Pixels is a captivating, open-ended world of farming and exploration, built one pixel at a time. Gathering resources, advancing skills, and building relationships while exploring the story and quests woven throughout the Pixels Universe, you’ll be submerged in a mesmerizing blend of managing, creating, and exploring in a world that marries blockchain ownership with your progression and accomplishments.

We aim to create a fun, easy-going, blockchain-backed game. We believe that Pixels will be the gateway for millions into web3.

Mission

The future is blockchain gaming. We are creating a standard for the world where equitable wealth distribution, transparency, and ownership is the expectation.

Building a play-to-earn game is a massive undertaking. We have three pillars guiding our development on our quest to build a sustainable and fun blockchain-backed game.

• Fun is our priority

• Interoperability is the future

• Build to decentralize control, but do it slowly

Fun First

There are plenty of talks about sustainability in play-to-earn gaming. Our thesis is that the key to building a sustainable play-to-earn economy is by removing the play-to-earn as a core part of messaging and expectations to both players and our game designers.

Our design team needs to focus on creating real value for our users - by creating a game that people genuinely enjoy and want to spend time playing. As we design, we need to work out how to keep the game experience fun for all types of users while still exploring the new realms of gaming that the blockchain can unlock.

Interoperability

Interoperability is one of the largest unlocks in blockchain gaming. If you truly own a virtual item or, even better - if you’ve grown to form a digital identity around a specific digital good - you should be able to take these things that you own into different experiences across the internet. In our mind, these talks about a Metaverse refer to this: an interconnected mesh of adventures, games, and spaces that your digital identity can flow between.

We surprised the space by implementing the first NFT integrations into our game - allowing users to connect their Metamask wallets and walk around our world as their NFT.

We have integrated over 50 different collections now.

We will continue pushing boundaries in this area. Stay tuned.

Gradual Decentralization

Complete decentralization is the end goal. But an innovative and calculated approach to idealistic decentralization is necessary.

As we build, we need to decide what decisions, mechanics, and pieces of ownership need to be on-chain and what are best suited off-chain, given our stage of development and the state of the current technology.

We want to take a product-first approach and release a fun game that offers the best elements of decentralization as quickly as possible. That way, we can learn what is working and what isn’t and adjust and iterate accordingly. As more of our systems become concrete and the blockchain ecosystem becomes more mature, we can decentralize our systems more.

Early on, our primary focus is to have ownership of in-game items on-chain, but the execution of many game mechanics server-side.

This approach allows for 10x quicker development, 10x faster response times, and a much better game experience. However, as the space matures, we can migrate over the actual implementation of mechanics on-chain and into contracts.

Early decision-making will primarily be centralized and controlled by our team as well. This will allow for much quicker decision-making and let us look out for the long-term health of the ecosystem in its critical early days. However, we envision and are setting up systems that will allow for decentralized treasury management, economic planning, and more. As the game and ecosystem mature, we also can begin to decentralize more and more of these systems.

Play Our Game

Our game is live! Go play at https://play.pixels.xyz

Pixels

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Primary Mechanics

Primary mechanics can be understood as core mechanics that can be directly applied to solving challenges that lead to the desired end state. Primary mechanics are readily available, explained in the game's early stages, and consistent throughout the game experience.

Current

1. Farming

2. Quests Narrative

3. Cooking and Acquiring Recipes

4. Personalization of spaces (Landownership, Map Builder)

Future

1. Foraging

2. Pets

3. Flower Breeding

4. Skills Acquisition

5. Personalization of Spaces, expanded

6. Industry Balancing

7. Competitions

8. Mini Games

9. Character Relationship Building

10. Narrative Sleuthing

Secondary Mechanics

Secondary mechanics are core mechanics that ease the player's interaction with the game towards reaching the end state. Secondary mechanics are either available occasionally or require their combination with a primary mechanic to be functional.

Current

1. Store

2. Social Features

3. Taxes

4. Leaderboards

5. Recipe Book compiling

6. Achievements and Trophies

Future

1. Income and Business Benchmarks

2. Level Progression

3. Skills Progression

4. Horticulture Leveling

5. Animal Husbandry Leveling

6. Elements of Sabotage

The core experience of Pixels will initially revolve around resource gathering.

