Meet the creator of Pixilmini

Right guys this is a pixelated game that reminds me of Pokémon on the old Gameboy color I think it looks fun now its still not finished but is playable and I have to say its a really fun game and will it impress you check out a game play video below 

hey

Hey how you?

Just still awake lol, I cant seem to fix my schedule. Doesn't help wife just left on trip but ill be awake few more hours I bet, and not feeling dumb just yet

Oh god nothing worse man . Where you based?

Fairbanks, Alaska 6am here now I'm guessing you are Europe somewhere I'm originally from Hungary.

In Dublin oh right what brought you to America?

We left Hungary in 1989 when there was still berlin wall was in Germany for 3 years but did not get citizenship, despite that my dad had some old several generations ago Germán ancestor, My mother was doctor in Hungary so I think there were potentially some internships at hospital in Alaska (which never panned out) but nevertheless we moved up here right before I started my freshman year in HS then I been here most of my life or I should say the short answer: my dad is kind of crazy.

Ah I see lol Have you been in crypto long time?

Hmm, well, my friend was into crypto in 2012 but in 2013, I began to mine some Litecoin at his lab with 4 video cards Bitcoin was around $100 bucks at some point back then, I remember because he had gotten this paper wallet printing thing and he was printing off 1 bitcoin wallets for ppl as gifts many were just laughing and refusing I mined about.. 200 LTC, traded it for 1. something BTC bought an iPad air, ahaha it was like 1 BTC at the time, $500 but I really didn't have much disposable income then, and mining became kind of worthless, even with video cards

So your here a while so lol

We were doing Litecoin exactly because CPU became too difficult with them throwing the Asics or whatever you spell it at them

Bet you wish you held on now

lol, of course, everyone was telling me crap . Anyway, in 2021, January I hear this news about 5x very quickly I had about 2-3k worth of crypto, which was the change from the iPad air, like 3 LTC and some Enjin coins so I began to trade! and lost 1/3 immediately on BNC but then I managed a few positive trades, I got into matic at some point and then I saw for the first time... crypto punks and I immediately stopped all trading I had been working the past several years on game projects.. well no, since my whole life basically but specifically the last several years on a project which had random generator characters

So you came to wax in 2021 like alot of people . What made you decide to build on Wax?

It was the documentation and tools. It seemed reasonable to actually get things going and doing what I wanted. I just needed a way to connect NFTs from chain into my game client. I checked the docs on multiple chains to see how feasible it would be not only to do the thing, but to actually learn it. That and the cloud wallet which seemed very easy to set up with the sign in with google/ facebook accounts thing this would be a very good way to onboard new people into the game who did not want to use exchanges and all that hassle, which at the time was most of the people I knew the cloud wallet actually... I even had a friend, who had since moved to Japan, set up a cloud wallet and begin playing with my minis even though he never once purchased anything this was part of what I wanted, that people could just play without needing to buy crypto necessarily

When did you launch the project?

The between March and June, besides having to change from Enjin to WAX... was having to draw enough clothing part variations to make the total possible combinations reach decillion+ million = 1, decillion = 10 I prefer to make systems, more than to fill them I usually just make the 2-3 parts necessary to test the system and get it working but I minted 1k minis, which, the set, is called Alpha 2.1 Soon after I minted the first 10k batch which was Alpha 3.0 set which had a bunch of new hairs and clothes made by a friend of mine from Alaska, Frankie because the Alpha 2.1 minis, they were meant only for internal testing, most were given to my actual local Alaskan friends but someone noticed me minting on atomic, and they told their friends on discord and next thing I knew I had a few dozen people in my discord which had 1 person before so the Alpha 3.0 set was the first actual drop with a pack and official

So it was a silent launch?

Maybe even secret, ya I really was nowhere near prepared what it was actually, ahaha I did not know about testnet at all so I just started testing right on main net there is even a collection pixilminipre which is just that, all tests oh, also, this was at the time, at least for me, nothing was official this way there were not standards of drops and launches what I was trying to model after was actually Kickstarter I thought actually "like Kickstarter but crypto, and the tier rewards are actual NFTs you get now instead of later" this is why the packs say even now, Supporter pack this is supposed to be early access kickstarter thing, but with the bonuses already being a profile picture, and NFT you own for later I have since realized that many people actually just expect a finished thing, so I need to be very clear about this

Of course so from a silent launch you have gathered a community?

