I've spent some time talking to the founders of a rather interesting NFT project: 9Tales. My goal was to dig deeper in order to have a better understanding of their project. See the full text below.
Chris: Welcome guys, can you start by introducing yourselves?
Eruine: Of course. We would like to begin by thanking you Chris and NFT Calendar for this opportunity. I am Othmane Safsafi, aka Eruine, co-founder of the 9Tales project.
ColonelBihi: Hey Guys, I am Soufiane Mouloudi, aka ColonelBihi, I am co-founder of the project, in charge of the development side. Thank you for inviting us.
Chris: What is the 9Tales project in a few words?
Eruine: 9Tales is a project for the development of a play-to-earn game by the same name. Our goal is to make a fast-paced card game, easy to learn yet hard to master. This game will have free-to-play features and amusing mechanics for players looking to have fun, but also more serious modes for the most skilled players, or what we refer to as “Compete-To-Earn” modes.
Chris: The characters are dope! What was the inspiration behind the development of the game and its characters?
Eruine: We draw inspiration from many different worlds and styles : The fantasy like that of Lord of the Rings and World of Warcraft, from games such as League of Legends and God of Wars, but also from anime: Attack on Titan or Samurai Champloo.
Chris: As an NFT holder, what are my benefits? Is there a way to save on some gas?
Eruine: 9Tales NFT holders would have benefits throughout the process of the development of the game ecosystem. We have a detailed article on this in our medium blog, but just to list a few : Holders would get free card Packs, access to private token sale at discounted price, and few will get access to closed Beta testing. In the game itself, having an original 9Tales NFT as your avatar would grant you more chances in the card generation mechanism, and priority access to new expansions at the lowest price. And of course, you get a dope piece of art.
ColonelBihi: For the gas part, this is a challenge that faces every creator in the Ethereum space nowadays. We tried to keep the fees to a minimum, and have prepared a mechanism to prevent gas wars, but gas fees themselves can not be totally avoided on ETH. Of course, we could have gone with a different blockchain technology, but after careful consideration, we decided that the project deserves to be on Ethereum.
For the game however, we plan to learn from the journey of older crypto-games, by harvesting the power of layer-2 solutions. This would allow our players to benefit from great scalability (more speed and very small fees) while still benefiting from Ethereum’s great security and decentralization.
Chirs: Is there really a world of 9999 unique hand-drawn characters? When can we see the whole collection up for sale?
ColonelBihi: The characters are made of hundreds upon hundreds of hand drawn assets. These assets were used to generate the 9999 NFTs. The entire collection will be revealed after our open sale on the 12th of December, but we periodically publish sneak peeks on our social media for the eyes of our very supportive community.
Chris: When can we expect the first airdrop ? How do we keep updated on the latest news at 9Tales?
Eruine: The first airdrop should arrive in Q1 of 2022, and the best way to get our news would be by following our official social media accounts (Discord, Twitter and Medium).
Chris: The game is based on the coexistence of 9 races. How is this game organized? What is so unique about it?
Eruine: First, our goal is to bring a high quality card game on par with famous card games such as MTG or LOR to the crypto world. The story of the game has been shaped long before we publish the project. We released two short episodes of this story, and will be publishing more after the public sale.
In the game, each one of the 9 races has a unique play style and mechanics. You can only combine few races to create your deck of cards: this allows for immense possibilities and strategy. At the same time, the game is easy to pick up and the fun mechanics make every battle different.
Chris: We are psyched about the Compete-To-Earn aspect of 9Tales. It is like a dream come true for gamers. How does it work?
ColonelBihi: We intend to build something to last and prosper, so a lot of effort is focused on the design and tokenomics of the game (Token supply, rewarding system oracle, balanced game modes, etc).
In this context, in addition to the story mode and the classic player-vs-player mode, the Compete-2-Earn mode is a new paradigm we will be introducing which is geared toward more competitive players, with higher stakes and of course higher rewards. This new paradigm will also play a major role in the overall economical balance of the game. A first glimpse of this new paradigm can be reviewed in our 5th medium article, and more details will be released in our whitepaper to be published on the 7th of December.
Chris: Finally, the team seems to be working hard to maintain timelines on the roadmap. Please introduce us to the key members of your core team and their backgrounds?
Eruine: The core team of 9Tales project is composed of 4 people:
- Myself, the CEO. I am a researcher in decentralized algorithms, and also a content creator for Youtube, Twitch and facebook. My content focuses on crypto, games (especially card games), and storytelling.
- ColonelBihi, the Head of Development, is an engineer specializing in blockchain development. He has a big interest in blockchain gaming and learned a lot by reverse engineering on-going crypto-games.
- StackOverFlop, (Houssam), our Head of Game Design. He is a professional Poker player. He also has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, and specializes in game theory.
- Our secret Main Artist. All we will say about him now is that he works for one of the largest gaming companies in the world. His name will be revealed later.
In Addition to 9Tales core members, our team has 9 other collaborators for now, including artists, game/blockchain developers and marketing/community managers. Of course, more people will be hired as we move onwards on our roadmap.
