Illuvium is the upcoming blockchain game, seeking to bring quality gaming to the play-to-earn (P2E) space. While the core game is still under development, there has been a recent major approval by the Illuvinati council, the DAO elected representatives governing franchise direction. Illuvium Zero is the proposed name of a city builder mini game likely to be the first launch. Here, we’ll share a collection of what is known and current speculations about this likely first offering from Illuvium.
Note: This article contains spoilers on the storyline of the game. Stop reading after the Illuvium Zero timeline below if you do not wish to spoil your in-game experience.
Huge Tracts of Land
We’ll start with the biggest and most hyped aspect of the mini game - the land sale. As a variety of games explore the metaverse with initial land sales, Illuvium is now no exception. A key aspect of the now approved governance proposal IIP-10 is the plan to develop and auction 100,000 plots of land in Illuvium. From the shared game design documents, these lands will be divided into five different tiers of rarity and quality, from Tier 1 through Tier 5. This is in addition to the infinite number of Tier 0 lands that will be available as the free-to-play version of the Illuvium Zero minigame.
The team has done a good job so far to give the land a reason to exist, actually serving a purpose and connection to the main game right from the start. From Aaron Warwick (lead game designer) in the Illuvium Discord channels, players with Tier 1-5 land will have the ability to build things on their land, some of which will have the ability to generate resources, which will be claimable as an ERC-20 token and sold on the in-game exchange for ETH. The higher the tier land, the greater the resource generation. Players on the main game side will need to purchase these resource tokens to conduct various actions or activities. This will provide an interesting game theory dynamic of pricing by land owners to either sell or withhold their resources.
A second benefit of the land is the ability to “scan” for Illuvials (the “Pokemon” of the Illuvium universe), and the ability to generate blueprints potentially for use of generating unique skins. It is unclear yet how this will work, but Warwick has also said that the higher the tier of land, the higher the tier of Illuvial that you’ll be able to research.
Lastly, Tier 5 lands are stated to be “unequivocally insane” with unique features, landmarks, and other ultra high level benefits. In a recent Youtube interview, Kieran Warwick (Illuvium founder) indicated the current plan is for there to be only seven Tier 5 land plots, one for each region of the main game. On these lands, the owner would be able to create an arena for PVP, which would eventually serve as the venue for major esports tournaments. Truly driving a metaverse experience, Warwick added the potential of the landowner to sell advertising or unique stadium experiences and access similar to real life VIP experiences, potentially leasing boxes to major companies. See 49:12 in the video below to hear more about the speculated application of the land. Certainly, if the team can pull off this uniqueness, there is potential for Tier 5 land to sell for 8-figures in US dollars.
Wen landsale???
The next question on everyone’s mind is when this land sale will happen. The timeline laid out in the governance documents indicates a T=0 + 10 weeks timing. As the approval just passed, it is expected that the soonest a land sale would happen would be at the end of October/early November 2021. In the proposal, they have also indicated that only a small portion of the 100,000 lands would initially be sold, with additional sales occurring at a later date. It is unclear the number of lands of each tier that would be included in this initial sale.
The sale is proposed to occur by Dutch Auction, with prices for land units starting high, and decreasing until a bidder is found. Exact details are not yet available, though early speculation is that Tier 1 lands would go somewhere in the 0.5-1+ ETH range, with higher tier lands selling for considerably higher prices.
Currency for the auction has been announced, with ETH being the primary currency of the game, and approval for sILV to also be used for land purchases. sILV is synthetic ILV, which is a unique token associated with yield farming on the llluvium protocol. Stakers are given the choice in their staking rewards to either claim ILV or sILV. Those more interested in in-game purchases than governance may select to receive their rewards as sILV, which will hold an exact par value to ILV, but can be used as a substitute for ETH in-game. The first use case for sILV is likely to be this upcoming land sale. For more information on staking, check out my review here. The ILV token is not used for any in-game purchase, and is not required to play the game.
