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Game Analysis: Illuvium

Date

16 Feb 2023

Author

shese

Read Time

10 min read

Game Analysis: Illuvium

Highlights


● Illuvium is a free-to-play open-world RPG NFT game built on Immutable X. Players will need to assemble their team to capture Illuvials, which can be further used to battle in the arena, or traded on Illuvium's marketplace (IlluviaDex). Its Private Beta 1 has closed to 7,000 players in total.


● Assembling the Illuvial team is one of the most important aspects of Illuvium's gameplay. Illuvials are high-quality 3D art, designed to be addictively collectible. 100+ fully-designed characters possessing unique abilities based on their class and affinity, make each Illuvial a complete original, rather than being assembled out of modular components. Illuvials are also fully functional characters in an Auto Battler. Players must carefully and strategically choose Illuvials to increase their chances of winning because class and affinity combinations are very important when battling.


● Players travel to various regions of the world and encounter creatures called Illuvials which they battle. By defeating them in combat the player has the option of capturing them in Shards. Players gradually build up a collection that grows in power over time, which they can use to venture into more dangerous regions or battle other players.


● Illuvium is powered by two tokens: $ILV and $sILV. The $sILV token is a synthetic token pegged to the price of ILV and can only be used in-game. $ILV is listed on many big exchanges like Binance, Gate.io, and KuCoin.


● In March 2021, Illuvium raised $5M in a seed round led by one of the most established venture capital funds in the decentralized finance space, Framework Ventures. The project has also gained financial backing from IOSG Ventures, LD Capital, Delphi Digital, YBB Foundation Ltd, Stake Capital, Moonwhale Ventures, Lotus Capital, Blocksync Ventures, Bitscale Capital, Quantstamp, Yield Guild Games, Bitcoin.com, etc.


● In June 2022, Illuvium closed a virtual land sale worth more than $72M. The sale distributed 19,969 land plots, with roughly 282 plots going on sale every hour. The game will feature 100,000 land plots in total.


● Illuvium is being built by a growing multinational organization of over 75 people with great experience across several fields.


● At the time of writing, Illuvium has established a strong community with 344.8K followers on Twitter, 199K members on Discord, 23.1K members on Telegram, 23.5K followers on Instagram, 6.8K followers on Medium, 18.3K followers on Twitch, and 45.3K subscribers on YouTube.


● Illuvium’s marketing strategy is a two-stream approach covering two major audience bases that comprise the crypto-gamer hybrid target market: DeFi and Mainstream.


Overview


Illuvium is a decentralized, collectible NFT RPG and auto battler game built on the Ethereum network. There is an open-world RPG experience in the overworld, where you mine, harvest, capture, and fight Illuvials. Integrated with the hyper-scalable Immutable-X L2 solution, players of Illuvium gain access to zero gas fees for minting or exchanging assets as well as sub-second transaction times, all with user-maintained custody.



Illuvium is a unique blend of sci-fi and fantasy, you travel from region to region battling and capturing Illuvials, then using them as part of your assembled team. There are larger mysteries to the world that will be discovered over time, both by the individual player and the community as a whole.


You take the role of a survivor of a transport vessel in an intergalactic space fleet and discover a ruined planet, rich with extreme weather and varied climates. Crawling free from the wreckage, you found majestic beasts, some with near godlike power. You can capture and control the deity-like fauna into slivers of crystals called Shards, mined from the planet’s surface. To uncover the mysteries of the planet, all survivors from the spaceship begin their exploration of the planet by becoming hunters, traveling across the land subduing and capturing Illuvials, and trying to unlock the Obelisks that keep most of the world closed off. Players then strategically face off against opponents, establishing their rank through competition.



Gameplay


Players can start exploring the various regions by customizing their character and selecting Polymorphic Subordinate Drone as their sidekick. As you adventure, you will encounter Illuvials that you can fight. If you subdue them, use a Shard to snap them up so they are yours permanently. Be careful though, Shards have varying power levels. Less powerful Shards are likely to fail against powerful Illuvials.


For players just starting, you will be able to mine free shards that are only capable of capturing a select few Illuvials that are far less powerful than some. But you will be able to get started in the game without any expense and learn the mechanics.


