Reviewing Kururo Beasts, an on-chain Pokémon inspired game - Issue #6
This the sixth 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 May 23, 2022
Welcome to my newsletter, Bored Ape Games on Chain.
This newsletter is focused 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.
I’ve been following a bunch of projects on twitter. One that struck out to me in terms of the art quality and its similarities to Pokémon was Kuroro Beasts. In this issue we’ll review the alpha PvP gameplay of Kururo Beasts!
Overview
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m obsessed with pixel art. I’ve been working on a couple of projects, namely Ruffion Reborn and Into the Dungeons, and I’m using pixel art for both of them.
What struck me about Kuroro Beasts is its high-density pixel art. The Pokémon similarities don’t hurt either! 😁
Argos - Arcanine on Steroids! 🔥
The articles on Kuroro Beasts’s Medium page are a great resource to get an overview of the game and learn about their plans for the future. I’ll sum up some of the content from the articles in this next section, and if you find it interesting, I’d recommend checking out the original posts!
Kuroro Island
Kuroro Beasts is a PvP-focused creature capturing NFT MMORPG. To bring the project to life, we have created two games that together produce the full Kuroro experience.
Kuroro Beasts has evolved a lot since its inception in November 2021. The idea back then was much closer to Pokémon. Three starters. Fire, Water and Grass (Plant). Players would face each other in PvP battles and a tournament.
At this point is a combination of an MMORPG, think multiplayer Pokémon with NFTs, and the PvP battle aspect. The team is currently running alpha tests for PvP battles, and I’ve been participating.
The initial sale consisted of 740 Golden Tickets, which happened in January 2022. This was to secure early funding for the game. 5860 Silver Tickets were then sold in May. Out of these 4872 were minted and 988 remained un-minted. The un-minted tickets will be given out as prizes!
The team (as shown on the website) is currently at 18 members, although the latest update shared in the discord re. team size mentioned that it was up to 22 people, 8 of which were developers. 15 are fulltime and 7 are part-time/contractors.
Three of the team members are game designers and Pokémon Pros. One of the Kuroro Beasts articles I found most interesting on their blog was “Kuroro Beasts Competitive Vision” written by one of the designers, Serapis.
The article provides a great overview of the tried and tested Pokémon competitive mechanics and then goes on to talk about the pillars of Kuroro Beasts and how they plan to make the game attractive for investors, players as well as supporters.
At launch, 117 Beasts will be available, and a total of 158+ different Beasts will be available in season 1.
Argos Evolutions - I liked the fact that you're able to evolve most Kuroro Beasts in an Eevee-like manner
I’ll be linking the Medium page at the end of the newsletter so you can read through all the details on rarity, traits, stats, etc.
And now onto the main event!
I wannabe the very best
Beast Sage, CEO & Founder of Kuroro Beasts, kindly sent me a Silver Ticket so I could try out the alpha PvP gameplay.
There are two main things to try out with the current PvP alpha. The first is building a team of Kuroro Beasts and the second is battling.
I recorded a couple of videos that walk through the team building and battling process. Shoutout to Subtle from the Kuroro Beasts discord who played a couple of games with me. For obvious reasons, I’m sharing the video where I won! 😉
Building a Team
The first time I built my team I used the random team feature. It doesn’t seem like the auto-building algorithm is the best. I played a game against Subtle and got wrecked!
Following that trashing, I went into the team builder and created my own team of 7 Beasts.
One of the interesting things in team building that stood out to me was the ability to assign skill points for each Beast. It gives players more options to play around with. Your Drazil and my Drazil, even if they have the same move set, could be different in terms of HP, ATK, SPEED, etc.
Round 2 - Fight
After I created my own team, I went for a rematch against Subtle. Here’s the complete battle recording.
You get to choose 5 out of your team of 7 Kuroro Beasts. 2 of the 5 are your starters and 3 are held in reserve. Each player gets to see the other player’s 7 Beasts, but once the game starts, you only get to see the 2 starters and then must guess which 3 of the remaining 5 the other player selected.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The two vs. two aspect of the game adds more depth to the battles since you can plan two field Beasts that complement each other in terms of their strengths and weaknesses.
Closing Remarks
In a nutshell, the game is pretty fun, and it does seem like there is potential for strategy and depth of gameplay. It’s structured in a way that most Pokémon fans will really enjoy, just the way I did! It is no big deal but there are a few clean up items the team can spend more time on. For example, there were a few typos here and there in the text that the team should probably fix.
As many in the NFT games space have already said, there is immense potential in this space, however, most projects will not survive. This is true for pretty much all crypto projects, but especially true for games.
Building products is hard. Building games is harder. It’s a combination of art and science, and there’s no guarantee that a team that’s been successful in the past will succeed in the future.
From what I’ve seen so far of Kuroro Beasts, the game has a lot to promise. Definitely seems like a high-quality indie game that builds on the Pokémon formula - a win, win in my opinion.
Official Resources:
Read writing from Kuroro Beasts on Medium. ⚔️ PVP focused NFT RPG | 🐶 🐸 🐵 Over 100 different beasts | Real $$$ prize tournaments and competitive scene | discord.gg/kurorobeasts.
Kuroro Beasts (@kurorobeast) | Twitter
The latest Tweets from Kuroro Beasts (@kurorobeast). Train, Battle, Breed your Kuroros. PVP MMO Kuroro Village https://t.co/GdEMOqgbne PvP Battles (holders only) https://t.co/aS4amCs4QK Discord https://t.co/6tFRrGmEAN
Kuroro Beasts is a first of its kind PVP focused RPG creature collection NFT game.
Join the Kuroro Beasts Discord Server!
Check out the Kuroro Beasts community on Discord - hang out with 16,617 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
DISCLAIMER
I was gifted a Silver Ferry Ticket by Beast Sage when I reached out to have a conversation about the game so I could try out PvP gameplay. While writing this article, having played the game a few times, I also bought a Golden Ferry Ticket from OS.