In this article we will do a succinct post-mortem on the shop, going over what went wrong and reflecting on lessons learned so as to prevent mistakes from reoccurring in future. Based on said lessons, we will further discuss the how and why of changes made to the Devikins roadmap.
The Devikins shop opening on September 8th was far from perfect — and simply put, it was a failure. On the bright side, falling hard at the beginning helped us realize many points we needed to improve on.
First, we need to be far more diligent in our development process since blockchain games are, for all accounts, uncharted waters when it comes to the intense variety of games out there, and therefore solutions that address common or uncommon intricacies of blockchain gaming are not battle-tested or easily accessible. Our solution to synchronize the blockchain with a centralized server was a good lesson on how not to do it, and even after a group effort on the shop done hand-in-hand with Klever, we had to completely revamp the shop to make it all work as efficiently as possible.
Second, Quality Assurance (or simply, QA, better known for bug-testing and bug replication) was an area we overlooked, and proper testing and guidelines are essential for projects of any size. We overestimated the shop feature and approached it as a small hurdle rather than the very large one it turned out to be, and the usual extent of QA testing was not applied in our development. In response, we have hired dedicated QA personnel with numerous years of experience to assuage any fears and make sure that Devikins users are given what they deserve in future launches.
It also goes without mention that our confidence in delivering a proper server solution for the Devikins player-base, which kept increasing day over day, was shaken. This led us to fully embrace our relationship with Klever, as they have many years of experience working with scalable systems using blockchain technology. Moreover, we are actively looking to expand our server engineering team with experienced talent.
On the bright side, while part of the development team was fully focused on revamping the shop solution, the actual game development of Devikins never halted — and the game itself is closely following the planned schedule. However, again, we need to be overly digilent to make sure Devikins is stable and our solutions are the exact ones needed to deliver the best experience possible. Our long-term roadmap will not change, as we want to keep Phase 2 for Q3 2022 and Phase 3 for Q2 2023. But, for our short term roadmap, we want to make small adjustments.
Our newly adjusted roadmap for December 2021 will begin with a closed beta involving core gameplay for Phase 1. By closed beta, we mean that Devikins will not be available for everyone from the start, it will be by invitation.
Why is that?
The main reason is that we need to have a controlled environment to allot metrics and fully, properly test systems from gameplay itself, to the back-end. Our plan is to start with a small number of players and send more invites as we go until server stability reaches a set of predetermined KPIs (Key Performance Indicators, or a very fancy way of saying performance statistics). After the closed beta we plan to have an open beta period, which means things will be open for everyone who’s interested in testing Devikins. This will be the main bar required to make sure we are fully prepared to release the game.
Closed beta details and invitations will be released later down the line, in advance of the beta itself, and we plan to give preference to our early adopters whilst at the same time reserving some spots for the broader audience. So, if you did not manage to participate in the DVK mining event, you still have a chance to be in the closed beta if you are interested. Once more, further details will be released in future.
We hope that via this gradual release flow we will be able to accomplish a solid Devikins launch, and we are fully committed to making Devikins a fun experience, as well as a rock solid title.