—Illuvials


Assembling your Illuvial team is one of the most important aspects of Illuvium's gameplay. There are more than 100 Illuvials to find and collect throughout the world, each possessing unique abilities based on their class and affinity. Players must carefully and strategically choose Illuvials to increase their chances of winning because class and affinity combinations are very important when battling.


There are 5 basic affinities in the game: Water, Earth, Fire, Nature, and Air. The damage each Illuvial deals or takes depends on the affinity of both them and their enemy. A Fire Illuvial will deal additional damage to a Nature Illuvial but will take more damage from a Water Illuvial.


There are 5 basic classes in the game: Fighter, Guardian, Rogue, Psion, and Empath which roughly match up to traditional RPG classes. Each class has its own unique synergy, meaning a team of Guardians will take a lot of beating, while a team of Rogues might just cut you down before you can blink.



Each Illuvial can evolve from its base form up to its final stage. Notably, final forms of Illuvials called the ‘Ascended forms’ can sometimes possess a stacked version of classes or affinity. Illuvials do not evolve, as they do in more traditional RPG games. Instead, they fuse together to form more powerful stages of development. In order to fuse, two requirements must be met. First, the player must have three of the same Illuvial. Secondly, each of those must have reached their maximum level, which is achieved through combat.



—Game Modes


The Overworld


This mode allows players to roam the fascinating land of Illuvium. Players can visit various environments and biomes as they collect shards, gather resources, and hunt for Illuvials they want to seize. As more and more are found, their capture rate will change because it is fundamentally tied to the number that has been captured thus far. The difficulty to capture Illuvials will also grow. As you adventure and encounter Illuvials in the wild, your current team (including yourself) will grow in power.



Survival mode (PvE)


An auto battler where players strategically place their Illuvials onto the battlefield to beat and wipe out the enemy. As players move and win each wave, the wave difficulty gets more challenging, but they will also gain more gold to buy stronger Illuvials. Illuvium’s beta focuses on this feature.



Ranked Arena (PvP)


Players go into battle with their Illuvial team. They can arrange their Illuvials to challenge in Ranked Arena battles to win $sILV rewards.


• Ascendant Mode - PVP battles with other players with strict rules and tweaks to guarantee fairness.


• Leviathan Mode - No rules, no holds-barred PVP battle between players.



—Illuviary


Illuviary is a database comprised of info on all the Illuvials, but, initially, all entries are locked. To unlock entries, players must find and capture the corresponding Illuvials and record their digital signature into the Illuviary. Illuvium has integrated the blockchain element into this process by inscribing the name of the person who first discovers a particular Illuvial next to their discovery in the worldwide Illuviary database.



—Items


Shards


Shards are probably the most important item in the game. It is only with these shards that players are able to capture Illuvials that they best in combat. As such, each player will want to be stocked with a few before venturing into the world. You can mine them from deposits, but you’ll always want to make sure you have something available in case you encounter a rare Illuvial.


Shards come in a variety of tiers based on their power at capturing Illuvials. The stronger the Illuvial, the harder they are to capture. This is where a strong shard is most effective. The quality of the shard you pull from the ground is random, with the most powerful ones being the rarest. If you want to make sure that you can capture everything you find in the world, then it is worth checking out the IlluviDEX where you can acquire shards.


Weapons


In Illuvium, it is not just the Illuvials that fight. You as the player character get to fight in the battle, wielding futuristic weapons that can be equipped with gemstones that store the essence of Illuvials, allowing you to emit an aura that boosts your Illuvials in combat. Your choice of weapons also determines your class, which gives additional benefits to your team. Weapons can be sold on the IlluviDEX like most other NFTs in the game.


Armor


Also forged from items mined on Illuvium, armor is your defense against the beasts that you fight. If your armor becomes too damaged you may need to wait until it regenerates. However, your choice of armor can sway the battle, as each suit has different properties. Choosing the right one for you and your team is one of the many decisions you will make in the game. Armor can be sold on the IlluviDEX like most other NFTs in the game.



Imbues


Imbues are cosmetic changes that can add value to a player’s collection by further differentiating their acquisitions from others. Imbues are modular in nature and can be applied to multiple items, or you may decide to sell them on the IlluviDEX. Various items in the game can be imbued, such as weapons, armor, and even your Drone.


