Hey y’all!
Things are moving fast in the SnookVerse and we have a bunch of announcements. Here’s the TL;DR:
We’re running a 2nd Beta on August 1st from 13:00 to 15:00 CET.
In order to participate
- Join our community (Discord & Twitter)
- Make sure you have Metamask installed in your browser
- Claim MATIC testnet from the faucet, and be present on the 1st of August at 13:00 pm CET in our discord
- Claim SKILL testnet from our SKILL Faucet
- On the 1st August 13:00 pm CET, we will publish the Snook beta URL near the opening of the beta.
- Oh, you can also watch it live here ~~~~~~~;)>
* NOTE: if you participated in the previous beta, you still need to claim SKILL testnet tokens from the faucet that we will publish, since we have deployed new contracts!
Below is a summary of the feedback from the 1st Beta (EU & Asia)
For Snook Noobs
For those of you that never heard of Snook, here’s the nutshell:
Snook is a snake-like IO game (for more about the game see the Snook website and whitepaper) that uses NFT to allow players to “buttle” their in-game achievements and monetize them. That’s huge! It ties rarity and value with effort, talent, and skill. The NFT market badly needs economically robust projects like Snook. Having privately raised $1.65M USD so far, Snook is scheduled to launch in early August.
Feedback from the 1st Beta (both the EU and Asia events)
Before we dive in — here are some quotes from the Beta testers (see if you can find yours):
“me and my Vietnamese friends are very excited about snook” / “game play very good” / “The game is really awesome” / “Really refreshing to see that level of polish for a blockchain game” / “The game is cool and fun!” / “Very good gaming experience” / “Thank you to the devs who developed the game.” / “I love this game” / “Fantastic project” / “Got my heartbeat up” / “Worked nicely. No bugs.” / “Looks super!” / “This game is so amazing” / “The snook movements were smooth” / “The smart contract flow is so good”
We reviewed all the feedback the Beta participants provided and here are the key takeaways (mostly things that were reasonable, doable and repeated):
Stuff you asked for
- Basic “How to” — Despite our “You’re smart, you’ll figure it out” approach, many asked for basic tutorials, or an intro screen with the basic gameplay “mechanics”, to help noobs orient themselves. It’s not that our core community is made out of noobs. We found out that a few people invited friends for a “Beta Party” and some of them were new to this world.
We’re on it ~~:)>
- Keyboard functionality — So that you can use the keyboard to control your snook.
Snook team: Sure thing — soon ~~:)>
- Name the snook — so you’ll know who’s in front of you.
Snook team: Hmmm… we’ll consider it ~~:)>
- Player’s ranking — Add the player’s position to the leaderboard, even if she isn’t in top 10
- The minimap — Add a minimap that will show: 1) the player’s position (but not that of other players) and 2) deaths and traits drops.
Snook team: Makes sense — soon ~~:)>
- In-game HUD statistics — such as: My snook’s length / growth rate / number of kills / number of traits collected / number of traits dropped during the player’s session, total number of players, etc.
Snook team: Makes sense — soon ~~:)>
- Extraction statistics — How many traits you collected / what was the play time / How many snooks you killed
Snook team: Makes sense — soon ~~:)>
- Collisions / Know your killer — Upon death, on the death screen, add the name of the player who killed you and how she did it (e.g., you hit X here).
Snook team: Makes sense — soon ~~:)>
- It’s the Girth :) — Currently there’s a length limitation for the snook. As is it makes the eating of orbs redundant once you reach maximum length.
Snook team: Makes sense — we might also decide to limit the girth ~~:)>
- Make growth rate nonlinear — When eating them, make smaller snooks grow faster (just like human babies). When losing them while accelerating make the large snooks lose at a higher rate (just like capitalism).
Snook team: Yup — soon ~~:)>
- Not “bugs” — technical things that affected the game experience *Rendering issues — mostly in small non-desktop screens
Snook team: We’re on it ~~:)>
- Gameplay — some of you didn’t know about some fundamental gameplay characteristics (that are, in our view, essential for the game). For example, if your snook dies in the game, it’s dead and you cannot use it again.
Snook team: We will introduce a Resurrection functionality soon, that will allow you to unlock it, for a price (paid in $SKILL and in losing a trait). The price is designed to prevent this from being the default. The game rationale is a “kill or be killed” and the adrenalin that comes from this high risk element in the game. If your snook die, it’s dead. Suck? Play better! ~~:)>
- Server selection — gaming experience is heavily influenced by location and playing from a sub-optimal server may lead to latency issues and lagging.
Snook team: We’re looking into adding a “select server” dialog box w/ ping option ~~:)>
- Loss of snook due to 3rd party infrastructure/network issue — Players may lose their snook due to connectivity issues.
Snook team: That’s not very common but it sucks! We’re looking into it ~~:)>
Matters of taste and expediency
- Graphics — Some asked for a better G/UI. It’s both a matter of personal preference and, truth be told, time and focus (expediency). For now we are laser-focused on getting the game ready for the launch and prefer to de-prioritize the frills and design tasks. Graphics will look better. We promise.
Stuff we should improve
- Size and Agility — embed a dependency between the snook’s size and its “kinetics” — how fast it moves and turns and the turning radius.
Snook team: Makes sense — soon ~~:)>
- Tweak the random assignment of the 1st trait function — Some of you said that it didn’t feel random.
Snook team: We checking it to make sure ~~:)>
- Tweak the Trait Drop probability — there were some issues with the “Trait Drop probability”, i.e., too few of the snooks that died left their traits on the game-map.
Snook team: We’re looking into that to see if it’s a bug or a design flaw — we’ll keep you posted ~~:)>
- Extraction points fade-in/out — Give 2–3 seconds for the EP to appear and disappear.
Snook team: Makes sense — soon ~~:)>
- Blockchain issues — We did encounter several blockchain transaction issues that need to be resolved (for example locking a snook that should not be locked, or wallet issues that do not prompt or that prompt in a way the user can easily miss, leading to long waiting times). Some of these issues we can affect and some less.
Snook team: We’re on it ~~:)>
Always at your service,
The Snook Team.
~~~~~~~~:)