You know us for our initial farming mechanics that we've released. However, we are adding significantly more depth to resource gathering.

As players progress through our game, they will have to make decisions about which industries they want to develop, and players will need to search the Pixels Universe for that last resource they need to complete a recipe.

There will be a variety of resource types available in-game generated by the various industries.

• Soil

• Crops

• Wood

• Water

• Storage

• Stone

• Power

• Metal

Resource Rarities

Resources can have different rarities. Specific resources are only available on land with certain traits and certain rarities can only be found on certain types of land.

Level 1 - Common

Level 2 - Special

Level 3 - Remarkable

Level 4 - Amazing

Level 5 - Legendary

Resource Locations

Specific resources will only be available on certain types of land.

Lands with better and rarer utility will be able to produce rarer resources.

Farming is the main industry in Pixels.

Crops are grown on farm plots, which can be found on Farm Land, both public and private. Players can grow crops on each farm they visit, with each farm taking a different share of the resources gathered. Own Farm Land to receive 100% of the rewards of the crops you grow, and receive a share from the crops grown by Sharecroppers on YOUR Farm!

There are 3 to 4 different actions a player will perform in order to harvest crops, each with their own growth duration and possible tools required!

Equipment

Different tools will be needed to perform farming activities as players progress through the skill. For now, players need to at least water crops for them to grow.

Watering Tools

All crops need water in order to grow, which means players will need an item to carry water to the farm plots. If players do not have a watering tool with them, they will not be able to grow crops.

Watering tools have a set amount of uses before they need to be refilled.

To refill a watering tool, walk over to a well and fill it up! Click on the well to refill all the watering tools in your inventory.

Fertilizer

Fertilizing is an optional step in the farming process that will reduce the time of growth. The reduction factor will be dependent on the type of fertilizer used on that plot.

Seeds

Seeds are needed to start farming skill and are easily obtained. The first step of farming will be planting the seeds, so it is best to obtain some before trying it out!

Farm plots

Farming can only take place on certain tiles, called farm plots. Each farm plot can have only one type of seed planted on it, and players will normally find multiple plots next to each other.

Farm plots are located on player-owned and public lands. A certain number of Farm Land will be kept open to the public, with the rest being at the discretion of the owner.

Each player sees their own farm plots, so don’t have to worry about others taking up all of the lands!

There are three different states of farm plots: barren, dry, and wet.

Barren

Barren farm plots are incapable of growing crops – this land is dehydrated and crops on this land will die. These plots are recognizable by the dry, cracked appearance, which can be seen here:

Players must water this land to repair it.

Dry

Dry farm plots are capable of growing crops with the proper care – seeds planted on these plots will not grow until watered.

Wet

Players must use a watering tool to turn a plot from dry to wet. Wet farm plots are ready for seeds to grow in them and can only be watered after planting.

Crops need to be watered to progress through each growth stage (seed → seedling → budding → ripe), with the soil color and plant growth stage as visual indicators.

Watering a crop will keep the land wet for a set period of time, and will need to be watered again once the land dries out for crops to grow.

Mechanics

Read about how to farm and the rewards from farming below!

Planting

To begin farming, players start out by planting seeds for crops to grow. Planting seeds does not require any farming equipment but does require players to have seeds in their inventory.

To plant seeds, walk up to the tilled farm plot and click on it. Players need to be close enough to the plot for the action to occur.

Upon triggering the actions, an animation indicating the seeds have been planted will occur:

Players will not gain any experience until they harvest the crop.

Watering

Seeds will not grow without water, so best to figure that out before starting. After seeds are planted, use a watering tool to feed them. By clicking on the farm plot, players will see a watering animation appear above the plot and the soil color change.

Each crop needs to be watered after a certain amount of time to progress to the next growth stage. If players forget to water their crops, they will die after a set amount of time 😱.

Fertilizing

As stated above, fertilizing is an optional step in the farming process that will reduce the time of growth. Fertilizer can be applied at any time in the growth cycle, and will remove a set amount of grow time from the total.

