Genopets was the gamification of an active lifestyle. It was envisioned as the world’s first Free-to-Play, Move-to-Earn NFT mobile game that made it fun and rewarding to live an active lifestyle. A Genopet was a digital pet whose evolution and growth were inextricably linked to a player’s own. Steps users took everyday – walking around the mall, jogging at the gym, running between office meetings – would convert into XP to power their journey through the Genoverse as they explored, battled, and evolved, earning crypto all the while.

Genopets was more than counting steps and rewarding users for how much they walked. The game was predicated on them building a bond with their digital companions and taking care of them daily by taking care of themselves. The connection between oneself and their pet is a powerful force, and it was this emotional force which served as the premise of Genopets – motivating users to live active lifestyles.

The Genopets team was looking for development partners who could complement their in-house team to create a well-designed gaming experience for their growing community. Following a thorough vetting process, they engaged Tintash in September 2021 based on our deep expertise in developing mobile games, particularly on the Unity platform, as well as creating gamified social experiences.

The Genopets team had already conceptualized a very specific game design and visuals. After several brainstorming sessions where we explored the game concept in detail with the Genopets team, we devised a project development plan. The plan was geared towards the scheduled NFT Drops.

Genopet NFT Drop

We kickstarted the development process by implementing the Genopet Mining feature. This entailed solving for the various intricate technicalities revolving around Unity's communication with Web and Flutter.

The feature included procedurally generated Pets that players could mint. Unity’s system included hundreds of pet models and augments that were generated upon receiving payload from the web to create a unique Genopet for every player. Each pet was unique in terms of visuals, augments, and quirky looks, especially the shaders. Our team created a Genopet Shader that allowed for countless visualization possibilities for the pets.

All mini-features combined, the team made it to the first major release featuring the Genopet NFT Drop in November 2021. That release proved to be a huge success, and was only made possible by the support of our experienced VFX artists at Tintash.

Habitat NFT Drop

Genopets lived inside their Habitats. As with Genopets, Habitats were likewise procedurally generated NFTs, making them unique to each player. Giving each player a unique Habitat required high computation power and could not be generated every time on client devices. In order to overcome this problem, our team conducted extensive R&D to figure out a solution that could generate the Habitats without disruption.

It took us almost two months and multiple Unity iterations to enable the game to generate the same habitat on any device smoothly, which was a major win for the client. The Habitat NFT Drop was released in April 2022.

Minigames

For a well-rounded user experience, we created minigames to engage users. There were two minigames – feed and fetch – that Genopets could play with them. Playing these would positively impact a Genopet’s stats, improving the pet’s development experience.

In the feed minigame, the user would throw food to the pet by aiming and releasing it at the right time. When the pet ate the food, its nutrition value would increase. In the fetch minigame, the user aimed for a glowing circle by pulling back the toy and releasing it. When the glowing circle was hit, the pet would pick up the toy and its joy value would increase. Sometimes, the pet would even throw the toy back to the user.

Despite a challenging timeline, Tintash helped Genopets complete the first phase of their product roadmap with a private beta launch. The version allowed players to acquire Genesis Genopets and Habitats, as well as summon Baby Genopets and evolve them.

Using data tracked by smartphones or fitness wearables, the game enabled players to bank steps, set personal goals, convert Energy and level up with XP. Users could manage, rent, or Terraform Habitats, as well as trade on the NFT marketplace partners.

Genopets managed to garner early traction. Starting from a few thousand users in August, 2022, the game organically grew to over 80k users in less than six months, with an impressive MoM growth of 110%. With over a 180k strong Discord community, 80% of that growth came from player referrals.

The product has also proved sticky. Day30 player retention averaged a staggering 57% which was 25 times higher than the top 25% Casual Game D30 industry average. This shows that players were coming into the game and weren’t leaving. While the user base was growing, retention was fairly stable.

Backed up by leading venture capitalists , Genopets is currently engaged in the next phase of introducing the core gameplay mechanics. The long term objective is to allow players to connect in-game and explore the Genoverse together. Tintash continues to work closely with the Genopets team on these future releases. Alongside contributing on the Unity front, our team increasingly supports Genopets on their art needs.