Yes, I was even such a weirdo about it that I would often remove the discord link from all places I was trying to avoid hyping it and getting out of control before it was ready too many people talking, I have a hard time sometimes, but also it is highly motivating hearing the positive things from a few people at the right times there are some OG supporters who really I think are aware of what the goal here is I'm not here to make mobile game copy thing, because I never played mobile games, I hate them. I love strategy and RPG games, and especially the itemization and stats systems of games I don't understand why people are not trying to build these things but actually, one thing I do know... it is up to us.

So lets talk about your game you don't like Defi or Gamefi so I am guessing you wont have a coin paired against wax in game?

well, I actually plan to have a ROOK token, just because FT tokens are much easier to deal with on large scale there will definitely be a game economy I just don't like a sad excuse for a game that is JUST an economy in traditional games everyone laughs at games that have only cosmetic places to decorate aka property games in crypto in real games, you would also need a world filled with adventure and excitement actually no you would need that FIRST before you even think to add cosmetics and decoration and player owned property but I'm also just referring to egg-timer games they call these gamefi because they need a buzzword for basically shitshow or skinner box slot machine game 2: the lever look at dookie dash, it is basically a reskin of an infinite runner these are all tried and true cash grab tactics on mobile now being recycled to web3, and they could care less about how that looks to people on the outside, who are laughing at web3, btw lol a 1 billion dollar infinite runner, ahaha

What will the ROOK token be used for?

Well, so currently there are ROOK NFTS, of various tiers, which used to blend into packs (but all gone for now), and also blend into a few other things and there is also a currency on discord and all of these will convert to ROOK token then there will be a big land sale auction event the main 10x10 area of the world, center of the world, will be auctioned off this will also be turned into a world map, and made into physical cloth maps

And will the land owners have any rights?

Then once the world is up, you can buy more land, or expand the world well so, I don't even like to call them land, because that is what everyone else calls them but they are still owned, and they are actually NFTs but so owning the area comes with many benefits there are slots you can socket things into on the area buildings being a major one but also craft station and NPCs you will be able to socket minis but also there will be a line of NPC minis which have more than 1/1 mint

How much land will be for sale at first?

So these things are not set in stone yet, but the plan was to make the 10x10 center all be auctioned off, so that is 100, and then going out from there many more areas that are set at fixed price. the actual prices will depend on the total amount of ROOK. The amount of the NFT versions that exist currently. It all comes from the efforts of people winning giveaways and grinding /daily in discord so they were kind of created slowly over time I never sold these coins myself, and most minis were actually also all given away for free but so the price itself I cant say right now, because it will be a percentage relative to how much everyone else has the VIPs have many coins that I owe to them though, which will be specifically for this land sale the land sale will be in rook basically

How many NFTs are there currently available to buy at the moment?

Well so right now there are no packs available, and I'm not selling minis myself I'm doing just a few giveaways each week for them which are mostly actually minis I bought back on 2ndary myself I bought back over 2k there are 23k total minis in existence 1k alpha 2.1, 10k alpha 3.0, 10k alpha 3.1, 2k loke knights special edition, and 25/200/500 neftyblocks Halloween specials which are some of the most rares but it is all available on 2ndary, the plan was to drop most of it for free to supporters, and then they sell on 2ndary the packs for example were both blendable with Emerites and could be purchased so many people just earned Emerites over time and then got packs that way Emerite is the green coin that is 11 gold --> 1 Emerite and 1 Emerite --> 1 pack was for a long time but then it all gone now, I myself only have a handful of each pack type left

Oh really you had to buy NFTs?

Oh, but there is a new alpha 3.2 set coming in I would say 2 months, which will be another 10k minis, with a bunch of new features, and new artist Hatouken the neftyblocks Halloween minis are hard to get because they were in nefty packs, I was buying them myself as well

So this is from a super early set, so she doesn't actually exist but for a long time there were only males, when I was still just working on my game but I have 3 nephews and a niece, and I didn't want her to feel left out, so I had to make a female, and now I am actually quite proud of both models The Hillary #1 gold mask one is still in a nefty pack

The Loke Knights were only attainable by playing mini games on Loke Hansen's website, where you could stake minis and such he had a shop on there where you could spend points you earned through those mini games for a long time the people who won those minis never even listed a single one they spent a lot of time to earn them, so they were not gonna give it up so easy, hehe those ones all have Loke's signature 3 pins logo on their chest and wearing armor I made him that exclusive set because he made so many games with the minis, and it gave them a bunch of utility early on

How many characters will there actually be and will they be upgradeable?

