Sergio Nunes on Devikins, Design, and Combat
In today’s Developer Interview we discuss Devikins with the CEO, Lead Designer, and Lead Software Engineer — Sergio Nunes.
Where did the idea for Devikins come from?
Devikins started as an auto-battler that was solely focused on the crypto community, but it was shortly shifted to be a game first and foremost, one fuelled by crypto — after the team researched other titles and saw how unpolished or under executed many blockchain games tended to be. Thus, the auto battler turned into a proper RPG using turn-based combat, and the focus for the project turned to game mechanics rather than solely crypto.
By that time, it would be a garage project done in my (Sergio) spare time until Klever stepped in and supported the game, turning it into a proper project.
The Devikins name itself was crafted after a short brainstorm. We had the character persona set, and in our mind Devikin were a mix of Rabbids and Minions set in a H.P. Lovecraft world. We knew we needed an actual name that was easy to remember, spell, and fun to speak. Devikins is a fusion of two words Deviant and Kin.
Sorry there’s no Devil in the name, so that means no Angelkins to counter them out.
From a Design standpoint, what was the main approach you made to the integration between gameplay, and the function of a Play to Earn (P2E) environment?
Before Play to Earn earned its sudden spotlight in Q2 2021, Devikins was already being designed with P2E in mind. Since the beginning, Devikins’ in-game currency was set to be a cryptocurrency, one that would be earned in-game by players.
The team does not see Devikins as a game built on a cryptocurrency system. They see it the opposite way, Devikins is a game which turns the game currency into a crypto asset.
With Phase 1 coming soon and the development of Phase 2 underway, is there anything regarding combat and ideas surrounding its design that you’d like to share?
Combat is currently in pre-production; we already have a partly functional prototype. We loosely set a metric for combat launch, in that we will have one major story arc across five regions that players can complete as part of the PvE campaign. That, and the design of PvP mechanics.
The combat metagame is where I am having the most fun at the moment. We’ve crafted a flexible combat foundation, and balancing it is something I’m excited to sink my teeth into. Combat in general has a huge amount of potential, where one can easily create hundreds of combinations of skills, weapons, equipment, etcetera, and dabble with those.
What makes Devikins unique compared to other titles in the Pay to Earn sphere?
I strongly believe what will make Devikins unique will be its broad horizontal gameplay. Players will be able to play and win at different levels and in different ways.
Many games in the P2E sphere currently focus on PvP, and with that you’re either good at PVP with a competitive (and most of the time extremely expensive) team and therefore excel, or you become a marginalized afterthought of the game’s P2E system.
Devikins has in its internal roadmap several independent mechanics that will award different methods of play, not only the PvP savvy. I can’t discuss it in detail now, but it’s something I’ll be excited to discuss more of in the future.
Has the project changed from how you first imagined it — through pre-production all the way to how it stands now, leading up to a full release?
I wouldn’t say anything changed, but instead expanded. At its conception, Devikins was a PvP exclusive auto-battler. Now, it’s morphed into a full mobile RPG with so many ideas still yet to be implemented, discussed, and designed. Devikins will have the full package, and we’re aiming for it to evolve in such a way as to always offer a fresh experience to new and veteran players alike.