To fertilize, players need to walk up to the farm plot with fertilizer in their inventory and click on the plot.

Growth time is different for each crop, so players could use more than one bag of fertilizer to accelerate a particular plot.

Harvesting

Harvesting is the last step in the harvesting process and will reward the user with experience and resources. Click on a fully ripened crop to harvest it!

Growth Timing

Farming is broken up into 4 different stages of growth: planted → seedling → budding → ripe. After growing for a preset period, each crop will mature to the next stage of growth.

Below are the seedling, budding, and ripe stages of a Popberry.

Drought

After you start watering a crop, the growth cycle begins... but so does the drought cycle. If a crop does not get water in time, it will wilt and die. Players will need to click on the dead crop to click the plot.

Yield

After a crop has reached maturity to the ripe stage, it can be harvested. When harvested, players are awarded with experience points , more seeds, and a yield of the crop. Each different crop will have a different reward in both experience and resource.

Energy is our first constraint in the game. Every action you do farming will drain your energy.

Refilling Energy

In order to increase energy, you can either wait - your energy will increase by 1% every 5 minutes.

Or you can cook some food!

There are more ways to collect resources besides just planting crops.

Industries such as...

• Woodcutting

• Apiary ( Look it up! )

• Mining

And many more are coming.

The further you progress in-game, the more mechanics, resources, items, and industries you will have access to.

Players will get access in our initial rollout to two new skills

Cooking

The Cooking profession allows players to brew drinks, create meals, and cook fruits and vegetables. The player can use a variety of ingredients to create and discover new Recipes that provide enhanced buffs and unique effects.

Crafting

Woodcrafting allows the player to build valuable items for their house. These items could include chairs, tables, chests, houses, windmills, tools, etc. Certain Woodcrafting items can also have a utility outside of their decorative purpose.

Similarly to the Cooking mechanic’s recipe system, for Woodcrafting, the player needs to own an Item Blueprint to be able to begin crafting.

Blueprints, Recipes, and more!

Players will need to progress in-game, attend events, or maybe they just need to get lucky to unlock certain recipes or blueprints. These will recipes and blueprints will be huge unlocks for certain aspects of gameplay.

Changes to Customization

Players will now only be able to customize their farm based on their progress in-game.

The more you progress in the game - the more your farm will become yours!

Industries (Crafting and harvesting)

Land Owners will have a limited number of specialized industries available to their farms. This roster can be changed, and leveled industries are not lost if they return to that industry.

Base Industries can be leveled up, and, subsequently, specialized development can spawn from the Base.

For example, the Apiary Base provides honey and benefits nearby flowers and fruit trees.

Progressing with the Apiary development results in Wax related industries like Candlemaking and provides benefits for machinery lubrication, waterproofing watercraft, and weatherproofing apparel.

We believe many of the issues popping up in play-to-earn economies are already solved problems in the traditional gaming world.

Our goal is to combine good game design, lessons from the leading web2 games, and what’s working from the top web3 games into delivering what we believe to be a long-term and sustainable economy for our game.

Our economic models rely on one fundamental assumption - our game needs to provide real value to our users - through gameplay. People need to enjoy our game - enough so that they would potentially even pay for things upgrades, skins, or other premium features - just like they would in normal games.

Source of Value

We believe there is a wrong assumption about blockchain gaming circulating through the space that blockchain games can monetize at orders of magnitudes higher than traditional gaming. We believe this assumption will likely not hold in the long term.

Games do provide real value to their users! This is a fact - but the truth is that a blockchain game of a similar caliber to a traditional game will probably create close to the same amount of total value for the ecosystem. But the sadder reality is that the previous generation of blockchain games did not even provide the same level of experience as traditional games. The prior generation of blockchain games was not valued for the entertainment they were providing but rather for the speculative elements of potential future earnings.

We are designing our tokens and in-game items instead to focus completely on gameplay and providing entertainment to our users.

Core Loops

There are three classes of assets in the Pixels Universe - all of these stored on-chain.

