THE SETTING
A Universe Plagued with AI
Struggling to survive in a galaxy suppressed by rogue AI, humanity must scavenge what bots it can in the quest for freedom. ERI, the supreme intelligence behind mankind's enslavement, has deemed all organic life to be destructive and chaotic after its reckless expansion across the stars. Through extreme segregation and population control, ERI seeks order and control above all else.
Compound Elements
By combining the classical elements of Air, Earth, Fire and Wind into dual-elements, or "compound" elements, AR Bots will expand the traditional rock-paper-scissors approach. Each compound element will embody thematic groupings of gameplay elements such as single target vs. multi-target interactions that allow for tapping into multiple playstyles without feeling bound to one element or another.
Futuristic Factions
Faced with a global arms race against insurmountable odds, humanity's underground resistance is split into cultural factions steeped in ancient blacksmith traditions:
Kusaku-Gun: A highly aggressive faction led by the brilliant Professor Kaito Kiryu focused on creating bots and frameworks specialized in overwhelming destruction. "Victory at any cost!"
Thuringians: An all-around faction led by Dr. Moritz Levenspiel focused on creating and capturing enemy bots for research dedicated to scouting and capturing.
YueYue: A defensive faction led by Dr. Li Shen, a focused fort maker. They will not invade nor will they be invaded while specializing in bots dedicated to mobility and subterfuge.
Astranians: Beings from another world? What is the objective of these non-mechanical monsters?
By modernizing the teachings of their ancestors, each faction is represented by a futuristic variation of historical metalsmithing.
GAMEPLAY
Turn-Based Card Matches
AR Bots features turn-based card battles between two players. Each player makes use of a customized 20-card deck to deploy Bots, activate Programs and power up Frameworks by expending Batteries. The overall goal is to destroy your opponent's Power Core through careful play and thoughtful strategies.
Linear Story Mode
In addition to PvP battles, AR Bots will offer a challenging PvE story mode intended to provide resources and introduce new content. The story mode will be an integral part of improving one's collection, as PvP battles will have a separate reward structure balanced around ranked play.
Bite-Sized Strategy
Given the small deck size, AR Bots aims to provide a fast-paced experience that you can fit into any gaming session. Bite-sized doesn't mean simple, as we intend to introduce a wide variety of card interactions and game mechanics that we hope promote a diversity of strategy when building your deck.
OWNABLE ASSETS
Tokens
 |  |
|---|
In keeping with our mission to create a multi-game economy, AR Bots will eventually make use of $ASTRA and $STELLARUM, the Hive-Engine tokens central to Astral Revelations—our other game project in development. For those unfamiliar with Astral Revelations, $ASTRA is a stakeable token that provides weekly airdrops of $STELLARUM to stakers. $ASTRA is intended as the core utility token for all our games while $STELLARUM is a supplemental token intended to facilitate greater liquidity through a multitude of in-game use cases.
Card NFTs
 |  |  |
|---|
AR Bots primary asset class consists of collectible NFT cards. These cards will be acquired through a number of ways including story mode, periodic PvP rewards, card upgrades, and ARCs (Autonomous Resource Crates, our version of packs).
 |  |  |
|---|
Land & Planets
Two additional asset types will be added with time in the form of Land and Planets. The interaction between the two is one we're still working on, but the basic premise is that Land will have a variety of rarities and properties that range in usefulness depending on the Planet(s) you connect them to. Planets will have fixed properties that increase the generation of certain types of resources. Knowing which kinds of cards you want to upgrade will play a key roll in determining which Lands and Planets are most valuable to you.
ROADMAP
A Basic MVP
Our first goal is to create an MVP (minimum viable product) for AR Bots similar in nature to the Pre-Alpha Test currently running for Astral Revelations. This MVP is intended to showcase our vision for AR Bots and demonstrate early on our commitment to seeing this project through.
Setting Standards
Once our MVP is out the door, we want to collect as much feedback as possible to make sure the game AR Bots becomes is one you, the players, actually want to play. As with all our projects, gameplay comes first for us, and we want to remind our community of gamers that web3 gaming doesn't have to mean "Flash Player pump-n-dumps."
Making Investors Whole(ish)
It's no secret that AR Bots is a project Surgent Gaming has taken on in response to the unfortunate recent developments with ChiFi Bots. While it is ultimately impossible to return 100% of the value all ChiFi Bots investors sunk into the project, we're actively working out various ways to create new value within our game for all those involve. There is no perfect fix, but it's a challenge we're eager to tackle.
