As you may have heard on socials, we have decided to give players an opportunity to mint an AI alpha pass, which provides them with early access privileges to AI comps.
If you are unfamiliar with our game AI and comps, you can read about them in detail here.
In short, our game AI are in game companions, driven by the latest in AI technology to provide a unique interactive experience and a glimpse at the future of gaming.
We have been extra busy getting something special ready. A lot of thought was put into this mint process and the pass; we wanted to ensure that what we offer has good lasting value for owners, both players and collectors.
Although the primary value for the access pass comes from the access itself, as an artist, the game creator Sylvan wanted to create some highly integrated procedural artwork that combined the AI game functionality with something unique.
This way, it is both functional and collectable while having a little fun in the process!
Sylvan is a 3D artist and engineer, with over 25 years of experience making 3D art, games and film vfx.. this work is a combination of techniques taken from different fields and combined with the genesis data for each individual AI personality.
What do I get?
In terms of value for access, this pass provides the owner with early access to the AI companions, a unique style of gaming partner that we are developing that is based on a combination of chatGPT style AI language model and our own personality framework, making each companion truly unique.
This means each AI has an individual personality and the ability to communicate with you in a highly realistic and naturalistic manner, using the latest in machine learning technology.
This is also combined with the added value of the artwork from the creator, designed to express the features of each personality in a readable and engaging way.
It can be used purely as artwork or to assess personality types should you wish to look for a compatible companion based on your personal likes and dislikes.
Later as people use the AI companions (Comps), there will be preferences for types of partners, with certain personalities becoming more popular than others.
Some will prefer more engaging or talkative.. some may prefer rule breakers.. it is all part of the fun of finding out who you like more and who others like more.
You will be able to see the various personality traits and their rarities in the metadata, as well as using a web tool we will publish that helps identify an overall makeup of the AI, as well as some hidden game related features encoded into the artwork.
Check out the Process section for details of the art side of the process.
At Ælfheim, we use AI and ML (machine learning) in various areas of our development, including in-game training and assistance, artist tools and learned motion matching for animation.
The natural language interface for the AI makes interaction more fluid and natural, but the AI itself also performs a variety of functions within the game, including networking with your equipment and other players, separate combat layers and story elements, as well as some secret features that will be revealed later.
The Mint
You will be able to mint one or more passes shortly, the community and public mint is taking place on the Gswap launchpad. It's worth following Gameswap as well for updates.
In order to ensure fairness and provide some fun during the mint process, we are doing a reveal after the mints are all completed.
For those unfamiliar with what a reveal is, this means that when you mint you will not see the traits and artwork for the pass immediately, once all the mint tiers are complete we will reveal all of the traits and art at once, so everyone will be able to see what they get at the same time.
This ensures a fair outcome for those minting later than others - we also have a bit of fun that must be completed by the community in order to start the reveal process..
.. here be prizes..
There is also an easter egg buried in the collection, which leads to a special 1 of 1 variant that is connected to particular artist.
Mint Details
We previously had the number capped at 1500, this is due to the testing capacity we have, we have been able to expand that capacity a bit, so it has been increased to 2500.
Number of passes : 2500
Entry price : 0.06-0.09 ETH (AVAX C-CHAIN)
We are keeping 500 passes out that will be distributed to professional testers and the like later.
Rarities can be found in the form of personality type distribution, as some types are much rarer than others. These are broken down into a variety of factors which can be explored in the metadata at reveal time.
There are also some other important traits that will stay hidden for now..
The NiftyX and Gswap community have been incredibly supportive of this project during our early days and continue to be so. Thanks everyone!
For all that we wanted to give something back, thanks to some of the larger holders for sticking around with Gswap, as we know what effect that has on a small project.
Gswap holders have priority access for the mint, in these tiers :
We use the Avax c-chain for our pass minting and other chain operations. This is for multiple reasons, including highly efficient energy usage, subnets, compatibility and fast transactions.
Process
Each pass also comes with a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork that is procedurally generated using the data that drives the personality makeup of each AI.
This means that each image is an artistic but data-driven visual representation of the personality type, almost like a fingerprint of the mind in graphical form.
Each version is completely unique.
You should be able to get an idea of the personality of each AI by looking at the image, especially if you know what to look for.
The personality information is also included in the pass metadata, allowing you to fully understand and appreciate the unique qualities of your AI companion.
These pieces are created using a combination of artist vex-coded procedural geometry in Houdini and some additional custom Python processing, all using the AI's individual personality data as input.
Previously there was a plan to add a layer that transformed the image slightly using Stable Diffusion, we have decided not to do this.
This is for multiple reasons but primarily it is because it is simply replacing the work of the artist, Sylvan, with something similar but generated by AI. We think this actually devalues the artwork. A viewer will always assume that it is autogenerated, the underlying work becomes somewhat irrelevant
In addition to early access, a unique work of art, and the chance to explore the relationship between AI and humanity, this pass also grants access to future development of the AI comps, giving you the opportunity to be a part of shaping its evolution. As well as some other early access which will be revealed later.
It will also be clear in the game that it is an OG or 'Elder' AI, with its own distinct appearance that sets it apart from other AI characters.
We believe that AI and humanity can work together in harmony, and part of our goal is to create a meta-experience where you can explore the relationship between the two.
While chatGPT has certainly made AI popular recently, we have always planned to take our companions to the next level using these large language models, and it's exciting to see that our vision is coming to fruition even faster than we had expected.
If you're intrigued by the possibilities of AI in gaming and want to be among the first to experience this exciting new feature, don't miss out on the chance to own and be part of shaping AI companions in Aten7.
Keep an eye out for details on the GSWAP Launchpad.
We hope you'll join us on this exciting journey and be a part of shaping the future of AI in gaming!