Star Atlas just rolled out its first playable demo, plus its developer released tools to help other studios bring games to Solana.
Star Atlas is arguably one of the most ambitious NFT-driven games on the horizon, although it could be years before the Solana-based outer space strategy game fully takes shape. Eager players won’t have to wait that long to get a small taste, however: a limited demo has just been released via the Epic Games Store.
Launched today as part of a live-streamed event, Star Atlas: Showroom is a pre-alpha demo of the Unreal Engine 5 technology powering the game. It lets Star Atlas NFT owners explore a 3D environment and view the ships and vehicles in which they’ve invested.
Star Atlas is currently only offering access to people who own the NFTs: they can earn an access key by owning a ship and joining one of Star Atlas’ in-game factions. Michael Wagner, CEO and co-founder of Star Atlas developer ATMTA, told Decrypt that the demo also features a single non-NFT ship to explore, and that some access codes will be given to select non-owners.
Later this year, the Showroom demo will be expanded to include additional features, including multiplayer capabilities, chat functionality, and the ability for NFT holders to take their ships out for a flight. An NFT is a blockchain token that represents ownership of a unique item—in this case, digital spaceships and other vehicles that can be used in a video game.
In addition to launching its own first playable taste of Star Atlas, the developer also today released a toolkit to make it easier for other developers to bring their own Unreal Engine 5-based games to the Solana blockchain.
The Foundation Software Development Kit (F-KIT) is an open-source SDK that lets Unreal Engine 5 developers integrate the Solana blockchain, letting users sign transactions to complete in-game actions. Unreal Engine hails from Fortnite creator Epic Games, and is widely used across the video game industry, as well as for TV shows and movies.
Releasing the F-KIT as an open-source tool means that “mainstream studios,” as Wagner put it, “now have a faster path” to creating games on Solana. He said that other builders could also take the kit and extend it to other networks, such as Ethereum. For his team, however, it’s also a way to encourage others to “build experiences that extend the Star Atlas universe.”
Source : decrypt
