FRTL

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Fertile Realm of Timeless Life https://frtl.dev/ A creature collector entertainment platform involving mini-games and AI generated eggs and creatures.

founded 1 month ago

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jaykrown@lemm.ee

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FRTL is completely free to play in the browser on all devices https://frtl.dev/ (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 day ago by jaykrown@lemm.ee to c/FRTL@lemm.ee

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Registration simply requires an email address and username, with a link sent to your email to log in. No personal data is saved or shared with any other entity. Users will always maintain the right to completely delete their account at any time. Crawler bots do not have the right to scrape the website at all. No real money is involved in the system, pax and scrolls are free to earn by playing games, and 7 days of membership can be purchased for 1000 pax.

https://frtl.dev/

If you have any questions please feel free to ask! 🥚

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[–] fartsparkles@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

So you collect things to collect them? Why? And why upgrade their stats?

The game part seems to be missing from this game. It seems more fun could be had with an AI image generator directly since the only way to collect a new picture is to play rather generic games (snake for instance).

In a matter of seconds promoting an image generator, you can get:

So this game is an image generator with extra steps but those extra steps aren’t very fun. And paying to get rid of the extra steps (buying in-game currency which is how you fund it all) means I might as well just go give my money to Midjourney or something.

It would make more sense to earn in-game currency by playing a game with or related to the creatures, giving more reason to upgrade their stats and be invested in them.

In the current iteration, the “game” is an unveiled monetisation platform and the downvotes are likely because of that.

There’s the roots of a good idea in here but I’d ditch snake etc and go back to invite only alpha while you iterate on a game loop otherwise you’ll burn your social capital for the FRTL brand quickly.

My first impression for the website was “NTF web3.0 cash grab scam” not “game”.

Other thoughts, .dev tld doesn’t signal game either, but programming.

Additionally, the images are all of such varying design that there’s nothing really iconic about FRTL. You should curate a library of base creatures or something that are inputs for the model to iterate on with the stats so that the rares etc are fun poses, effects, different elements, different colours, sizes, etc.

[–] jaykrown@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I appreciate your feedback. No real money, no blockchain, no NFTs, no web3.0. The only way to put in real money is to donate on Patreon. Membership can be bought with 1000 pax for 7 days which takes a couple hours to earn by playing the mini-games. I'll probably have to put that on the home page, cryptocurrency severely damaged innovation with what filthy capitalists did with it.

I could curate a library of base creatures and that's actually how the idea began, but the idea has changed and become fundamentally different than a traditional creature collector. I won't be taking the time to manually create creatures. I have been developing it solo, the idea rests on a creature generation algorithm and it leverages AI image generation to make it cheap. As a result, no two creature images will be the same, so what you find is unique and yours on the platform to do what you want with.

As far as the snake game goes, it's one of several games, and I plan to add more games to the platform. I'm not worried about social capital because I've already made it VERY clear no real money is involved at all, and that it's in development. I have very little social capital to begin with.

The .dev TLD is to be clear that it's in development, and I already own the .app TLD for frtl.app in the future potentially. It is a bit of a tech demo in a way, a different way of approaching the creature collector genre.

So you collect things to collect them? Why? And why upgrade their stats?

You can use the upgraded creatures to enter the chaos realm and be rewarded with pax which helps you get more eggs. It's a passive reward system and a cyclical process which ultimately makes it easier to get more eggs/creatures. As far as the stats go, I have implemented Health, Attack, Speed attributes for a potential future auto-battler style game with the creatures, but that's only something I'm considering now that I've built the foundation. Moving forward I'll probably put more effort into the stats system, and I've been thinking about creature modifiers/abilities.

there’s nothing really iconic about FRTL

You summon eggs from scrolls, purely random impossible to know what you'll get. The creatures inherit traits from their eggs. The soul-bind system requires you to sacrifice one creature to empower another creature. These are things that differentiate FRTL from a traditional creature collector.

As for creature image modification, it's something I'm investigating, and I like the idea of creature modifiers that impact the look of their images, which would add more images.

Thanks again for your feedback, I'm going to keep working on it, but anyone can try it out if they want completely free.

[–] fartsparkles@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

I clearly didn’t grok that no real money is involved looking at the website and watching your demo video on YouTube. The website design “read” as I commented as a very web3.0 developery thing and not “game”.

I think because it’s missing a quick statement about the game / elevator pitch. And says “begin journey” instead of “play now” or similar.

“Platform features” should be renamed “Features” as platform doesn’t suggest fun.

Perhaps a clear “early access / in development” label at the top too - makes sense about the TLD choice.

Try some user testing. Find people who haven’t played your game before, jump on a screen share and set them the task of “Register for the game and hatch a creature egg”. Record the session and sit back and watch. Don’t tell or teach them, don’t control things for them. Just observe.

You’ve built a lot of platform tech (which is super fun to make) but I think you’d do well to focus more on the gameplay loop. Snake etc are decent mini games to earn currencies but, to me at least, they’re not compelling enough to register for the image generator. Creature collectors typically go for a battle mechanism or something that gives motive to want to engage with the other mechanics.

Keep pushing and keep user testing! Good luck :)

[–] jaykrown@lemm.ee 1 points 18 hours ago

Thanks again for the feedback. I'll update that information on the homepage, it makes sense to include more info at a glance. It understandable that snake/2048/match may not be enough for a lot of people to keep coming back, but I made it modular, and will be adding more games. I'm going to be making the hexort game give a daily first time play reward as well.