DEVNOTES #1

For the past two months, the current version of GH Arena has been in support-only mode as the team focuses on GH Arena 2.0. It’s time to start a series of posts where we’ll talk about the new game (and sometimes show it).

What is GH Arena 2.0?

In formal game-design terms:

It’s a hardcore cross-platform Web2.5 PvEvP battler with RPG and roguelite elements.

Sounds vague? Let’s break it down!

Hardcore

We’ve always leaned toward games that challenge you. When we jumped into the Mini Apps trend in early 2024, we understood the mass Telegram audience wasn’t ready for gameplay that asks you to read, think, and take risks. So we picked what seemed like a safe mix of casual + midcore.

Result: it was already too hard for tappers, and still not interesting for true hardcore players. Retention was higher than typical farming games, but still not enough to make new-user acquisition profitable.

In 2.0 we’re intentionally going hardcore. We want to build a game we’ll enjoy playing ourselves. It also means we’ll simplify less for “mass market understanding.” We know the hardcore audience much better. At the same time we realize that, inside Telegram Mini Apps, this audience is small now and won’t grow fast in the coming years — so let’s move to the next point.

Cross-platform

From day one, the new version is built for both desktop and mobile. We start with a browser release. Later we plan App Store, Google Play, and even Steam. The world and progression are shared across all versions.

Web2.5

The first Arena is Web3 gaming focused on a crypto audience. That brought a common problem: many people come not for gameplay or community, but to earn. Rewards in such games are effectively paid by the developers, hoping that total player spend while farming airdrops will exceed the cost of those rewards. Long-term, this doesn’t work. In the last year alone, roughly three dozen big Web3 games shut down — huge investments (sometimes hundreds of millions) didn’t save them.

Web2.5 is a middle ground between a traditional game and a crypto game. Players come first for emotions and gameplay. Crypto assets, earning, and speculation can exist, but they don’t sit above the game. Also important: players don’t need to understand crypto or have a wallet. You can just enjoy the game and the community without touching the crypto layer at all.

How can both players and developers earn then? By shifting the focus to a P2P economy. Players earn from other players, while developers provide the marketplace for trading in-game assets and keep the market healthy.

Airdrops can still exist, but: (1) farming them must not become the game’s main goal; (2) the budget for giveaways should come from profits. For example, if quarterly trading fees beat the plan, part of that extra profit can be shared with the core active players.

We’ll talk more about the 2.0 economy in future posts. For now: $GH token and Genesis NFTs are staying and will be used in the new game.

PvEvP battler

The combat system will expand, but its core stays the same: turn-based fights with targeted attack and block zones. We’re adding potion slots you can use during battle, plus new effects/buffs (e.g. vampirism).

We’ll also give more attention to PvE:

• First, fights vs bots should become more varied and interesting. Mindless tapping and hoping for luck won’t be efficient and is risky for long-term growth: all items will have durability that goes down on defeat.
• Second, in the future we want to add a solo story PvE campaign. And yes, the world finally gets its lore. Over time you’ll learn why orcs fight on the Arenas and what happened to the other races.

Ranked PvP will also change over time and will become more of a social feature (clans) for high-level players.

RPG elements

Even though it’s a battler, we want to deepen the RPG layer to make more diverse builds. On each level-up you’ll get attribute points to allocate yourself. In addition to familiar stats like HP, Attack, Crit Chance, and Dodge, we’re adding Block Penetration and Armor.

Roguelite elements

Quick refresher: in roguelike games you repeat runs with the same starting conditions; results depend only on skill and persistence. In roguelite, there’s meta-progress or actions between runs that change your next attempt.

GH Arena 2.0 uses roguelite elements: you repeatedly enter Dungeons, fight enemies with increasing difficulty, and face meaningful choices. We want the full loop to demand attention:

• Preparation: for each run you choose what to wear and which potions to put into active slots.
• Action: bots differ in behavior, stats, and gear. Between fights you pick a room bonus and decide: go deeper for better loot, or leave and keep what you have. The price of defeat is losing the run’s loot, and equipped items lose durability.
• Progression: craft new items, salvage old ones, do alchemy, and allocate attribute points.

The deeper the Dungeon, the better the loot. Loot is the core of both progression and the economy: crafting materials, potion components, recipes, and repair scrap. Loot is what players trade with each other on the marketplace for $GH.

Your character is basically what you’ve looted. Even the first iteration of rarity + crafting produced tens of thousands of items. Combined with the updated RPG system, finding two identical characters will be almost impossible.

***

We hope this gives a clear high-level picture of what we’re building and why. In the next posts we’ll dive deeper into each part.

And the question you’re probably asking: when is the release?

We don’t have a date yet. Our current target is a closed alpha of the core mechanics by the end of this year. We’re not ready to talk about later testing stages or a full release timeline yet.