Additional Features



—Illuvitars


llluvitars are configurable avatars used as profile pictures in the Illuvium universe. An Illuvitar consists of a Portrait and Accessories with near-infinite possibilities. Once purchased, players can connect their accounts and wallets to use the Illuvitar across all Illuvium games. Illuvitars represent the perfect mix of randomness and rarity via Accessories that are “bonded” to a base Portrait. The Illuvitars Sale is yet to be announced.




—Illuvium Zero


Illuvium: Zero is a mobile mini-game that will interact with the main game. Illuvium: Zero will be a base-building game that will be staged on a piece of land. The free version of land will not produce resources that can interact with the main game. Paid land will produce resources that can interact with the main game. Landowners generate a residual income by playing a fun game that rewards them for their time.




There are five tiers of Illuvium Land. Higher tiers represent increasing rarity and higher Resource generation. Tier 3 and 4 Land also feature rare Landmarks that significantly boost Resource production. Tier 5 Land features a legendary Arena that will host official Illuvium esports tournaments and provide owners with unique opportunities for revenue generation.




A Landmark is a unique structure on higher-tier Lands that grants some unique ability or property. T0, T1, and T2 plots have no Landmarks. T3, T4, and T5 Lands will always have one Landmark. Landmarks are broken into three classes; within this class may be further subdivided into specific types:



Illuvium: Zero is already being tested internally and is undergoing a massive upgrade to the graphics. An Open Alpha version of the game is planned to release some 4+ weeks after the Land sale. The Alpha version will have Fuel earnings disabled, but any blueprints earned can still be collected and kept from this early release version.



—IlluviumDEX


The IlluviDEX is the native online marketplace of Illuvium used to trade NFT assets including Illuvials, weapons, skins, and other in-game items. The game’s DAO controls the IlluviDEX by making it more community-driven and attractive to investors. A 5% fee is deducted from each sale and funneled into the rewards pool for $ILV stakers.


—Illuvinati Council


Illuvinati Council is Illuvium's DAO consists of $ILV token holders and has an elected list of representatives. The council members act as community representatives, debating and voting on proposals from the members. DAO governance is handled via two types of proposals, Illuvium Configuration Change Proposals (ICCPs) used to update System Configuration Variables and Illuvium Improvement Proposals (IIPs) used to make improvements to the protocol.


Tokenomic



Illuvium features a dual token model: $ILV and $sILV.


$sILV token is a Synthetic ILV token and can be used as in-game currency for things like travel and shard curing. It can be earned by staking $ILV in the protocol. $sILV is pegged to the value of $ILV for in-game spending power. $sILV cannot be used in player-to-player transactions, such as buying/selling Illuvials. All in-game purchases are indexed to USD so a price conversion from $sILV to USD (based on $ILV) is used.


$ILV is the native utility token of Illuvium and is used in the following functions:


• Governance: ILV token holders can vote on network governance proposals.


• Liquidity mining: Users can stake ILV tokens for $sILV, and earn a share of the game revenue distribution.


• In-game currency: Users can stake ILV tokens in return for $sILV tokens, which will be used for in-game purchases such as reviving creatures, traveling to different worlds, and more.


The maximum token supply of ILV is 10,000,000. 30% of $ILV is allocated to staking rewards and 10% to in-game rewards and tournaments.




Roadmap



Partners


Illuvium closed raising $5 million from multiple investors who have shown significant interest in being involved with a blockchain-based game. These investors will have a significant market role to play in the decentralized governance and ensure the liquidity of $ILV tokens for gamers.



Teams



Kieran Warwick — Co-Founder


Kieran is a proven serial entrepreneur. Working alongside his brother Kain Warwick in e-commerce, Kieran was exposed to Bitcoin and Ethereum early on. His enthusiasm for the crypto space led to his joining Blueshyft. While there, Kieran successfully onboarded major Australian Exchanges and started the world’s first OTC cryptocurrency exchange.


Additionally, Kieran helped The Burger Collective amass 100,000 unique reviews, 20,000 monthly web app users, and established a partnership with the global business, DoorDash. At the same time, DeFi was quickly growing, and Kieran and Kain (Synthetix.io) wanted to explore uncharted areas of opportunity. With his background and interest in trading penny stocks, Kieran tapped his brother Aaron (Co-Founder/Game Designer) to develop what will be the first AAA gaming title on the Ethereum blockchain, and Illuvium was born.