So the way it is designed is that the possibility space is the decillion+ variations. this means that when I mint 10k minis, it barely scratches the surface of possibilities I planned to make 100k minis for the initial alpha testing because you play with a squad of 4 and many people will have swaps or spares so 10k minis would never cut it, and also, I think the idea of only 10k people being able to play a game does not make much sense so the plan was to make millions at launch since then this has kind of evolved into a more structured plan of having editions

where each edition adds new parts, but instead of just adding to the total possibility space, they still do that, but they have a higher chance to roll those new ones in the current edition what this results in is that each edition still feels like its own kind of set but then in the end, the total possibility space is always growing

Then as far as upgradeable they will equip item NFTs, but they wont themselves gain experience games like Terraria, Valheim, V-Rising, they all do progressions with items instead of leveling up I thought this was perfect for NFTs, to make everything permanent. I don't actually like the idea of things leveling up, or this kind of idea that people want to play a single character through all games I mean I like the idea of the same character what I mean is... to level him once? half the fun is to level them up so each game I would think almost has its own progression. If you unlock the progression in playing a racing game, then you jump into an RPG half leveled, that doesn't make any sense so in general, I was trying to avoid this kind of meta character that you level once for your entire lifetime and it grows with you slowly forever

What about weapons will there be many weapons in the game?

Yes, there will be also equipable weapon NFTs, which are part of the item NFTs. the mini also has a primary and offhand weapon slot on the rig. let me show some weapons

This is from an earlier prototype, the weapons are not hooked in currently but working on a modular system for the weapons

Hilts and blades but there is a lot more to it with 2 hand weapons and other things still a lot to do there will also be skill gems let me show a combat prototype

They are all wearing the same chest armor item which overrides their cosmetic rolls from their NFT the spells are socketed into slots in the items and then become available to use in combat

Will it be like Pokémon where you are roaming and come across battles?

So, I wanted to design this in a way that works easily with blockchain data structure and keeping in mind what transactions would need to happen and how often so that is why the world is separated into these segments, areas and when you travel between them that is when you can encounter an enemy. This way the only time you sign the transaction is when you are doing travel between areas your X,Y coordinate in an area itself is not relevant to the smart contract layer of the world state because that would be too much to store

Will it PvE and PvP?

For PvE and PvP...I do not want open world PvP, and so that wont happen you simply wont encounter other players in travel between areas but you can enter battles with them, typically like tournament or challenged so both parties must agree basically but the way it is set up, a mini is a mini, and can be control by player, or AI, or other player they can be left side or right side, they don't care and monsters are treated similarly, I mean when a mini attacks something, they don't really care if it is monster or player, as far as the implementation they don't care who is controlling the target either if built this way, then can do PvP and PvE but ya, no open world battles, I do not think that would be fun for the player

How are you creating the NFTs?

hmmmm... lol how deep do you want?!?!?! I made a generator using Godot engine which had art from Cosmigo Pro Motion assembled into the rig its about 150 parts, with variations, 16k sprites the generator randomizes the parts and colors then takes a screenshot of the composed result saves to png, and dumps a data json file along with it then I upload all the images to ipfs, get their hashes back down, this is like 60k images per set, since there are multiple frames per mini then I run another script to parse the hashes into the jsons

Is there room in the game for collabs?

There is already somewhat of a collab brewing up with Pixtalgia, where there is a character of mine, SpaceWolf who is in that game, and will soon be also in my own game but so I think Peter Pots from Pixtalgia will be creating a few other things in the world for Pixil Mini but then I was thinking of ways that other projects can collab so one idea is to simply have people create parts for the mini. a hairstyle, a clothing. Then they go into the generator and out comes many variations

Who would you like to collab with?

Each one gets a bit harder to do, as they must fit to rig more and more the pant and jackets are hardest the helmet and single face accessory are easiest oh and also the easiest would be a simple logo on their shirt in game items or objects or signage these kind of things well so far I was thinking to collab with shnazzy because she does not seem too scary to ask, and she seemed already kind of interested also, chair from chair universe and peter pots of course from pixtalgia I actually put out an open statement asking for people to collab and only 1 person responded and he is now my main artist Hatouken because he wanted to do a lot more, and is doing amazing stuff! But really anyone that wants to collab and has the patience to work into a system (which for the most part, actually I do the processing into the system)

Love chair he is a brazilian student chat to him a lot and love shnazzy

Ya they are some of the cool people I have met so far on WAX, and now I have many more wax friends than in person friends, hehehe, and I love it, because they all into crypto and NFTs I hope to maybe work with a few people and then other people gain interest to work with me I really like working with people

What has been the hardest part of the project?