• Land

• Resources

• Tokens

These three asset types all integrate into our core loops in different ways.

Plots are pieces of floating landmass signature to the Pixels universe. Players can choose to make their homes on three varieties of plots, each with its preconceived perks and limitations.

Free and rented plots will primarily be single-player instances, and visitors won't be able to see your farm. You don’t need to own a plot of land to access the game's features.

Free Plots

Also known as Specks, which are the most basic type, allowing the player to engage in basic farming activities. Altogether, Free Plots do not offer much functionality and provide far less yield than other types.

Rented Plots

Rented Plots allow the players more freedom, better yield, and space for decorative purposes, but their downside is in the player having to rent them out, thus forfeiting a large portion of their winnings by using this plot type.

Owned Plots

Owned plots give the player additional space, functionality, and the highest income/yield out of all plot types. There are two variations of Owned Plots, each with its corresponding level of benefits:

• Small Owned NFT

• Large Owned NFT

Land Owners have unique benefits associated with an ownership relationship to the land that is not found in other land interactions.

All Industries are available to Owned Land, and some are unique to Owned Land. A Land Owner adds value to the NFT by working, industrializing, automating, and decorating it. Active Industries are limited by available land size but limitless overall. They can be mothballed at any time, and a new Industry initiated, as long as your land size can accommodate it.

Land Owners have the richest tapestry of interactions in Pixels. They can manage the resources of their land themselves, benefit from the production of their land by Sharecroppers, and be Sharecroppers themselves on other Owned Lands.

Resources

Each NFT farm will have resources available and the highest tier of resources that can’t be found in public lands (of which the free Sharecropper Speck and the rented Sharecropper lands are included). The only method of obtaining these resources is through a Sharecropping relationship with a Land Owner.

Resource generation is the main faucet in our game. Part of our in-game progression is that there is an increasing amount of difficulty to gather more rare and hard-to-come-by resources - and those resources will give more utility in-game. Players will need to spend time working their way up to be able to consistently gather higher and higher quality resources.

The number of resources generated during a given time period can be adjusted by our team via several variables:

• Replenishment times

• Inputs required to grow a resource

• How many resources are generated per action

• How much effort and attention does the process to harvest this resource require

The sharecropping system is how F2P players will play the game. Players can harvest, plant, and sell to their heart's content.

Rented land will all be leased and not owned by the player. The land will stay assigned to their account as long as they can pay the leasing fee. Players will be able to lease larger and larger plots of land as they accumulate in-game resources.

Sharecroppers can establish new skill progression by working the industries of an NFT Farm.

How are the Industries and Land Owner/Sharecropper relationships structured?

Since potentially there are many more non-land owning Players than Land Owners, multiple Sharecroppers can build the same relationship with a single Land Owner’s Industry. This has no cumulative benefit, however. In terms of production and leveling, it only matters that it is actively managed and there is continuity of production.

Land Owners may also be Sharecroppers. Simultaneously, Land Owners can personally manage their own Industries as a Player, managing the Sharecroppers using their Land, and being journeymen as Sharecroppers on other Land Owner's Land.

We are implementing a 2 token system.

$BERRY and $PIXEL.

Both tokens are intended to be uncapped in the amount of total supply - however the utility unlocked by each currency is quite different and so are the way they’re acquired.

$BERRY is the primary in-game currency in Pixels. They are the main way for a player to progress and navigate through our game loop.

This currency is a ‘soft currency’ - it is vital to core gameplay loops and it needs to be accessible and easily earned in-game.

The primary of this currency in the game in its early stages will be through the in-game store. Players will be able to sell resources they generated to our in-game store to exchange their resources for $BERRY.

The primary burn mechanism will be through purchasing in-game items that progress players further along our game loop. In-game items that unlock new industries, activities, areas, quests, and content. Players who do not own land will also need to $BERRY to maintain their land.

We have several levers to adjust the incoming supply of $BERRY.

• Controlling the generation of resources

  • Adjusting replenishment times of resources

  • The number of inputs required to generate a resource

  • The output of a given resource

  • The effort to harvest a particulate resource

  • The amount of energy it takes to complete certain actions

• In-game store prices

  • The prices of in-game items will be adjusted on both the buy and the sell side

In the future, we also have the option of limiting or even removing our in-game store - which would stop the minting of new $BERRY altogether!

