Our vision

The team at Rainbow Studio is hoping to focus on a more casual audience, targeting a genre that we believe is not sufficiently understood in today’s market. Our title, Metamorph, is a cosy and wholesome open-world life-simulation game* with a highly recognisable theme and visually stimulating art style which is primarily aimed towards a rapidly growing simulation audience. As of 2022, female gamers make up 45% of the PC platform players and this figure is anticipated to keep increasing.[2] Studies have shown that female gamers enjoy a variety of genres, primarily including casual, role-playing, simulation and puzzle games. This is typically different from male gamers, who have different preferences. To this end, Metamorph focuses on cosy and relaxing gameplay elements with its unique combination of features and mechanics that provides its audience with a refreshing and highly accessible gaming experience.

It is important to note the presence of existing life-simulation games on the market, such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons*, which is the sixth main installment in the series. It became the best-selling game of all time in Japan with more than 10 million copies after its initial release in March 2020. In November 2022, it also surpassed the combined sales figures of Pokemon Red/Blue/Green versions, which is an unprecedented feat that was believed to be impossible due to the historical lineage of leading titles in the ’90s. Since its initial release, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold more than 41 million copies worldwide.[3]

Another highly popular life-simulation franchise is The Sims, developed by Electronic Arts Inc, which released its fourth installment, The Sims 4 in September 2014. Since its release, the title has generated $1 billion in revenue by 2020.[4] Despite being highly successful, both titles lack ‘true’ life-simulation features such as an engaging career mode, a gratifying urban lifestyle-based progression system, a robust dating system, and meaningful character development and customisation features (a similar issue exists in Animal Crossing and other titles). Moreover, while Animal Crossing: New Horizons charges a full premium price and is only available on consoles, The Sims 4 relies heavily on high-cost DLCs to introduce new content and requires high-end hardware in order to work as intended. Additionally, the game does not function on Mac OS in the majority of cases with the exception of very high-end devices. In contrast, Metamorph only offers a one-time purchase, includes stylised graphics, and is very well-optimized making it accessible on all mobile, PC, Mac and Linux devices. With these factors combined, Metamorph has the opportunity to engage sim enthusiasts and position itself above the competition.

Life-simulation games have always appealed to a broad audience. Despite Stardew Valley* and The Sims 4 games being the leading titles in the genre on the PC platform, Metamorph will try to achieve more, with greater accessibility, more features, freedom and choices. This can be achieved due to Stardew Valley being a single-developer project and The Sims 4 being DLC and MTX-focused. Our career mode will reflect life, such that players can inspire themselves by choosing a dream job or picture their real-life career growing with a solid roadmap*. The dating system incorporated in the game will place the player in situations reminiscent of visual novels* that may at times be highly relatable but ultimately provide an authentic and natural experience. The robust character creation system wants to offer a genuine lookalike outcome. Every personality, trait, quirk and taste was built to embrace everyone’s needs. Metamorph is designed to be as inclusive as possible, with every player being able to chase after their goals whatever their background may be in the real world.

Although many talented teams have attempted to develop a quality life-simulation game, the reality is that it is more challenging than anticipated due to the extensive modularity of features needed. For example - character customisation, wellbeing management, unique interaction animations, furniture mechanics, complex career progression, detailed romance systems, social elements, open-world building, a compelling interest system and so much more. Consequently, indie* developers have refrained from trying to produce a meaningful simulation game due to the complexities involved. As a fortunate result, Metamorph faces almost zero direct competition, unlike other genres that are very over-saturated and crowded. This is the reason why our title has been able to attract a strong audience following without significant publisher funding due to the quality of the game. At the time of writing, Metamorph has almost more than 40,000 wishlists.

Despite the added complexity, Metamorph is designed with scalability and replayability in mind, with focus on leveling design inspired by games such as Runescape*. Implementation of gameplay* mechanics must always have an emphasis on asset reusability to ensure a value proposition during the development stage. It is important to be careful with resource allocation while designing a game of such scope since indie games have a relatively small budget compared to larger AAA titles*. Metamorph favours meaningful, highly rewarding open-world* gameplay with focus on retention, rather than having scripted scenes* and linear storylines* which is highly wasteful.