Hmmm, overcoming certain implementation puzzles. there are times when I didn't think I could even do it. Often this lead to having to read and learn a bunch of new things. Pushing through into the unknowns. This and making the right decision when you know people will not like it or be mad at you for it but doing it anyway, because it is the right path forward. learning to stop chasing complaints.

What's been the best part of doing your project?

An entire lifetime of pursuing an idea, vindicated when I learned the smart contracts, I realized that none of that was a waste of time all the time I spent on projects, which I thought were a waste of time, now suddenly became blueprints, and exactly the knowledge I needed . Oh and actually also, seeing the new minis generated, it is greatly satisfying to see them finally working after so much work

What is the long term plan for the project?

Super long term is building a brand with several games that use the same characters, and generating new minis every few months building out the main game is the primary goal though where player and world persistence are a key focus.

Have you brought many people into wax?

I mean, just some of my local friends, but we are not many. I would say no, my twitter just barely hit 500 followers. so I don't think it is mathematically plausible to think I did. heh but I plan to? One of my biggest secret hat tricks coming up.... which it isn't secret, please feel free to steal it, I beg you anyone NFT sockets game worlds have spaces to decorate as well. I don't understand why this isn't a main focus of game projects to help spread the love to all the art projects with the new bridge coming as well, I plan to set up the ETH and BSC bridges I wont be doing drops there, but I'm hoping people will sell minis on 2ndary and then buyers are transferring back to wax making cloud wallets just to play

What your family think of your project?

They think it is stupid. I think they are stupid. end of story. lol, well my wife is very supportive actually! But for my biological family, it is strange, the test has always been to see how far someone can run on empty. zero support. But actually, I don't want to blame them, most of it has to do with them simply not being able to comprehend what it is I am even doing. If I say the word game, my dad starts yelling, ahahaha.

When your not in the crypto world what you like to do to unwind?

The only time I get to relax is gaming twice a week with my brother on his days off work. I cant get myself to calm down otherwise I feel like the stomach acid is going to eat me from inside out I don't sleep well at all loool

What games you play?

But I do like to go walk my dogs, and play my acoustic guitar these are truly relaxing because I can focus on nothing else for that time I play mostly coop FPS type games with my brother, and also survival crafting I personally prefer more RPG and strategy type games than him, but I can barely get myself to relax now to play a game by myself so playing with him gives me the excuse to stop and enjoy the time oh in general, I love the interactive simulation games Looking Glass Studios games and I think the survival crafting games are basically interactive simulations, just without the NPCs V-Rising, best game of 2022, btw

The alpha 3.2 edition 10k minis have been coming for a while. I had put a pause on all drops and minting until progress on game caught up. I also had to update the generator, and it is almost ready. There are new features to the generator, such as rarity rankings and border colors, animated gifs. Also, Hatouken, an amazing artist from Poland, has joined the project to work on game objects, monsters, and some clothing for the minis which will also be in the new 3.2 edition. They will come in packs of 7 as before, and also maybe packs of 3. I will actually schedule the drop many weeks ahead this time, and will be advertised for real this time.

Is there NFTs for sale at the moment?

Not from me directly no drops just secondary market there is only a member lite pass which gives discord perks, like access to giveaways which I sell for 33 wax you can also get that on secondary though for less

Neftyblocks https://neftyblocks.com/collection/pixilminiwax

Marketplace https://pixilmini.com/market/

Where is the best place to keep up with the project?

I have a hard time updating all the places because if I have to prioritize, I'm going to put the code above all else, and the updates do tend to be sparse in some places more than others. the website barely gets updated, the twitter I post to once every few days, the discord I post to the most regularly, typically in long bursts of screenshots and descriptions of what I have been up to in the development channel, that is the best way to keep up but maybe twitter is also fine, I will post just the more relevant bigger updates there

Discord https://discord.gg/yrtkUWrGsD

Twitter https://twitter.com/PixilMini

Do you fancy doing a giveaway?

Sure, I have a crap ton of mini I bought back from market as the floor dipped during bear so lets give a few away

Thanks man . Before we finish is there anything you would like to add?