Guild Saga

Introduction

Guild Saga is a play-to-earn, NFT-based fantasy RPG built on the Solana blockchain. An isometric perspective and hand-drawn pixel art sprites complement strategic, turn-based, tactics-style combat heavily inspired by classics like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre as well as modern CRPGs like Divinity: Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity. Tokenized (NFT) loot, SPL-token currency, and play-to-earn mechanics provide players with true ownership over the spoils of their in-game achievements, thereby incentivizing exploration, completionism, build optimization, and frequent play.

At a foundational level, and both practically and principally, we believe in game first; P2E second. That means that the core focus of Guild Saga is making a fun, balanced, lengthy and carefully designed RPG that utilizes the Solana blockchain, NFTs, and play-to-earn mechanics as a primary supporting feature to enhance player experience--not as a crutch.

It also means that significant game development progress has been made, and will continue to be made, before we invite the Solana community to participate in our NFT mint. Thousands of hours of hard work from our amazing team have already been dedicated to building Guild Saga, and most foundational gameplay mechanics are already fully operational.

Our team is made up of developers, gamers and RPG fans who are also NFT enthusiasts and SOL holders. We hope we can present an attractive value proposition for the Solana community while providing all gamers with an outstanding free-to-play offering that onboards those from the mainstream gaming demographic into the Solana ecosystem.

We invite the Solana community to read through this whitepaper, which will be updated regularly, and follow us on social media to stay updated on development progress and NFT mint details.

Guild Saga's gameplay offering can be separated into three distinct modes: story mode, PVE arena, and PVP.

In all our modes, we are guided by the following principles:

• Gameplay should be sufficiently challenging to (1) reward strategic play and thoughtful character builds, and (2) ensure that earning potential is largely dependent on skill.
• Leverage the potential of blockchain integration to provide players with true ownership over in-game loot in order to incentivize certain gameplay behaviours (completionism, exploration, challenge, etc.).
• While Blockchain integration is a core component of Guild Saga's gameplay loop and provides a unique and valuable incentive to a role-playing game, Guild Saga must be an enjoyable and complete experience for all gamers.

All modes revolve around the same primary gameplay and economic loop:

1. Earn XP, $GGLD, NFTs, and off-chain currency by winning battles, completing quests, and otherwise progressing through the story mode, arena gauntlet, and PVP ladder.
2. Spend $GGLD on leveling up, new skills, weapons, crafting, keep upgrades, and party members.
3. Pursue higher level quests, progress in the story mode, fight further in the PVE gauntlet, rank up in the PVP ladder, and earn more valuable NFTs and higher amounts of $GGLD.

With a party of up to 4, players progress through a carefully written and lengthy main storyline while exploring a vast open world, meeting interesting characters, acquiring rare equipment, gaining new skills, completing side quests, defeating dangerous enemies, solving challenging puzzles, and leveling up.

Holders of a Guild Saga Hero NFT can import their NFT character and equipment at character creation or partway through a play-through; all players can create a custom character, selecting from various skin tones, hair styles, eye colours, and starting equipment. By playing through the game, players can acquire diverse combat skills, collect equipment that provides stat buffs, and allocate points to different attributes upon leveling up.

Combat in Guild Saga is turn based and takes place on an isometric grid, similar to classic tactics RPGs like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre. Players are restricted by both an action and movement gauge, and must make tactical decisions based on a number of unique considerations that change from one battle to the next.

Battles are initiated in the open world either by approaching an aggressive enemy, through a dialogue option, or initiating “battle mode” outside of combat and making a pre-emptive strike. This allows players to position their party strategically prior to initiating a battle. The order of battle is determined by each participant's INITIATIVE attribute.

Movement Points (MP) determine how many units a character can move; Action Points (AP) are consumed by using skills. Skills consume different amounts of AP depending on their power level and have a set cooldown time. AP and MP replenish on each turn in an amount dependent on the character's attributes.