$PIXEL is a premium in-game currency in Pixels. $PIXEL is used to buy items, upgrades, and cosmetic enhancements that are outside of the core gameplay loop of Pixels and it’s much harder to come by. It’s analogous to GEMS from the game Clash of Clans. Players will not need this token to progress in the game - but if they want to show off a bit more, then they will.

Demand

On the micro-level, user-by-user we want to think about why they might use these tokens

✅ Does this token save me time

✅ Does this token buy me social status in-game

✅ Does this token provide me real enjoyment

❌ Does this token increase future earnings

We want to ensure we’ve created an environment where first…

• Our game is providing real enjoyment and entertainment to our users

• Our currency can help amplify that experience without affecting the experience of other users

$PIXEL can be used to

• Mint new Land

• Speed up build times

• Temporarily boost energy

• Special items to place on land

• Unlock new skins

• Unlock XP and Skill enhancers

• Unlock new Crafting Recipes

• Unlock Player Pets

• Purchase IRL Merchandise

Supply

Unlike its counterpart, $BERRY - the supply of $PIXEL will be heavily controlled and predictable.

100,000 new $PIXEL will be minted each day. The new $PIXEL will then be distributed to active players that are engaging in desired behavior patterns that benefit the Pixels ecosystem.

Daily Distribution

A large form of this distribution will be through a daily reward system for completing various tasks, quests, or finding a specific item. However, we also aim to reward other behaviors such as creating unique user-generated content that encourages more use, engaging with our community, and more.

The allocation of these daily rewards is decided off-chain but approved on-chain.

At first, this system will be decided by Pixels - but this is a perfect example of decision-making that will move to be more decentralized

Burn

Premium items will be able to be purchased in our in-game store. The store will not purchase items back.

Proceeds will be sent to a treasury managed by Pixels. Pixels will likely burn a large portion of the incoming proceeds each day.

We have spent the last year building metaverse technology and blockchain game tooling as we develop our flagship title: Pixels.

A true metaverse is meant to be open, interoperable, and flexible. And in that spirit, we're also opening up our tooling for other projects to build on.

The Pixels Platform

Pixels has been building technology that lets us create 2d persistent, multiplayer, virtual spaces that users can build and play on.

Our tooling allows projects to create

• New Items and Objects

• New Maps & Worlds

• In-game Stores

• NPCs

• Environmental Art

• Quests

• Random Events

All are integrated into the blockchain.

A New Level of Interoperability

Our tooling allows for native integration of other projects

• Tokens

• Land NFTs

• Utility NFTs

• PFP NFTs

We have tooling that allows different projects to create their own unique metaverse experience on top of our technology for their communities.

The possibilities are endless and the ceiling for what can be created is large.

Our core technology has been providing a virtual space that corresponds to an NFT signifying ownership of a virtual plot of land.

When this technology was closed - we only offered virtual spaces for our own NFT collection: Pixels - Farm Land. However, we've decided to fully embrace interoperability and open our technology to support land coming in from other collections as well.

There will be different game mechanics, utilities, themes, quests, and opportunities in the different collections. Think of them as two separate experiences - for two separate audiences - all in the same universe!

We have the ability to support multiple tokens in our stores and to allow other projects to create their own stores.

Pixels can be completely agnostic to how integrated tokens are distributed or if projects choose Pixels is able to provide avenues to generate external tokens just like in our own game. Pixels can provide burn mechanisms in our game for external tokens by allowing projects to offer items in exchange for their own coins.

We started building Pixels with this concept as a core pillar.

Take a look at what we've already done in terms of integrating NFT identities into our platform.

So far we've integrated over 50 different NFT collections to be used as in-game avatars.

Pixels is an ambitious project. As we bring on more and more projects into our ecosystem, we will have many different types of audiences getting exposed to the Pixels Universe.

What is Different Between Experiences?

The core game loops of each integrated project are intended to be very different and are intended to attract different audiences.

