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Illuvium, the space ‘Pokémon’ are waiting for you: catch them all!
Cosimo Rosario Di Martino
8 min
Illuvium is a Pokémon-style play-to-earn video game. Explore the alien planet, capture the Illuvials and discover their secrets!
A vast and wild alien world to explore with your jetpack and scout drone here is Illuvium, the crypto game that has nothing to envy of off-chain games! Built with the Unreal Engine 5 graphics engine, Illuvium features excellent graphics quality that catapults you to a planet inhabited by Illuvials, creatures of unimaginable power that can be domesticated. Illuvium is based on the Immutable X blockchain, which specialises in play-to-earn video games thanks to its low fees and speed. The planned release date for the open beta is late 2022. Want to know more? Read on to learn what Illuvium Pokémon-like crypto game on Immutable X is all about!
Illuvium’s story and gameplay
Illuvium is an as yet uncharted alien planet inhabited by some strange creatures, the Illuvials. In the game, your character is a space explorer stranded on Illuvium with your team after responding to a distress signal. The landscape before you is a boundless environment with many different ecosystems, often subject to extreme weather events such as storms and hailstorms. The planet emanates a mysterious radio signal that disables spaceships but at the same time turns animals into Illuvials, giving them almost divine powers.
Together with the other explorers, you decide to become a Ranger and capture Illuvials using Shards – items created from materials found on Illuvium, and used to capture the creatures and tame them so they can be used in combat, the main part of the game’s gameplay. Basically, every captured Illuvial becomes an NFT in your wallet! But besides fighting, you can do a lot more with your Illuvials.
If you want to enhance your creatures, you can trigger a Fusion between three of them to create a second-level Illuvial. Fusing three second-level Illuvials creates a third-level Illuvial, the top level. Since these creatures are NFTs you can either use them in your adventures or sell them for ETH on Illuvium’s decentralised exchang IlluviDEX. Besides making your Illuvials more powerful, Fusion makes NFTs deflationary. According to the developers, this system should create an economy that increases in value over time.
Gather resources and build weapons and armours
Illuvials are not the only NFTs you can trade for ETH. The planet of Illuvium is rich in resources that you can sell in exchange for crypto on IlluviDEX. With your jetpack and scout robot, you can explore the vast 3D world without limits! In fact, your futuristic technology allows you to glide over gorges, or perform double jumps to reach the highest peaks. Exploration is a fundamental element of Illuvium’s gameplay and the developers are working to make it dynamic and fun.
Among the most valuable resources are the minerals, which you can use to build weapons and armour for your character. Your explorer fights alongside your Illuvials in battles, and the weapons determine their role in the fight. Choose a plasma rifle to make them a sniper, or equip them with energy blades and let them throw themselves into the fray! To prevent them from being easily defeated you can also build armours that increase their hitpoints and make them harder to take down. Of course, you can also choose to sell weapons and armour in exchange for ETH on the Illuvium exchange.
The second type of resource is Illuvium’s flora. Your scout drone can collect alien flowers and fruits, which are indispensable for creating special potions and jewellery. Potions are used to support your Illuvials during combat. You can use them to heal wounded creatures, or to make them temporarily stronger. Jewellery, on the other hand, can be applied to your weapons and enhance the Illuvials around you. These items are also NFTs, and can be conveniently traded for ETH on the IlluviDEX.
Resources can be refined by building technological facilities directly on the planet. To do this, you first need to buy LAND. There are 100,000 LANDs, and during the first pre-sale that began on 2 June, 20,000 have already been sold. Considering that it will be crucial to refine resources in the play-to-earn videogame, owning LAND will play a very important role in the Illuvium universe!
Train your Illuvials and fight!
Combat is at the heart of Illuvium’s gameplay. Although exploration is a very important aspect of the crypto game, Illuvium remains an autobattler. Your task is to build a balanced team of Illuvials by exploiting their strengths and minimising their weaknesses, just like in Pokémon. Illuvials are in fact divided into classes and can have elemental affinities.
