Game studio nWay, a division of Animoca Brands, has launched the beta for Cosmic Bomber, a casual multiplayer action game that is akin to Bomberman meets Web3.
The web and PC game is the newest addition to Mocaverse’s social gamification hub Cosmic Club. The beta of Cosmic Bomber is now available exclusively to the 1.79 million Moca ID holders at this link. nWay also released Olympics Go! Paris 2024, the official video game for the Olympic Games Paris 2024 in June.
Cosmic Bomber is a Bomberman-style action-maze game where players strategically place explosive magic balloons to outsmart and ultimately eliminate rival teams. As you avoid splash-damage or being tagged by your opponents, you’ll navigate through diverse blocks that, when destroyed, unlock special items to boost your path to victory. The game features real-time multiplayer competition, digital ownership of unique characters, and an innovative hybrid economy that will allow all players to sustainably earn, spend, and sell.
Leadership change
The game’s developer, nWay, is well-known for a lot of its action and fighting games. I most recently wrote about it after interviewing nWay founder, Taehoon Kim, about Wreck League, a mech-fighting game that launched last year as a hybrid Web2 and Web3 game. In December, Kim left the company and co-CEOs Kristen Salvatore and Steve Kuroki have taken over. I talked to Salvatore about Cosmic Bomber, which is a smaller-scale project than Wreck League, which took a couple of years to make.
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Salvatore, who was the marketing head, and Kuroki, the creative lead, were complementary and so they decided to run the company together. I asked how Wreck League, which was a mech game that had an interesting strategy of trying to get Web2 and Web3 players to need each other in a symbiotic way, turned out. Salvatore noted that the game launch offered a lot of lessons and they were still tweaking it.
But she noted that Web3 gamers aren’t quite as hardcore a crowd as expected, and Wreck League took a while for players to master. Meanwhile, Cosmic Bomber targets a much more casual audience.
“I will say that I think we learned a lot,” Salvatore said. “This game is quite different. Wreck League was our first attempt to take what we knew of the great Web2 games and look at what elements could be brought into Web3 in a way that makes sense. It was a little bit ahead of its time.”
Many Web3 gamers may not be in it for the skill. Rather, they may want something engaging and quick that they can play while on the run. Salvatore said Wreck League has since added auto-battles, and it is evaluating a possible chain migration. All you have to do is take a look at the popularity of the simple Hamster Kombat game on Telegram to see what is working with Web3 gamers.
Cosmic Bomber, meanwhile, has been in the works for a little less than a year. It’s a recognition that the casual gameplay may be more suitable for Web3 players at the moment. Players can compete with each other on leaderboards for rewards for on-chain play.
The game is free to play and it will monetize via a season pass and eventually there will be tokens that represent opportunities for players to get more engaged and participate in the economy. But the emphasis in the game is to create fun experiences for the player, Salvatore said.
Later on, the company will consider making the game for iOS and Android, within the boundaries of Web3 rules on those platforms.
Playing Cosmic Bomber
Leveraging nWay’s experience in multiplayer games, Cosmic Bomber features real-time player-versus-player (PvP) competitions, digital ownership of unique characters, and an innovative hybrid economy that allows all users to sustainably earn, spend, and sell in-game assets. Cosmic Bomber runs on dynamic seasons that introduce new IPs and bring fresh characters and maps to the Cosmic Bomber universe.
nWay has partnered with Mocaverse, which has a Web3-friendly consumer network with an interoperable infrastructure layer of Account, Identity, and Reputation systems seeded by Animoca Brands. Mocaverse will present Cosmic Bomber Season 1 within Mocaverse’s Cosmic Club social gaming hub. Cosmic Club is creating a cross-ecosystem synergistic platform to enhance user onboarding and growth, and to utilize PvP elements to foster social interaction among Web3 communities.
The beta of Cosmic Bomber is now available to 1.79 million holders of Moca ID, Mocaverse’s decentralized identifier (DID) that gives users access to the growing Moca Network and to participating projects in Animoca Brands’ portfolio of more than 540 Web3 investments.
Moca ID holders will be able to earn Realm Points (RP), the loyalty points of Moca ID, by playing and competing in Cosmic Bomber. As part of Cosmic Club, players can spend RPs to enroll in special tournaments and climb the leaderboards to win more RP rewards.
The Cosmic Bomber game is part of a larger ecosystem that nWay is building called Project Wonder, which brings different kinds of games into the same community.
Cosmic Bomber reminds her of simple experiences that are very satisfying. You lay down bubbles and try to trap the other bombers and take them out. The action is fast and immediate. The games are bomb battles where you try to get the other players within a few minutes.
“It’s a Bomberman style game. The seasonal content will be much more in the form of cosmetics and different season passes,” Salvatore said.
You can play it either two versus two or a free-for-all with four players.
Kenneth Shek, project lead for Mocaverse, said, in a statement, “We’re incredibly excited to partner with nWay to launch the beta of Cosmic Bomber exclusively to our Mocaverse community. This game brings together the best elements of classic arcade action with modern innovations, creating an experience that is both nostalgic and refreshingly new. Cosmic Bomber will be a great addition to Cosmic Club and its goal to empower social interaction among Moca ID holders.”
Steve Kuroki, co-CEO of nWay, said in a statement, “We are excited to welcome players to Cosmic Bomber! Our goal was to create a game that’s both familiar and easy to enjoy. With strategic, casual-style gameplay and a playful aesthetic, Cosmic Bomber offers fun-filled competition with the chance to earn exciting rewards. We can’t wait for players to dive into this thrilling adventure and pop their way to the top.”
nWay comprises highly experienced developers and executives who have worked at numerous leading technology companies, including Google, Tencent, Sony, Electronic Arts, Nintendo, LucasArts, Blizzard, Kabam, Nexon, and NCSoft.
In 2019, nWay was acquired by Animoca Brands to further bolster the company’s capabilities in the competitive multiplayer gaming space. nWay recently launched Olympic Games Paris 2024 Mascot NFT digital pins and Olympics Go! Paris 2024, the official video game for the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
The company has also developed and published multiple triple-A games on mobile and console, including Wreck League, Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, and Power Rangers: Legacy Wars. Most recently, nWay was ranked No. 35 in the list of the top 50 blockchain companies of 2024 compiled by industry pundit BlockchainGamer.biz
Moca ID holders can play the beta of Cosmic Bomber now at cosmicbomber.xyz. While the beta of Cosmic Bomber is accessible only to Moca NFT and ID holders, the full game will be available to all players for free after the beta is concluded, regardless of whether they own specific NFTs or fungible tokens. Players can purchase in-game items if they wish.
Moca ID can be claimed for free at mocaverse.xyz/moca-id with a Moca NFT or an invite code, which can be obtained from the Mocaverse community members.