Game Loops

The Pixels Game has its own core gameplay loops involving farming, upgrading land, and collecting rare items, and its themes are meant to attract a more casual and mid-core audience.

We want to enable projects to make their worlds unique and their own experience. We will work with early teams to help develop new mechanics, game loops, and ways to interact with our technology.

Game Worlds

Each project will be able to offer its own unique starting area and a shared world to explore for its users.

Quests

Each project will be able to offer its own line of quests and narrative experience.

Levels & Experience

Levels and experience in one world will likely not help you in another, and the progress through different loops will be separated. We don't want progression in one experience to hamper the fun of another experience!

What Is Shared Between Experiences?

Player Profiles

Your user and all its upgrades bought with $PIXEL will move from world to world as one. You'll have the same login and onboarding experience - and you'll only need to do it once - not for each project, you move between.

Inventories

Your inventory will follow you from world to world. These items probably won't be useful when you move them into new worlds - but they might still look cool!

Items

Item utility will be limited to each project's world. For example, you will not be able to take soil from the Pixels Universe and place it on other lands. Or you wouldn't be able to use a weapon from one game in another (by default - some games may choose to turn this on).

We want to keep progression in-game tied to each game experience. As game often tend to handle rarities, inflation, and economics very differently.

Though we'll allow some items to be crossed over between worlds - we'll also make it really easy to see how rare each item is. If you bring in an item from project A into your house in project B - the typical player in project B has no idea how rare or impressive that item is - we'll give easy ways to look that up!

We want to give autonomy and separation to each project that is integrated into the Pixels Universe.

Separate Economies

Each project controls how its own currency is generated and burned. We will encourage projects to try to integrate their tokens into gameplay and loops as much as possible - as we believe that's the best way to strengthen their currencies.

We will provide them with various tools if they choose to use them to both generate and burn more currency - but they are not required to use them, and they can retain full control as to how these currencies are used in-game.

Linked by $PIXEL

The upgrades purchased by $PIXEL will be shared across the Pixels Universe and be able to be seen across all experiences within the Pixels Universe.

This unlocks cross-game functionality for $PIXEL.

The long-term distribution will likely be shared across the universe as well. The distribution of which will be determined through a DAO of stakeholders across the universe.

Pixels is a metaverse and MMORPG for the NFTs you already own. Taking a lot of inspiration from some of our childhood favorites like Stardew Valley and Runescape, Pixels allows you to take your existing NFTs into a play-to-earn game!

How do I play?

The game is live here:

Pixels - Explore an Endless Universe

How do I Login In?

If you want to save your progress, you still need to sign in with MetaMask.

What if I don't have a supported NFT?

Don’t worry – if none of your NFTs are supported, you can still play the game! Click “Customize Character” if you are signed in with MetaMask, or click “Continue as guest”.

How do I move?

Movement is currently restricted to WASD (make sure you are not typing in the chat), but Arrow Key and Click movement will be available in the near future.

How do I select and equip?

Click the items in your inventory

OR

Inventory slots are label 1 through 9 and are key bindings – press the corresponding key on your keyboard to select or equip that item.

How do I start quests?

While you’re in Terra Villa, Mayor Dave is the man to talk to. If you can't find what to do next, try having a chat with him!

We have an amazing community that is more than happy to help you get started! Join our discord server and feel free to ask questions!

Join the Pixels - The NFT Metaverse Discord Server!Discord

Our Fundraise

Pixels.online has raised $2.4 million in a strategic seed round led by Animoca Brands and PKO Investments. PKO investments is a syndicate of angel investors made up of former founders. Angels joining the round included the CEO of Rotten Tomatoes, the COO of Twitch, the CEO of Crunchy Roll, the CEO of FitBit and a many more.

Other investors like OpenSea, Untapped Capital, and Leonis Capital joined the round.

Pixels - Crunchbase Company Profile & FundingCrunchbase

Why We Raised

Web3 offers a variety of interesting rays to raise capital for project.

The intention of this raise was to bring on partners who can offer serious support as we build out the next generation of technology in the play-to-earn space.