We’ve got some brilliant projects within our portfolio and want to tell you more about the founders and teams behind them. Regularly, you can learn more about specific projects through our interviews and post any questions you may have further down in the comments section.
We are pleased to present you our interview with Frank Cheng, Co-founder of Apeiron. Let’s go!
Hi Frank, hope you are well. Please share a bit about yourself.
Hi there, I’m the co-founder, CEO and Lorekeeper of Foonie Magus. Right from the start, Apeiron was a passion project of mine. But actually, I’m only responsible for the initial concept creation, today I’m pretty much responsible for everything other than actual game development - the running of the company. I come from a background of management consulting and private equity investment.
In terms of gaming I’ve always been on the player side, not the development side, but ever since my childhood, I always dreamed of what it would be like to make my own game. It took me many years…but, here I am now, finally realizing my dream.
Who is part of the funding team? And how do you share responsibilities within the team?
As the leader and sole member of the funding team, I share responsibilities between my day and night self lol. But in all honesty, the CEO must pitch for funding, and the COO’s duty to report and request funding use, and so funding is something that I manage myself.
Will I be hiring in the future? Probably a bit further down the line; the market is at an all-time investment low these days, so I feel I can handle things myself for now with my investment background.
Apeiron raised over $18M in the funding round, with backers coming from both the web2 and web3 industries. How have you used the capital, and how do you plan to use it?
Careful deployment and making sure the runway is healthy are every company’s major goals. To meet these goals, we are focusing on retention-based growth instead of acquisitional growth, which means we focus less on acquiring users with hype and speculative techniques but go for more grassroots conversions that may be slower but target more quality users that will stick with us in the long term. This frees up our resources to allow us to use the majority of our budget on our fundamentals - which is to say, the game itself.
Apeiron is the first play & earn God game developed on the Polygon blockchain. Could you tell us why and how you decided to develop this idea?
We wanted to create something unique that couldn’t be found in the existing market. The decision to make a god game came pretty quick: it was one of my most played genres - as a kid I loved those games like Populous and Black and White.
I found myself replaying them every few years (together with other Super Nintendo and PC real time strategy classics of course). When we were brainstorming for ideas of games to make at Foonie Magus, I immediately thought about how those hybrid games like god games were tough to make back in the days when technology was limited, and with today’s advancements it would be easier… in retrospect I may have been mistaken, since technology and demand actually evolve together, and making any game is a challenge. But in any case, we were super excited to recreate this classic genre with modern technology.
Of course, we added a lot of different mechanics down the road in order to fit the mobile platform and its user base, but what we have today is the culmination of many years of gaming, research and testing… something we can claim is truly unique in the market.
Apeiron's unique blend of card-based x ARPG Roguelite combat system (similar to the Slay the Spire x Hades). What should players expect from the gameplay? And what are the key differences with other game titles out there?
The available battle demo now tests the user’s reflexes and strategic thinking in fast-paced battles. You’ll directly control a powerful avatar and summon up to 4 Apostle “pets” that you can bring along in battle. Your Avatar and the Apostles each have unique skill cards that form your deck - you draw cards from the deck, play your skills, and battle!
The game features an infinite roguelite dungeon for players to explore: how far you can go is based on which Avatar class and skills you choose, what Apostles you meet and recruit, and what Artifacts you choose to equip and upgrade. But ultimately, your success will be down to how well you strategize ahead, and how well you respond to challenges in real-time during battle.
Compared with other titles out there, we’re blending genres together to make something unique: we’re more strategic than other roguelites but more action-packed than other card games. Hopefully we’ve found that sweet spot right in the middle!
Talking about tokenomics: Apeiron implements a tri-token system. Could you describe how it works and the reason behind this in-game economy?
For full clarity, our game will initially be launching with 2 tokens, and they work similarly to most dual-token systems. The 3rd token will come later with the arrival of alliance gameplay, which features new gameplay systems designed for massively multiplayer team-based competitions.
We believe 2 tokens is a good starting point for introducing over-arching game concepts, but it is not enough to serve the many needs of an actual living economy. There are many different actors we need to consider: speculators/investors, pro gamers, hardcore gamers, casual gamers, grinders, just to name a few - and they could be coming in as an individual or as a group. Each of these actors have unique incentives and motivations, which begs the question: is it really a good idea to bunch them all up under the same assets and reward structures? In this sense, the tri-token system we’ve designed caters to different types of players and investors, with different kinds of gameplay or staking mechanisms that rely on each other in order to balance out effectively.
The Apeiros ($APRS) token is a governance and NFT utility token. Limited in supply and only obtainable via the exchanges, it is responsible for the DAO governance of the Apeiron treasury and the creation of new NFTs in the ecosystem.
The Anima ($ANIMA) token is a game utility token. It is created by player actions, mostly related to winning competitive events. It is responsible for most of the in-game utilities that help enhance player assets.
The Ringularity ($RNGU) token is our unique alliance utility token. Created by alliance activities and also competitively oriented, it is responsible for late-game alliance raids and war-related features, where users can obtain exclusive late-game content.
Market conditions in the crypto space have been quite challenging over the last 12 months. In which way has Apeiron been affected? And what have you done differently to overcome these difficulties?
I can hardly say we are doing anything much different from other gaming projects. Much like many other projects, the number of active users are dwindling. But ultimately it is our game that will draw them back in, so we are using this time to build the core game product and improve supporting DAPP + community infrastructures.
We still couple our game tests with moderate community events and spending, such as the season 2 launch and community Guild Wars, as well as our monthly off-season leaderboards to keep our fans engaged with a steady stream of content.
With the full launch expected in Q4 2024, what are the main focuses of the Apeiron team at the moment? What is your target in terms of users and sales?
The token launch and mobile beta coming in the second half of Q1 are our main focuses at the moment. This release will include a PvP arena mode, Story mode, as well as NFT and token integration - it’s a huge amount of content that we’re very excited to share. We will be targeting at on-boarding our first 100k users via mobile accessibility and a coordinated publicity campaign alongside our partners. We will aim to improve retention rate and gameplay with our beta before making a strong push for sales.
Please share some of your greatest achievements and extensive challenges at Apeiron.
The greatest challenge would be creating the game itself; game development is no easy task and balancing all those different and novel game systems in Apeiron together with the blockchain economy requires a lot of careful planning and bold changes to weather the economy ahead.
The greatest achievement so far would be raising one of the highest valuated seed rounds in crypto, and building a tight-knit community of passionate gamers who genuinely care about Apeiron and who have been able to contribute greatly to the development and improvement of our game. We are deeply proud and humbled by our community, and confident that with their support and our team’s experience, we have a truly special product waiting to be released.
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Thanks a lot for your time Frank. Good luck with your projects!
If you have any questions for Frank, please use the comment section below. In the meantime, you can check the social media profiles of the project: Website | Twitter | Telegram | Discord | YouTube
The MSV GG Team
