Everything in one place & a review of Voxie Tactics - Issue #1

This the first in a series of posts that had been originally published on Revue.co With Revue shutting down, the Bored Ape Games on Chain blog/newsletter is moving here and will be mirrored at thechaingamer.eth on Mirror.
This article was originally published on Nov 24, 2021

Welcome to my newsletter, Bored Ape Games on Chain.

I’m going to be focusing on the intersection of blockchain and gaming. I believe we’re going to see tremendous growth in this area over the coming years and I hope to document some of that here and share it with you, the community.

This first issue reviews the recently released demo of Voxie Tactics, a turn-based tactics RPG currently under development by AlwaysGeeky games.

New Genesis. A Bored Ape Games on Chain.

I’d started my Substack back in May ‘21. The first post was titled:

Blockchain + Video games = Future
Is it too late?

I am pleased to report that it was not too late. It is in fact still quite early.

I had planned to spend my time only on gaming NFTs, but as I immersed myself in the NFT space, I started minting all sorts of projects. There was constant FOMO and it became obvious that I would not be able to keep up with everything going on in the space.

My primary interest was, and still remains games that utilize blockchain technology & NFTs. I’m hoping this newsletter will help me do that by tracking the progress of different NFT game projects.

With that, allow me to present Bored Ape Games on Chain - Issue #1

Voxies & Voxie Tactics

Overview

Voxie Tactics by AlwaysGeeky Games, is an indie turn-based tactics RPG inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics. The game is currently in development, but a playable demo that was released on the 21st of October.

The initial NFT collection contained 10K Voxies (the characters used in the game) that took several months to sell out. The price was determined via a bonding curve:

Voxies 0 to 19 - Giveaways
Voxies 20 to 499 - 0.02 ETH
Voxies 500 to 1499 - 0.04 ETH
Voxies 1500 to 3499 - 0.08 ETH
Voxies 3500 to 7499 - 0.16 ETH
Voxies 7500 to 9499 - 0.32 ETH
Voxies 9500 to 9899 - 0.64 ETH
Voxies 9900 to 9999 - 1.00 ETH

Voxie holders have been accumulating $VOXEL tokens each week since August 26th, 2021. The token distribution will continue until the end of the week of February 3rd, 2022. The token serves as the in-game currency and also players to buy items, changes classes, etc.

As is the case with most turn-based tactics games Voxie Tactics has several different character classes (20 + Ghost) & races (9) available in the game.

There’s bunch more to the game and the Voxie universe. I’ll include links at the end where you can find out more about the game.

Now, let’s jump into the review for the Voxie Tactics demo!

The Demo

I finally got around to playing through the demo, and in short, I really liked it!

The first thing that struck me after I installed and launched the game was the acoustic guitar track. It’s simple, calming, and a little detail that I was not expecting in the demo, which is probably why it stood out.

My biggest annoyance was the fact that the controls were not intuitive and the only place where I was able to find them was this Voxies Blog post. I was not using a controller and would have liked the ability to change the key bindings.

I recorded the entire play session which includes playthroughs of both tutorials and a look around the party roster screen.

It felt polished. I was already a fan of the music, and entering the first tutorial, reading the dialogue after the unit placements were done, reminded me of the humor in a lot of old JRPGs🙂. Another detail that I personally appreciated.

One of the first things I did was send one unit to the treasure chest to see if I could open it. I wasn’t able to, so I’m assuming that it wasn’t possible to do in the demo. I think the actual game the chests will be another way to get in-game items which may or may not be NFTs.

UPDATE 11/24/21: Thank you to Oreo from the Voxies discord for pointing out that it is in fact possible to open the chests in the demo. You have to basic attack them. Something I hadn’t tried🤦‍♂️!

The combat itself was quite familiar. For the first tutorial, I used the Samurai and the Black Mage. The skills were pretty cool. I liked how the camera angles changed when the spells were cast.

It was easy to know what was going on. The ability to rotate and change the camera modes was helpful in the event that an enemy unit or my own was behind an object or on high/low terrain.

The dialogue in the second tutorial was even better. Self-aware and poking fun at the lack of instructions provided in the demo. 😂

At the end of the battles, the post battle screen showed the $VOXEL tokens earned during combat as well as the items earned.

Only some items were NFTs. Again, a little detail that I was not expecting. I had assumed everything would be an NFT. I think that’s probably a good idea as long as the NFT/regular item drop ratio is reasonable!

The Party Roster menu is pretty cool too. Upon selecting a Voxie, the tile it stands shoots up to elevate it above the rest of your collection. You see the stats for that Voxie as they are with the current equipment. You can then play around with different equipment combinations and see how each change in equipment modifies the stats.

Like I said in the beginning, I really liked it! It looks and feels like a high-quality indie game that I would not hesitate to buy on Steam.

I’ve been impressed by the AlwaysGeeky team and the Voxie community (a community that I am glad to be a part of).

Balancing the competitive PvP aspect as well as the player economy will be key components in the success of the game. There is lots of room to grow in this space. If the pacing of PvP matches is good and there is deep strategy, I could see Voxie Tactics becoming a niche strategy e-sport in the coming years.

This game didn’t come into being overnight. The AlwaysGeeky team have been working on Voxel based games, including building a Voxel Engine, for over 8 years, as you can see from their YouTube channel.

Voxie Tactics is the culmination of all that work, and it looks to be quite promising from what I’ve seen so far, and I’m extremely excited for the release of the full game.

Official Resources:

AlwaysGeeky (@AlwaysGeeky) / Twitter

The latest Tweets from AlwaysGeeky (@AlwaysGeeky). Professional gamedev, I also make indie games. Currently making Voxies #Voxies and #VoxieTactics.

Join our discord: https://t.co/ipYLONsXjH.

Voxies (@VoxiesNFT) / Twitter

The latest Tweets from Voxies (@VoxiesNFT). Voxies are collectible voxel buddies that live on the Ethereum blockchain and can be used to play in our tactical RPG. By @AlwaysGeeky

Voxies: Cute voxel buddies on the Polygon blockchain

Voxie Tactics - Voxie Tactics (voxies.io)

Official Voxie Tactics and Voxies Whitepaper, last updated 9th November 2021

DISCLAIMER

I minted 17 Voxies during the sale and have held them all till now. I have not traded any Voxies on secondary as of yet.