The Galactic Hubs Grant Program was created to help facilitate and provide resources for community development in the Alien Worlds Metaverse, and a number of impressive projects have been awarded grants for contributions that enrich the Explorer experience. One recent example is Trilium Quest: Curse of The Holoforms, an upcoming MMORPG that thrusts Explorers into the role of a young orphan who lands on Magor with nothing but a near-obsolete Triactor jack and a blessing from his grandmother.
Conceived by the experienced Arch Games studio, Trilium Quest won a Pioneer grant in Season 2 of the Grant Program and its talented team have quickly set about developing an immersive, open-world strategy game that extends Alien Worlds’ sci-fi lore and captivates both existing players and curious newcomers.
Unveiling Destiny: The Trilium Quest Saga
With both single-player and multiplayer dynamics, the game caters to a wide range of play styles (combat, diplomacy, etc) and compels Explorers to unlock new skills, build structures, bases and weapons, unravel storylines, and participate in fiery battles with formidable enemies and bosses.
Trilium Quest came about after James from Magor reached out to me on Telegram one day and said, Hey, we want you guys to make a 2D dungeon-crawler Final Fantasy type game that fits into the Alien Worlds universe,” reveals Matthew Grigajtis, Arch’s lead developer. “And I said, ‘Yeah, sure. It’ll be a big team effort but we’d love to do it.'
Grigajtis, who describes programming as “the only thing I know how to do,” was already familiar with Alien Worlds before the invitation landed in his inbox. So, how did he and the rest of the Arch Games crew set about building a new game to fit into an established world?
“We treated it as a blank slate, a clean canvas,” says Ami Spero, Arch’s development manager. “We formed a game based on the Alien Worlds NFTs and brought in a sci-fi writer to flesh out some quests and how they would work. This particular writer has produced several Hollywood scripts and we worked closely with him on developing ideas, a good world-building scenario heavily focused on Magor but with elements that extend into the rest of the Alien Worlds mythology.”
Final Fantasy, the epic rope-playing franchise beloved by generations of gamers, was one of Grigajtis’s major inspirations in creating Trilium Quest – which will be music to the ears of many would-be players.
“People have asked me, what would I have played that’s similar to what you’re building? As an old gamer, the answer’s easy – any of the classic Final Fantasy games from one through six. We’ve also taken heavy inspiration from the original Dragon Warrior (later named Dragon Quest) and Chrono Trigger games.”
Canonizing Trilium Quest
We begin to see the power of Tokenized Lore when we look at games under development like Trilium Quest. The story of Trilium Quest will ultimately be proposed to become canon under the new Tokenized Lore system governed by the Alien Worlds community once it’s released. Contributions for Tokenized Lore can come from anyone anywhere, and each time a contribution is made new characters emerge, technology evolves, and stories take shape, creating a more open and fun experience.
Getting Ready for Episode Zero
Although many features and story elements of Trilium Quest are still being revealed, Arch Games is clearly committed to building the sort of fantastical game that fits snugly into the existing Alien Worlds lore and has gamer empowerment at its core.
As for what players can actually get up to, there’s no shortage of ideas and inspiration. “We intend to have multiple elements, so just as in any mainline MMORPG, you have your story quests and you’ll also have your side quests,” Spero explains.
“The game will be released in chunks,” adds Grigajtis. “Episode zero will be available to play directly on the website, it’ll run in your browser and be single-player with the story taking place on Magor in one of the rocky desert areas. Later, we’ll release multiplayer complete with upgrades – there’ll be episodes one, and two, and so on. Every single consumable, usable item inside the game will have a blockchain counterpart.”
As in the main Alien Worlds game, players can focus on mining Trilium or pursuing other endeavors such as battles, exploring, building (solo or collaboration with others) or trading commodities with other players. The developer is also planning to integrate Artificial Intelligence to enable characters to converse with NPCs, who dispense quests and nuggets of wisdom about the game’s lore. The narrative, meanwhile, will adapt to players’ choices and actions, creating a dynamic, personalized experience.
Caution will have to be exercised, too: certain quadrants of the planet are populated by a rogues’ gallery of enemies and monsters, with superior mining yields offered for especially dangerous terrain. Resources unlocked along the way – armor, weapons, mining tools, etc – can be combined to craft powerful and unique items that nonetheless suffer wear and tear in combat. Luckily, players can carry out repairs and continue on their journey, which culminates in a thrilling dungeon battle.
“Our goal is to make games for people that they actually like to play – that they enjoy, that they keep coming back to,” says Matthew Grigajtis. “We’re hoping players love the game and look forward to the next releases. As long as people are playing it and we’re able to support the development of it, we will always have a new release that fans can look forward to.”
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