The development of simulation games is a highly intricate task due to their extensive depth, furthermore adding the role-playing aspect to it poses a great challenge that many studios tend to overlook, often treating it as a minor component of the games they create. Although both highly popular life-simulation games on the PC market, Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing incorporate role-playing elements but they do not offer detailed character development features which is one of the focal points of such a video game genre. As of 2019 the global role-playing market was worth $15.80 billion and due to their increasing popularity, it is projected that by the end of 2023, the genre will be worth approximately $22.50 billion.[5] What characterises the role-playing genre is the game’s ability to offer players the possibility to customize their playable character according to their preferences. To support this, role-playing games are often set in expansive open-worlds that are filled with various features. As players come from diverse backgrounds and have various playstyles* and goals, it is essential to provide them with the means to achieve the desired experience. Popular role-playing games on the PC platform, such as World of Warcraft*, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt* and the new and highly acclaimed Elden Ring*, incorporate these aspects to the highest extent and for this reason, serve as great ways to gain inspiration from. Metamorph places equal emphasis on both the simulation and role-playing aspects, simultaneously building them to create an unparalleled experience in the video game market.

Our vision is to build the leading 3D web simulator where millions of gamers can turn their genre passion into real assets. We are on a journey to change the gaming industry and build the future of play-to-earn. A world where players can play the game they enjoy while earning and trading in a massive open-world economy.

Such an ambitious goal requires relentless focus, and we plan to lead the future of NFT games by demonstrating excellence in the following areas:

• Take the lead in the Life Simulator genre One of the most fascinating game genres that have won millions of hearts is currently completely absent from Web 3. Metamorph takes on the responsibility of filling this gap.

• Game mechanics and earning Metamorph is the first full-fledged 3D blockchain life simulator where players can play for free and earn both NFT and tokens. The actual value of these tokens is earned and lost in real time through entertaining online gameplay.

• Exciting gameplay As with 90% of modern adventure, role-playing and action games, the authorship of the game's story is passed on to the players. In Metamorph, the narrative becomes more of a collaborative effort between the players. They direct the action and the game design by providing only the structure, tools, and space with which players create their own stories.

• Long immersion Morphs are more like humans than ever before. Players will want to believe in the virtual existence of their Werewolves and make up for the simulation's shortcomings, creating a unique and emotional connection that will grow to infinity over time.

• High Availability MM will be available on iOS and Android, making it as accessible as possible to everyone. The game will be optimized to run on inexpensive cell phones. This will allow players of all backgrounds to enjoy the game, attracting as many users as possible.

Complexities of the industry

After conducting an industry-wide analysis of the behavior of the target audience and the competitive environment, we find that the number of complexities and problems present in the industry hinder its development to a certain extent. In particular, cases of fraud damage the credibility of the industry. Other project flaws lead to lack-luster interest from participants, resulting in their exit from the market.

Some projects fail to satisfy the demand of a sophisticated audience, mainly due to the accustomization of high-quality projects offered by the classical gaming world.

• Fraudulent schemes

  Cryptocurrencies are a popular target for scammers and various dishonest individuals. According to Reuters researchers, scammers' crypto wallets have received billions of dollars. A significant share of blockchain-based gaming projects are hidden traps, whose purpose is to misappropriate users' money, according to CoinMarketCap analysis.

  Ultimately, the token price of projects like these decreases until they eventually reach zero. You can see the dynamics and price rates of some GameFi tokens on CoinMarketCap and how they can instantly drop to 0.

• Lack of interaction with other players

  Gaming plots and mechanics are built in such a way that the players must act alone, failing to provide any sense of team spirit. At some point, this kind of experience with different battlegrounds gets tedious and the likelihood of exiting the game increases. Thus, the lack of social interaction leaves players with a desire to change projects or simply stop playing. Most of the available games on the market today have limited MMO capabilities, with no possibility of communication or coordination with other players.

• Low quality of Gamefi

  The games currently presented by the GameFi industry possess poor quality and have unfinished storylines. Players who are accustomed to qualitative plots and games are not satisfied with this situation. At the moment, only one game is recognized as meeting the criteria for AAA quality in the GameFi field. Some game series are updated annually and AAA projects are published up to 7-10 times a year. The audience's expectations are quite sophisticated.