Aaron Warwick — Co-Founder and Game Designer


While studying Computer Engineering and Physics at the University of Wollongong in Australia, Aaron found himself obsessed with building and programming games. An avid seeker of scientific knowledge and the philosophical implications of technology his interest in artificial intelligence sprouted at an early age. Aaron's unique knowledge of world-building and game lore has guided Illuvium’s vision to create the world's first AAA game built on the Ethereum blockchain.


Currently, Aaron is the Co-Founder, chief game designer, and story supervisor at Illuvium. He’s a consummate entrepreneur, with a background in sports and business—all the Warwick clan have a background in sports—and has operated multi-million dollar retail franchises. In his spare time, Aaron owns and directs two major Australian sporting complexes.


Danny Wilson — Partnerships


Danny is a business executive and partnership leader with over 20 years of success in amplifying business performance to hit top goals. Danny has held multiple directors and leadership roles in varying retail and tech-based organizations, making him an invaluable asset to Illuvium.


In 2016, Danny founded a joint venture organization with one of Australia's iconic business leaders, Gerry Harvey. In just three short years, this venture grew to over $150M+ in revenue with a team of over 150 people.


Recently, Danny earned his Master's in Business Administration, specializing in Digital Business and start-ups. He has been featured in business magazines APAC Outlook and CEO Magazine, as the CEO of a rapidly-expanding Australian sporting retail & tech start-up.


Nate Wells — Game Producer


With 20+ years in the gaming industry, Nate Wells is known for his work in Bioshock & Bioshock Infinite. He was also a Lead Game Producer on The Last of Us, and Rise of the Tomb Raider. As an art director and UX consultant, Nate aims to help projects find their visual focus.


By stripping away the unnecessary, Nate finds economical and novel solutions to the everchanging problems that may arise within the online video-gaming world. Additionally, Nate is the president of Vacationland Novelty Company.


Basil Gorin — CTO


Basil has over 15 years of experience as a full-stack developer, with experience as a solution architect, tech designer, and software engineer. He has a strong background in Java, Web, and Blockchain tech stacks.


Since 2005, Basil has applied his expertise utilizing technology to create digital solutions for communities around the globe, including the US, Israel, Korea, Germany, Estonia, Russia, and Australia. From the very beginning of his career, he has successfully built bridges between stakeholders and tech teams to ensure effective communication. He is very well known for his outstanding work that results in mission-critical projects worldwide.


Basil is also a participant in Cryptominerworld, an ERC721-based Decentralised Game by Sophophilia Studios, as well as an architect for the Korean-based company, PaxNet. Additionally, Basil designed and built the deedlock.com ERC721 solution for the real estate industry in New York.


John Avery — Lead Server Engineer


John has a 20-year career in both the gaming and the financial services industries. His game development career started when he began producing games for the App Store in the late 2000s, and since then, his games have reached over 1 million users. His company JNA Mobile was also one of the top Unity Asset Store publishers at the time.


Since then, John has continued developing mobile games by producing assets and has offered games development consulting services for the Unity Asset Store.


He has also worked as a senior consultant at major Australian financial institutions, including the National Australia Bank, Westpac, and Suncorp, where his focus was on migrating services to the cloud. His previous roles have included Technical Director for the Financial Services business unit at Oracle, and Head of Infrastructure for the FinTech scale-up, Hoolah.


Rogier van de Beek — Lead Concept Artist


For over 10 years, Rogier has been a freelance concept artist and illustrator, who’s worked on a wide variety of projects, ranging from print, film, toys, theme parks, and of course, games.


Rogier is a known artist in the world of tabletop RPGs – having worked for Paizo as a character designer for over six years. His experience with creating unique characters and personalities is surely an asset for Illuvium.


Additionally, Rogier enjoys the business side of art. He has been working with various companies to create new products, and also started a company himself that creates gaming accessories and merchandising.


Aleksandr Kirilenko — Lead Modeler


Aleksandr has worked in the advertisement industry as a freelance 3D modeler for such giants as Pepsi, Sony, and Toyota. Aleksandr's creative flair and skill are essential assets to Illuvium, as he has worked on character/creature development game cinematics at Platigue Image. He also worked as a digital sculptor for Prime 1 Studio and as a senior character artist at Ninja Theory.


