Design Studio has been working on.

What’s up, Guildmates!

Jason here, the Product and Design Guy at the BitGuild Game Studio. Welcome to the first edition of what will be a series of posts keeping you connected with the inner workings of the BitGuild game development team. I’d like to give a little snippet of what we’ve got in the works for you currently.

A New Perspective in Mind

Many will argue that the foundations of a game’s design rely on the cohesive marriage of its mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics. Before we start mixing and matching the three, let’s take a look at some things to keep in mind:

We’re building a portal, and so, we need an original IP that will cater to anything that might end up pouring out of the minds of adventurous blockchain game developers. Gaming on the blockchain is an exciting new world with an ever-changing landscape. Audiences continue to grow daily, and show no signs of slowing down. We need a healthy anchor to the portal, something that will provide our players with a sense of ownership that’s deeper than a username or a picture from a list of pre-approved images. We know that the industry is racing to get more advanced blockchain games out there. As such, scalability of this feature and how it links to the BitGuild Portal will be a key factor for success.

To cater to #3, we need a system that allows our users to create, and fully customize their own character in a similar way to what a player might see in a traditional RPG. The main difference is that each item a player acquires has inherent value on the BitGuild Portal, meaning choices are more personal and impactful than ever as players choose, trade, buy, and sell items from the always increasing number of available tokens.

Our Bitizen is born.

Not only will our first game be based on this avatar; the Bitizen represents you in the BitGuild world and will be linking many of the games on our portal. So now, we need a place to put our character in. Step by step, these avatars will come to reside in a fully fleshed out world, complete with locations, social features, and other goodies that will keep players engaged with the BitGuild Portal beyond the confines of their chosen cryptogames.

Welcome to the world of BitGuild, Mr. Bitizen.

Instilling our players with tangible rewards, a sense of investment, and full ownership opportunities are exciting emotional aesthetics to work with. Designing this effectively alongside the game’s mechanics will make for a robust and compelling in-game ecosystem. We want players to feel the same kind of connection with their Bitizen as players might feel for their in-game character after playing hundreds of hours of something like World of Warcraft. The difference is, this avatar exists alongside all titles on the BitGuild Portal, offering players an attractive and personal link to the platform, even in-between games.

To augment these aesthetics, it’s important for the general visual style to reflect what our game is all about. We’ve included a few concepts below to give you guys an idea of what we’re going for.

The Rise of the Bitizen

Our talented Art Director, Williana, has been putting together some great concept sketches that ultimately led us to a visual style we feel will have cohesion, and look great with a wide array of clothing items and accessories, including ones that haven’t even been conceived of at this stage. It’s important for the chosen style to be able to complement an ever growing range of items and themes.

In order to do justice to our portal residents, we’re continuing to work on building a user interface that’s both functional and familiar. The image below is an early look at the Bitizen creation screen, and while is strictly a work in progress, it does represent the general direction we’re headed.

Design your very own Bitizen…

…and customize it to your heart’s content!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this little preview of our launch title. Next time, we’ll take a first look at the extensive content available to your Bitizen. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, remember to check out the BitGuild publication on Medium, our Twitter feed, Facebook page, as well as our Discord server— We’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions!

— Jason Millena, Head of Product & Design at BitGuild