Ceremonial first pitch. (The actual first pitch, thrown by a pleased but sleep-deprived engineer, is lost to history.)
The Fullcount Nova League beta is live! We launched on Arbitrum Nova earlier this week, in honor of MLB Opening Day. We have a lot of fixes and updates in the pipeline, and we’ll add more as the early player feedback rolls in, but the game is up and running, and we’re very pleased with its performance and reception so far.
In celebration of the launch, this devlog will give you a look at the game’s new art and a preview of the updates we’ve planned for the next couple of weeks.
New Beer League Ballers
One of the earliest choices you face in Fullcount is picking an image for your first Beer League Baller. The Beer League Ballers are the character NFTs used to play Fullcount. When creating your Beer Leaguer, you have a choice of eight brand new images created by artist Anna Golova. Anna also created the logo and background illustrations for Fullcount.
Three of the first eight Beer League Baller character portraits.
We’ll be rolling out new Beer League Baller images as the season progresses. Beer League Ballers are free to mint, so you can grow your roster whenever the new art strikes your fancy–though I’ve grown pretty attached to my original batter and pitcher.
Every Beer Leaguer gets an image and name of your choice and a jersey number based on the token ID. My lineup consists of the Batilisk (left), Beer Batter (center), and Psyclone (right).
New Campaign Bots
The Nova League beta includes pitching and batting campaigns with five bot opponents each. To defeat a pitching bot, you must hit three home runs against them. To defeat a batting bot, you must strike them out three times using only three pitches each time (i.e., without allowing any fouls or balls).
Here’s a look at the campaign bot art by Ghostly Ink Company.
Players from the Nagano Ninjas, the Canny Valley Cryptids, and the Plattsburgh Pirates.
Like the look of the new bots? Win one!
Not only can you play against teams of pirates, ninjas, and cryptids in campaign mode, but you also win one of these NFTs to use as a character in future seasons. At the end of Nova League season one, we’ll award campaign bot characters to the first player (outside of our team) to beat them.
If you see one you like, start studying their heatmaps and figuring out their patterns of play. Next season, you could be flinging fastballs as the Throwing Star or stomping out rivals with Sasquatch.
New Coach Bots
Finally, Anna Golova has created this amazing new art for the batting and pitching coach bots.
In the Fullcount pre-alpha, the coach bots played randomly and were just tools to help players get familiar with the game. While they still serve as an introduction to the game, our new and improved coaches have solvable patterns of play like the campaign bots. Each has three different patterns that players can select by opting an easy, medium, or hard training session.
See the rest of the new art and try out the brand new bots–or play a PvP game–at fullcount.xyz.
Up next
Now that the game is live, we have a lot of exciting updates planned. In the next week, expect to see some quality of life improvements, including:
- Invitations: Invite a friend to play with you. Decide whether your at-bat will be private (only the invited person can play) or public (anyone can join). This is a feature from the pre-alpha that we always intended to carry forward but needed a little extra time to implement in the current version of the game.
- Leaderboards: Fullcount leaderboards are live, and you can check out the current rankings with the links below. We’ll add the leaderboard links to the frontend for easy viewing of scores.
- Notification sounds: If you open a Fullcount at-bat and then step away from your computer or browse another tab, a notification sound will let you know when someone joins your game.
We are also working on some bigger additions:
- Achievements and hall of fame: Players will earn achievements for hitting milestones like 10/100/1000 at-bats, wins, hits, home runs, strikeouts, and more. There are also seasonal achievements for feats such as being in the first 100 players, defeating the campaign bosses, and participating in Nova League Season One.
- Sound effects: We’re currently testing a full set of sound effects to add to the game to create a more immersive experience and add to the excitement.
- New Beer League Ballers and bot opponents: We’ll add Beer League Baller portrait options periodically, and the next Nova League season will feature new rivals with new playstyles and new art.
We have a major update in the works, too, that will add a new dimension to Fullcount’s strategy–but more on that in a future devlog! For now, we invite you to check out the game and let us know what YOU think about Fullcount.
And, finally…
Thanks!
Games are shaped by their players, and Fullcount is no exception. The team and I would like to thank Offchain Labs and Arbitrum Nova for their support of the game, our friends at Game7 and in the Arbitrum ecosystem for their willingness to play and give feedback, and all of you who have followed the devlogs and tried the game for your invaluable feedback and encouragement. We hope that you keep playing and enjoying Fullcount, and we always welcome your ideas and questions. Drop us a line on any time on Discord or via this feedback form.