Most recently, Alexksandr worked for Blur, an LA-based veteran company that produces the highest quality cinematics and content for film and TV. Aleksandr brings to the Illuvium team his experience in making characters for mobile and VR by creating super-realistic assets for consoles and PCs


Alexandre Belbari — Lead Animator


Alexandre began learning animation in the South of France in 2008. After graduating in 2010, he began working with Marvel on projects, (like X-Men!), and over the next four years, he was able to learn from some of the best animators in the industry. With his wealth of experience under his belt, Alexandre then moved to ILM Lucasfilm, where he worked on notable projects including Transformers, Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxies, Godzilla, and Ready Player One.


After ten years in the film industry, Alexandre has worked with many studios, including MPC, Method, theMill, and Pixomonodo for various projects including; Men in Black, IT 2, League of Legends, and more recently, The Mandalorian (Star Wars). As Alexandre enters a new genre in his career as Lead Animator, his high level of detail, creativity, and experience will take Illuvium to a whole new level.


Dmitriy Ten — Lead Environmental Artist


Dmitriy Ten took the print advertising world by storm when he became the lead artist at Cream Electric Art in Sydney, Australia, one of the world's most renowned and respected print advertising firms.


His experience involves working with nearly every global advertising agency in the world, including the most high-end clients such as Pagani, Qantas, ESRI, IMAX, Commbank, Arnotts, Singapore Airlines, Cadbury, and Boeing.


Dmitriy’s experience makes him a true artist capable of understanding every degree of composition and visual impact, which enables him to be able to take Illuvium's vision in the advertising space to the next level.


Marcel Reyes — Marketing Manager


Marcel is a highly-creative writer and brand strategist with over a decade of experience in marketing. He joins the Illuvium team to create high-impact communications. Additionally, he’s helped refine the narratives of companies across various industries, such as research universities, academic medical institutions, mortgage bankers, specialty coffees, and many other products and services. Marcel’s ability to craft compelling storytelling, in his freelance and agency works will be key to his role in building the culture of Illuvium.


Marcel is a renaissance man and consummate creative, but beyond being our Marketing Manager, Marcel also makes contributions to writing the lore of our game and the world-building of our franchise. Thrilled to have on our team, Marcel will help communicate Illuvium’s goal as the first major AAA title and immersive open-world RPG in the NFT/gaming space.


Community



At the time of writing, Illuvium has 344.8K followers on Twitter, 199K members on Discord, 23.1K members on Telegram, 23.5K followers on Instagram, 6.8K followers on Medium, 18.3K followers on Twitch, and 45.3K subscribers on YouTube. The team responds quite quickly on Discord and Telegram to questions and problems raised by the community.


Illuvium has the typical Discord channel discussions around gameplay, announcements, FAQs, leaks, governance, voting, support, ideas, staking, tokens, arena, mobile game, guilds, and marketplace. Members from non-English countries are also accepted and given their respective channels for an international chat. There are also community streams that are great for players to socialize and share their experiences playing Illuvium.



Furthermore, Illuvium concentrates on interacting with the community, including hosting AMA, giveaway campaigns, and numerous community events that have driven great interactions from users. Illuvium’s marketing strategy is a two-stream approach covering two major audience bases that comprise the crypto-gamer hybrid target market: DeFi and Mainstream.


• DeFi


Illuvium is planning comprehensive partnerships with many of the most significant DeFi projects, to find affinity dapps and platforms that will incorporate into its framework and development, leverage its crypto-enthusiast communities, and grow its own base. Illuvium will offer communities exclusive cross-promotional NFTs that are part of the project’s ‘CosPlay Promo Editions’ series to galvanize new converts to Illuvium while giving free airdrops of unique digital collectibles. Flash pools will also be used to provide liquidity for the in-game economy. Over the three-year program, Illuvium will look to partner with 50+ projects that all boast a large token holding. This will give them exposure to the ILV token, which will, in turn, convert users into players.


• Mainstream


Besides partnering with KOLs, Illuvium will create targeted content and desirable giveaways that capture their audience, expose them to Illuvium, and incentivize a loyal following that sees the community-building ethos in action. The goal is to start making mainstream users aware of the benefits of Play to Earn, educating them on how being a part of a DAO empowers their chance to define their own economic opportunity and to give them the same quality of gaming title that they have come to expect from mainstream AAA studios.




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