There are five classes of Illuvials. The first are Fighters, who are versatile and attack using claws and fangs. Bulwarks are very resistant and have high defences, making them perfect as tanks (in a nutshell, they are suitable for staying in the front line and protecting less resistant comrades). Rogues, on the other hand, are not very resistant, but their attacks hardly miss their target and they can easily eliminate already weakened enemies from combat. Psions are Illuvials with psionic powers and have special abilities that weaken enemies at a distance, they can also monitor the battlefield with telekinesis. Empaths, on the other hand, are back-up Illuvials and can heal and protect the team from the back.
They also have 5 elemental affinities. Air Illuvials are agile and difficult to hit. Earth Illuvials are tough and difficult to knock down. Fire Illuvials hit hard and their offensive special abilities are more powerful. Water Illuvials can use their special abilities more often. Nature Illuvials, on the other hand, have natural regenerative abilities.
Affinities and classes can become stronger during a Fusion, or even combine to create hybrid Classes and Affinities! For example, fusing three Earth Illuvials will create an even stronger and more imposing Granite Illuvial. Conversely, merging a Fire Illuvial and an Air Illuvial will give your creature the Electric affinity. Ready to get your crypto Pikachu?
When creating your team, always keep an eye on their Affinities and Classes: the more members of your team have these two aspects in common, the more advantages your Illuvials will have. Conversely, putting opposite Affinities together will give your beasts disadvantages, so be careful!
Illuvium’s Tokenomics
Illuvium is a play-to-earn video game, where everything you gain – Illuvials as well as raw resources – has value outside of the game. You can buy and sell all your NFTs in exchange for ETH on IlluviDEX. All trading among players is done with ETH and the fees end up in the Illuvium Vault, the game’s treasury.
ILV is Illuvium’s proprietary crypto. You cannot trade with other players using ILV, but you can purchase special items directly from a computer-managed market, such as the Shards needed to capture the Illuvials, or cosmetic items such as costumes and jewellery, which do not directly impact Illuvium’s gameplay. ILV’s primary use is as a utility token. For instance, you can use it to vote on community proposals and utilise it as a classic governance token. In this way, Illuvium’s development follows the path the crypto world wants, without changes and modifications imposed ‘from above’.
Staking is ILV’s second use. Whoever holds this token can stake it from a minimum of one month to a maximum of twelve months directly on the Illuvium site. ILV staking’s special feature is that the rewards can be received in two different ways of your choice. If you choose to receive the classic token, you will have to wait a vesting (i.e. lock-in) period of 12 months before you can sell it. Alternatively, you can choose to receive a synthetic token, sILV. This token is pegged to ILV, but can immediately be used in-game to purchase Shards or cosmetic items.
When Illuvium will be released, ILV owners will get additional rewards directly from the Illuvium Vault. The game developers, in fact, will not earn anything from the marketplace fees: all revenue will end up in the wallets of people who had staked their ILVs. This will allow the community that has believed in the crypto game to earn money and continue to increase the value of the game.
When will Illuvium be released?
Illuvium’s roadmap is going full steam ahead, and the closed Beta phase is already available for the lucky ones who have been selected. In the coming months, there will be an open Beta phase in which everyone will be able to try out the crypto game. Judging by the videos released directly by the developers, Illuvium is already well underway, with only the finishing touches remaining. Given that the LAND sale which took place on the 2nd of June 2022 was a success, the developers of Illuvium themselves must have geared up to let the public try out their game!
So, the Pokémon-style crypto game on Immutable X, Illuvium, is coming soon. According to its founder Kieran Warwick, a videogame of this kind is set to last at least 10 years, thanks to its deflationary economy and the updates already planned by the development team. Will Illuvium succeed in conquering the crypto world with its gameplay and innovations, or will it be unable to undermine the primacy of other play-to-earn video games such as DeFi Kingdom and Axie Infinity?
This is the 3rd in a series of articles covering the world of crypto gaming and blockchain games. Follow us to stay updated on the most exciting crypto games of 2022!
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