New Logo!

Hey guys, things are going extremely well! We're making good progress on a lot of fronts and we want to check in with stakeholders to see if the will of the community is behind us in our current plans.

For fun, let's start with this as a new amazing logo created by our Creative Director, @nateaguila!

We have also purchased the green logo from @mrgodsby and have the rights to that too. As part of a whole branding initiative we're planning on rolling this out as the official logo. The Godsby one looks great but it doesn't fit as well with the overall branding that we are going for. That said, it's ours and free for the community to use for promotional purposes.

We're also in the process of updating the design of the entire SteemMonsters.com website to provide a cohesive and fully immersive experience and we're excited to get that rolled out to everyone in the next few weeks. In the meantime, let us know your feedback on the new logo!

End of an Alpha!

We're quickly approaching the end of the Alpha period of the project. September is right around the corner and we're targeting October as the start of the Beta. Our plan is to start the Beta period after either 300k total Alpha booster packs are sold (~200k more than have been sold already) or on October 1st, whichever comes first.

As you know, once the Beta period starts then the Alpha editions of the cards will no longer be purchasable on the site. All packs purchased after the start of the Beta will contain Beta edition cards. We will be adding some type of visual indicator on the cards to easily identify which edition they are from.

That brings us to the question of how to handle combining duplicate cards from different editions. Our goal is to ensure that combining cards to level them up for use in gameplay is not at odds with preserving their potential value as collectibles.

In order to achieve that we propose the following system:

1. Alpha and Beta (as well as future edition) cards of the same type may be combined together as normal to create a single card with more XP which will unlock more stats and abilities in the game.
2. When viewed through the website each card will show what percent of the card is made up from each edition. For example, if I combine 10 Alpha Fire Beetles with 30 Beta Fire Beetles, the resulting Fire Beetle card will show 25% Alpha and 75% Beta.
3. The visual edition indicator shown on the cards will show whichever edition makes up the majority of the card. In the example above it would show the card as Beta edition because it is made up of more Beta cards than Alpha cards. If it is made up of an equal number of cards from one or more edition it will show the earliest edition.
4. Most importantly, we will begin to allow un-combining of cards back to their respective editions. In the Fire Beetle example above, this means that you will be able to un-combine the Fire Beetle into two cards - one made up of 10 Alpha Fire Beetles and one made up of 30 Beta Fire Beetles. You will not be able to un-combine any further than this.
5. If a card has gained additional XP through gameplay and is un-combined back into its separate editions, that XP will be split up among the un-combined cards based on the percentage they comprised of the original card. Again using the Fire Beetle example, the card made up of 40 Fire Beetles combined will have 80 XP. If another 20 XP is earned through gameplay and the cards are un-combined, then the resulting Alpha card will have 25 XP (20 from the 10 Alpha Fire Beetles combined into it and 5 representing 25% of the additional 20 XP earned) and the resulting Beta card will have 75 XP (60 from the 30 Beta Fire Beetles combined into it and 15 representing 75% of the additional 20 XP earned).

We feel that the above mechanism best achieves the goal of allowing players to combine their cards to use in gameplay while still always having the option of retrieving the cards from a specific edition to sell or trade if desired.

Game Roadmap - What's Coming!

1. Fighting is on track for September (though the UI might be a little rough at first!)
2. Kickstarter is on track for September (we'll accept crypto too for sure, but the main purpose of this is to attract players from outside the Steem and crypto communities)
3. The gameplay mechanics and initial card stats should be available later this month!

Kickstarter - All of September!

Here's a preview of what we're thinking- It's text only for now. Art and video are coming.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/526764488/995767096/edit?ref=pbuild_dashboard#project-preview

We'll also make it available on Fundition and accept crypto with the same rewards available, so don't freak out that we're doing this on Kickstarter. The whole point is to get non-crypto people onto Steem and using it. Can't do that on Steem-centric platforms!

Game Jam - Late August!

This is a heads up that we're going to be running a game jam at the end of August. A game jam is where people get together to make teams to make mini games. We're going to sponsor one with Steem Monsters. Make a runner, an old school rpg, or a card game. We'll choose winning teams and give them up to $1000 worth of stuff! If things look promising we'll figure out a way to collaborate and either pay for some of the development or help you get some marketing going for your game.

Thank you for your continued support!

Steem Monsters Contact Info

Official Account: @steemmonsters
Website: https://steemmonsters.com
Discord: https://discord.gg/CAFJRjY