Hi everyone! We are working on the next version of Conquest.eth and we would love your input to shape it!
We setup a survey here: https://survey.conquest.game If you got 5 minutes, please give your feedback, that will help us a lot. And note that even if you did not play the game yet, we are interested to hear from you.
And while we are here, let’s have a recap! But if you just want to know about what is coming, scroll past the recap and check What’s new?
A recap
Faction Mod
In May last year (time flies!) we released Conquest, Faction edition. We were very happy to partner with the Fusionist team and while the game has several issues like UI bugs due to the sheer number of planets and fleets that players had to deal with (there was much more token distributed this instance than any other in the past), we learnt a lot from it.
We also had a lot of multi-accounting issues that we did not plan for. This was due to the fixed entry price, a big departure from what made Conquest.eth immune to it prior to that. We should have known better, especially with the reward value this time.
Having said that, the game was great to watch and players enjoyed overall based on the feedback we received.
The conclusion is that the faction system has proven to be a viable mechanics for conquest, especially the balancing worked well ensuring that each faction could win. We are considering adding this to the new version.
Technology stack
Once reward were distributed, we set ourselves to focus on the new version. We took the opportunity to re-evaluate our technology choice. While we have been thinking of reaching a wider audience than crypto we still think the technology of smart contract is the right one for our game as it allow it to scale. Yes blockchains, contrary to what we might expect due to slow block time, etc… have a unique advantage: the design behind smart contract and gas accounting is made so there are no hard limit to players and computation. You just have to design for it.
So we looked a various Blockchain technologies, exploring ecosystem like Starknet and Fuel but in the end we went back to build on the EVM. It still is the right technology for what we are building, plus we already have many of our tech stack working with it. It was an interesting detour though: Starknet have a vibrant onchain game ecosystem and Fuel has a unique approach for scaling, moving more responsibility from the chain to the application layer.
A new game
We also explored a new game idea that we showed at Devconnect. Bomber.world, it was great to get it play-tested and got good feedback for it. And while we are still planning to launch it, we are not ready yet — we need a blockchain that’s both fast and reliable, and getting both together is still a challenge. Watch the space.
The last 6 months
We joined 2 local game accelerators, SGDA and Game Space, joining around 20 other game studios working on really cool ideas (from horror games, to energy installation simulation, and a game subtly educating about dementia).
It was great to connect with the traditional game developer scene and this helped us rethink what Conquest value proposition really is. We see it as a middle ground between heavy but truly social game like Eve Online and casual strategy game with shallow social connections like Clash of Clan. With Conquest, you get both casual game play and deep social strategy.
In February we also explored the use of agent like Openclaw to play the game without human intervention. We built a cli and an associated Skill.md file. Anyone can simply feed their agent such markdown file and this is enough for the agent to start playing the game. Check it out here: https://moltiverse.conquest.game/
And as always when we start a new project, we spent the last few month refactoring the core structure of our front-end and smart contracts. We released hardhat-deploy v2 and are working toward a new release of jolly-roger. This, like its previous version will form the basis of our game code.
What’s new ?
I guess you are wondering when conquest new version will see the light if at all ? The good news is that we got some great new UI in progress. This is not final. It is our first exploration and we already love it.
We can’t wait to share more on this and start integrating into our code base.
Timeline ?
We still do not have a timeline except that we would love to have something to play-test or at least demo by September. But no guarantee yet. Join our discord though to get the latest info and motivate us to get there fast :)
What about the mechanics ?
While the UI changes drastically, the game core mechanics are still similar to the original except for few points, some of which we are still exploring:
24h turn. instead of a real-time game, the new version is turn based and while we can easily change the duration, we are targeting a 24h turn for the main game mode. So Instead of having fleet travelling in real time, they move discretely, 1 day at a time.
no teleportation. In the new version, while player will initially be able to chose any star system to first colonise, they will then need to expand by sending fleet away. This is in contrast to the original conquest where player can always exit planets and acquire a new one far away with the token they get back after the exit.
avatar progression: In the new version player will be represented by avatars that will progress along the player. This will form the basis of a new risk-system: Get your avatar captured and you lose (some of) its progression.
Some things that we are still on the fence about and might be modes of play that we intend to play test:
single price entry + lobby
- instead or along an infinite version, we are thinking to have competitions with buy-in (think like poker) and to prevent the use of multi-account, we will use the latest zk technology to verify ID while keeping privacy (you prove you have a passport but nobody, not even us sees it, like magic).
no teleportation
- we are still the fence on this one, one advantage of
"no teleportation"is that it reduce collision where 2 or more players chose to acquire the same star system at the same time, which can happen in a 24h turn game version.
- we are still the fence on this one, one advantage of
factions VS organic alliances.
- We like the faction system, but we know some players prefers the original alliance system that allow for organic relationship and mercenary roles. Our thinking for now is to support both mode, and maybe even support the combined factions + no-faction as an option.
Some things might require more work and will probably see the light of day later
single player mode
- A single player mode is something we are really keen to have. It can either be a set of scenario, or a complete campaign with a story. We tested the use of agent earlier this year and while there is still some work to do to make them smart enough, their ability to generate coherent language can make for a great single player game of diplomacy.
idle mechanics
- A 24h turn game like Conquest means there is nothing to do once you set your plan, and so we are thinking to add extra gameplay element similar to Idle game where you can always come back earlier to maximize your empire. Note that we will design it in a way that such grinding will not affect the core game loop and will act more like a vanity reward
Get Involved
Thanks for reading all of this! If any of these ideas trigger your interest, or if you have things you would love to have in the game (or not have!), we want to hear from you.
Fill out our survey to share your feedback — it only takes 5 minutes and will help shape the future of Conquest. Join our Discord to be part of the conversation, and re-enable your notifications; we’ll be sharing our game design document there soon and posting more regular updates (don’t worry, we’ll keep announcements to a minimum).
You can also subscribe to our mailing list to stay in the loop.