DevLogs #8: Game Testing and Chat Systems

Pre-Alpha Update

It’s been quite a while since we announced Realm’s Pre-Alpha testing and opened up registration. As you can see in the above video and previous dev logs, we’ve been making quite a bit of progress since then! Here is a quick breakdown to the three-phase approach that we are taking regarding product testing and development.

Pre-Alpha

• In early November, we successfully compiled the first version of the Realm App, and began testing with our internal team and a very small group of select testers.
• This phase was designed to work out all the basic bugs that are bound to arise with any new product, especially one which integrates such complex technological infrastructure! We are happy to report that we’ve got most of these bugs worked out, and are gearing up to move to the next phase!

Alpha

• Alpha testing will begin in January 2022. This will be a multiphase process that begins with a hired group of quality assurance testers, slowly expanding to a select group of ambassadors from our community, and a few influencers who will begin to leak gameplay footage publicly.
• We will then open up more broadly and begin to onboard everyone from our community who has registered to be an early game tester. We will use the higher volume of testers to pressure test servers and continue to refine and improve our systems.
• The Alpha product will be a minimal version of the App with all of the core functionality in place. The main goal will be to demonstrate the utility that we have designed and built on our platform.

Beta

• The Beta version will be the first public version of the Realm Game. It will be full of quests, use cases, and curated experiences that will demonstrate to the world what we have built, and what anyone can build in their Realms. Once Beta is live, we will steadily push new updates and experiences for people to enjoy, and we will be incorporating a lot of community feedback into the further design and development of the platform.

Let’s get social!

At its core, the Metaverse is a social technology platform, and messaging is essential to connecting people and creating social experiences. We’ve designed a feature-rich chat system that will drive many of these social interactions within Realm. Our chat system provides both realm-wide global chats as well as private chats with any other player. Design-wise, we’ve followed established patterns from messengers like Telegram or WhatsApp, to give everyone a comfortable user experience. In our chat feeds messages are grouped together by user and display username and avatars. We’ve also built in online and (eventually) friend indicators.

Starting a private chat is as easy as long-pressing on a message, or simply walking up to another player in the world.

Another crucial aspect of a mobile-first chat system is respecting the devices virtual keyboard and adjusting the UI accordingly, as well as being compatible with device-specific safe-areas like notches or gesture-areas at the bottom of the screen. Most games simply block out those areas resulting in a letterboxed experience that does not make use of the full available screen. Our UI however supports safe-areas UI-wide, both on iOS and Android, and properly adjusts each element accordingly.

A few views of our central metropolis!

Updates and More

This has been an exciting week for Realm! We unveiled another layer of mystery behind the QuantPods, kicking off our holiday season giveaway campaign with $Realm token airdrops. We also launched another successful Land Sale, where the Crescents sold out in a record time of less than 1 minute! We’ve got exciting news on the horizon, and can’t wait to share more news and updates with our fabulous community! Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you in the Metaverse!

About Realm

Realm is a mobile-first, play-to-earn, social impact driven Metaverse that allows gamers, players and artists to create their own personalized NFT microverse. Creators can bring unique music, art, and games into their realms. Whole living worlds can be minted as an ERC-1155 NFT and traded on the OpenSea Marketplace. Alternatively, players can discover, trade, collect and view NFTs in the environments and experiences their creators imagined.

Website | Twitter | Telegram | Telegram ANN | Discord | Instagram | Reddit