Introduction

Beyond the Void (BtV) is a computer game currently being created by a small team of people; all of whom are independent i.e. don’t work for a big, games, company – these sort of projects are often referred to as “indie games”.

What’s quite unusual and special about the team of four working on this indie game is that they are all part of a close-knit family. Between the four of them, they have a diverse set of skills; together they are able to cover all of the bases necessary to pull off the enviable feat of creating an appealing game. There are two aspects of this team that really stand out: Maxence’s art work is spectacular and Rémi is able to program Smart Contracts on the Ethereum Blockchain. The reason for using a Blockchain with this game is that by shifting the paradigm from in-game items being stored on centralised servers to instead being held on a global ledger, each player has “true ownership” of the game items they earn or buy in BtV (in the future, the in-game items may even be incorporated into other teams’ games or subsequent versions of Beyond the Void).

BtV is set in a futuristic time when space travel is the norm and battles between different factions (called Houses) frequently take place, in space, over a dwindling and scarce resource called “Cubes”.

BtV will be free-to-play, but there will be cosmetic items which can be bought from the in-game shop; none of the items should give you a strategic advantage in the game i.e. it’s not pay-to-win.

The gameplay

Whilst the game is not out yet – a Beta version will be available for backers to test the game and provide feedback on the experience on 22nd February – this is what we know about the game so far:

Beyond the Void looks to be a blend of aspects of popular and successful computer game genres; resulting in something compelling and unique.

It will contain aspects familiar to fans of Real Time Strategy (RTS) games

• There will be numerous ways to approach defeating your foe. These different strategies can result in a spectacular win or defeat depending on how well executed they were or applicable to the current situation.
• You will start off with a base (a planet) from which you can build new structures to give you extra utilities, units, gather resources (Cubes) etc.
• You will be able to be able to expand your territory by conquering new planets that will result in you being able to create more structures, units etc.

The game will also contain aspects familiar to Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games

• You will control a single hero unit (Mothership) that has different skills which can be advanced as it gains experience.
• You will engage your opponent down one of a number of “Lanes” which will contain something that resembles defensive structures / “Towers”.
• There will be “Creeps” or “Neutral” enemies on the maps that can be defeated in order to level up your Mothership.

There are gameplay aspects similar to both of these genres that will also be incorporated in the game

• The games will be competitive and there will be a global ranking of a players. The idea being that it could eventually become an e-sport.
• The game will be one vs one / player vs player (at least to start off with)
• Winning a game will earn you points which can be used to unlock new skills for your hero / Motherships

The final gameplay aspect that I will touch upon is the “Events cards”. These event cards are in-game, multi-use items that can be played before the start of a game to tweak the rules of the map or add new fun elements to the map for the duration of that game. They will change the dynamics of the game and may open up new strategies, but won’t give the user an obvious advantage over the other player. Multiple event cards could be played by each player. Some event cards will be made free to use by everyone for a short duration of time – and the one that is available will change on a regular basis.

The shop

Beyond the Void will contain a shop which will allow players to buy newly released items from the owner of the store (the team) and act as a player-to-player market place; where players can list and buy items at varying prices and quantities.

The items will all be cosmetic – and won’t give any other player a strategic advantage – the items which will be available at launch are

• Skins for each of the Motherships
• Event cards
• Experience point boosters (limited use/duration)
• Avatars
• Tags which will allow you to ‘spray paint’ an area of the map
• Titles that prefix or postfix player’s names such as “Doctor”

All transactions in the shop will be carried out in the Ethereum token which the Beyond the Void team created which is called Nexium.

Nexium

Nexium is the currency of the Beyond the Void game, however, it won’t be earned by playing the game – only experience points will.

Nexium (ticker NXC) is standard ERC20 Ethereum token. What this means is that the token conforms to the basic standards agreed to by the community; the result of this is that you can see it in your Ethereum Wallets (such as Mist (https://github.com/ethereum/mist/releases)), that you can transfer it peer-to-peer and buy or sell it on exchanges that list the token (such as Poloniex).

These tokens are not something that can be mined – a finite amount of them exist and these were issued to the Beyond the Void team to distribute when the token was created.

The Beyond the Void team created an Initial Coin Offering (similar to when a company has an IPO – and is listed on a Stock Exchange) of Nexium in order to raise funds for the development and start the circulation of the token, in November 2016. Beyond the Void offered Nexium in exchange for Ethereum’s Ether and Spells of Genesis’ Bit Crystals. They were able to reach their minimum goal of 110,000 Euros worth of Ether and Bit Crystals; in fact they raised a lot more than that (~470,000 Euros).

15% of the initial Nexium was reserved for the developers of the game. 15% was reserved to be distributed as part of marketing campaigns.

Initial amount created: 100,000,000 NXC
Founder’s share: 15000000 NXC
Marketing budget: 15000000 NXC
Sold during Pre-sale: 4245183 NXC
Pre-sale bonus amount: 621780 NXC
Sold during ICO: 28904984 NXC
ICO bonus amount: 2749640 NXC
Amount burnt: 33478413 NXC
(burn address is 0x1b32000000000000000000000000000000000000)

Where can I find out more?

• Beyond the Void has a web page which contains a lot of useful information.
• Follow Beyond the Void on Twitter
• Beyond the Void has a Facebook page
• The Beyond the Void Slack channel
• A forum has recently been created.
• Manon has published a useful Q&A video on YouTube answering some of the community’s questions.
• Dyrk (a member of the community) create a http://nexiumstats.com/ a site which started off as just showing the ‘rich list’, but is slowly growing to provide more information that could be useful for traders.

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badges created for the community by @elyaque

_{images (except for the pie chart) sourced from Beyond the Void's "press kit"}