Cardano NFT Column: AdaQuest- The Cryptonomist

This week’s guest on the Cardano NFT Column is a project developing an NFT-based RPG with competitive game modes: AdaQuest.

Last week’s guest was a trading card game (TCG) project reminiscent of famous TCGs like “Magic: The Gathering” and “Yu-Gi-Oh!”.

This initiative is a point of reference for NFTs on Cardano and every week or two we will invite someone to answer some questions and give us an update directly from within the Cardano community.

Considering that many of our readers are new to the crypto space, we will have a mix of simple and technical questions.

Cardano NFT project: AdaQuest

Hi there, glad to have you here. Please introduce your team, where are you from and what are your backgrounds?

We are Red Potion Studios, mainly based in Germany & Austria, but working with people all around the World. The core team used to work for AAA Publisher like THQ, Ubisoft or EA.

Art Direction: Christian is our Illustrator and UX Designer with more than 15 years of professional work in digital art, gamification, interface- and app design in the industry. Starting as a big fan of the classic “point & click” adventures (e.g., Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky, Day of the Tentacle) on DOS and hoarding tons of comic books, he turned his geek hobby into an ever-expanding full-time job!

Game Design & Balancing: Alex worked as a creative director at Ubisoft‘s campus and as lead developer of Faith and Honor Barbarossa. He has considerable experience researching psychological and neurological sweet spots in game-based learning. With over 4 years of experience in game design, Alex is geared to bring the best gaming experience to AdaQuest!

Tech Lead: Dirk worked for Ubisoft, founded two gaming studios as a Dev Lead, and is currently working as a Technical Architect. He is the go-to guy, well in everything tech-related. Besides running and tracking our stake pool he is doing his magic to create the foundation for our project. 20 years of experience! IF var string = “you are looking for a coder?” THEN result = “Dirk”.

Strategic Advisor & Founder: Marcin worked in marketing, sales, and project management for THQ, Ubisoft, CI Games, Daedalic Entertainment, and Rockstar. In the past 10 years, he has helped some start-ups in their initial phase, and he will also provide guidance for the Cardano gaming community, as well!

What is AdaQuest? And why have you chosen the Cardano blockchain in particular for your gaming project?

Let’s face it! What we currently miss are games that will give you the chance to experience the deep dive, the immersion and the vibe of the world you are interacting with.

With AdaQuest and as an independent games studio we will bring this experience back. A fantasy world where our great hand drawn NFTs will not only have a use case, but also give the power back to the gamers to own, evolve and expand their estate. Without being afraid that someday a publisher – or even the game studio – can take away the achievements they gain by spending all hours in the World of Ada.

Imagine taking the best of different RPG game modes from the last 30 years and creating a new game experience. Imagine you also have 30 years of Pen & Paper experience! 

This is AdaQuest! Because the AdaQuest team has this experience. Not only in the pure hobby and leisure segment, but also in the professional environment. 

What makes it special is the on-chain management of the entire player inventory on the Cardano Blockchain. This means that almost everything (except for the basic items) that a player earns within AdaQuest in terms of valuable items belongs to the player forever! No more fear of someone shutting down the servers or deciding to ban items forever. AdaQuest, at least in late development, is meant to be a modding-friendly project.

In addition to this uniqueness, the first three game modes are designed in such a way that they intertwine. Giving today’s modern gamer/people the choice to play their favorite roleplay game or interact with the community at every opportunity. Each mode can of course be played independently, however, you get the best experience when you enjoy all three rpg related modes. (Mobile Arena&Quests, Dungeon Crawler, Skirmish Battlefield)

And why Cardano? 

First, the staking mechanism in Cardano allows us to interact with the community and supporters of AdaQuest. Proof of Stake is absolutely secure and we as a Single Stake Pool Operator will never lock your ADA like the big exchanges out there.

Second, in order to take full advantage of the Cardano Blockchain, the introduction of our own native token was only a matter of time. We knew that if we wanted to exist as a stake pool, such a system would be inevitable. We can already see how wonderfully this mechanism we invented will also affect AdaQuest. People seem to like our NO Pay2Win approach. Therefore, the QuestToken will not only be a reward system for long-term supporters but will also consider each of our supporters. The QuestToken will never affect game mechanics. 

Finally, we think the last weeks showed us blockchain cases and how terrible a bad tech-design can be in this environment. The one and only steady, safe and secure answer to this is Cardano!

What is Play-to-Earn? What are your thoughts on this phenomenon in gaming? How does AdaQuest fit in it?

We like the term P2Loot more. What we don’t like is the aspect of Gambling some projects come with and also to focus only on this aspect of the game. AdaQuest is more about the game itself. We are game-devs, but also gamers! That’s why we decided for a F2Play mode without any paywalls. But of course, you will be able to get NFTs as a drop within AdaQuest.

Further we think that the future of NFT gaming will “hard-fork” the target group into three camps. On one side are the true players, who really like competition, adventure and real, deep game mechanics. On the other hand the gamblers, who like to flip a coin and are focusing on the earn mechanism. The last group will be a hybrid of game & gamble. We think to be able to compete as a games company, you have to build an experience that also serves both parties!

We sat down and looked at many current so-called F2Play games. Especially those with blockchain technology in use. More than 90% of these successful titles are only “playable” with considerable financial effort by the player. We quickly came to the conclusion that we wanted to do things differently. We took Fortnite from Epic Games as our role model here. In this game, there are only cosmetic virtual items that do not make the player better or worse. Whether you play a superhero or an alien banana, the player’s skill is crucial, not his wallet!

Now AdaQuest is not a Battle Royale shooter, and we don’t have the resources of Epic Games, nevertheless Alex and Christian have worked out a mechanic with our whole team that constantly focuses on fairness.

How’s the development of AdaQuest going? When will it be possible to play the game?

Steady! From the beginning our approach is not to overhype the project and grow healthy. So we do not like to promise a lot and deliver less. Currently we are in the last sprint to finish our mobile WebApp Alpha (duel mode) and integrate the NFT items. We are cheering hard for June 2022

In the last 6 months we spent a lot of time creating tools and hiring people that will push the development of AdaQuest within this year. Since creating a game is not an “industrial” procedure and everything is always on the move, things can break, take longer or need a different approach, to deliver a fun experience in the end.

Please keep in mind that we also are in the concept phase for our Phase 2 (dungeon crawler) including the creation of a prototype ?

Great! Any final thoughts? Where can people find you?

Best way is to visit our Discord or follow us on Twitter or YouTube.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the people interviewed are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG. Moreover, this content is for educational purposes, it doesn’t constitute financial advice.