Revenue Distribution
One of the primary long-term benefits of staking ILV will be revenue distribution, where 100% of in-game revenue will be given to staking ILV token holders in the form of additional ILV purchased from the Sushi liquidity pool. The land sale is likely to provide the first opportunity to see “rev dis” in action, and a potential huge test at that. Kieran Warwick and others have stated that likely there will need to be additional considerations for rev dis for major events like the land sale to avoid or moderate the ability of short term speculators to purchase ILV, stake in the flexible pool at the moment of distribution, and then sell immediately afterwards, though no proposals have yet been shared on how to manage this. There have also been comments around spacing out the purchase by The Vault (the central treasury of the DAO) to acquire the necessary ILV after a major revenue event such as the land sale to avoid major pricing action. As of right now, the Sushi LP is the primary swapping medium, and holds about $184 million in value with 184,000 ILV and 28,000 WETH. A major event such as a land sale may put upwards of $100 million of ILV buying pressure on the pool in a short period of time. We will see how the DAO manages this.
Illuvium Zero Timeline
From IIP-10, the timeline for the mini-game launch is as follows:
- Proof of Concept - Start + 2 Weeks - An internal demo of core gameplay features with reasonable quality art. Only videos will be shared at this point
- Version 1.0 - Start + 10 weeks - Land sale and the mobile release of the game
- Version 1.1 - Start + 14 weeks - Blueprint NFT minting, blueprints created in the game will be mintable on the blockchain
- Version 2.0 - Start + 18 weeks - ALIGNED WITH THE RELEASE OF ILLUVIUM - full release. All game data (except for minted NFTs and land ownership) will be wiped. Pools will be established for Fuel. Fuel generated in Illuvium Zero will be usable in the main game
There are some huge details above. Depending on when “start” is officially defined, we have a vision of both the date for the land sale as well as the launch of the main game. As the approval just passed on Friday August 20, likely the earliest “start” is defined as Monday, August 23. That would give a tentative date for the initial land auction on November 1, 2021, and a launch of the open beta of the main game on December 27, 2021. As the closed beta hasn’t even started yet, this remains a highly aggressive timeline by the team, but at least gives us perspective. For those staking ILV for sILV rewards to spend on land, it appears you can continue to earn for another couple of months and plan to claim towards the end of October.
Game Play of the mini-game
Not much is known yet on specifics for the mini-game. We know it will be a 3D isometric city building game developed using Unity3D. A number of proposals for Game Design are available in the Game Design Document pinned to the Illuvium Zero Discord channel in the “spoiler” post from Aaron Warwick on 7/22/2021. While this was shared before the approval, much of this would need to be integrated into the design, which likely will start this coming week.
>>>>>>>>>>SPOILERS<<<<<<<<<<<
The story background for the mini-game is as follows:
You are a Valain reconnaissance drone, ejected off your ship before impact with a ruined alien planet. Your mission: build a secure base of operations on the planet, gathering as much intel as possible. You collect, mine, and process local resources to build generators, storage silos, research facilities, and other key structures and tools.
Energy scans and observations of strange phenomena hint that this is no ordinary planet. Exotic particles visibly spill from rifts in the very fabric of reality—and these may or may not be related to the deity-like beasts that seem to dilate in and out of existence, like apparitions that materialize into corporeal forms. With only the equipment of a reconnaissance drone, it seems unlikely you will be able to capture these beasts. But by studying them, and researching their fuel, you may be able to make use of them—and their considerable powers.
The remaining information is unconfirmed from the game design document.
Potential game play elements include mining resources, generating fuel, converting resources or fuel, developing new buildings, such as a “singularity scanner” to develop skins of detected Illvuials, quantum fabrication (for development of blueprints of illuvial types, weapons, and armor).
The next several months will be exciting as the initial launch of both Illuvium and Illuvium Zero come into focus, with a huge event pending with the land auction. Happy speculating and see you at the auction!
