Apeiron is an NFT-based God Game inspired by Populous as well as Black and White. On 27 January 2023, the long-awaited moment for Apeiron's fans finally arrived when the game's developer, Foonie Magus, launched the full public release of the game's battle demo ("demo"). The demo was open to a few lucky gamers comprising Planet/Star NFT holders who underwent a snapshot on 17 January 2023, holders of Lunisolar Battlepasses which can be minted using Luni and Solar fragments as well as official partners of the game. It provided players with a taste of what the dark dungeons of Apeiron have to offer, including the chance to take on the bosses of the three available Dungeon Depths.

Right from the get-go, the game’s unique art style and sound effects design were on full display. The demo starts with a cinematic experience that sets out the game's lore. The background story of the demo is about how the Doods forged the Skydream Crown gift to be offered to the Gale of the Tempest, the Sixth God of the Truestorm, in the hope of a better future. Alas, after some berserking from the Apostle Doods, it turns out that their dreams for a brighter tomorrow were of a nightmarish reality. Thankfully, the wind rises and takes the Doods and the player into the darkness. It's time to banish the bosses in the Dungeon Depths and bring the light of day to the land of Apeiron.

Once we’re done with story time, it’s setup time. Regarding Avatar selection, there’s not much of a choice in the demo, as the only Avatar available is the Tempest Wisdom Avatar. In the demo, the Tempest Wisdom Avatar starts with two attack cards, namely the Zip-Zap Orbs Card which generates three magic orbs inside the range of your Avatar, and the Storm Spear Card which provides a dash ability for your Avatar to close the gap with your enemy or can be used as a quick get-away tool. As you level up, you will be able to unlock additional cards and gain stats that boost your Avatar's movement speed and fighting skills.

Once we’re done with setup time, it's action time which kicks off with selecting your Dungeon Depth, of which there are three in the demo. Again, it's not much of a choice as you must start with the first Dungeon Depth, which for some reason the boss is conspicuously absent from. After clearing the multiple levels of rooms in the first Dungeon Depth, you could move on to the second Dungeon Depth, and after that the third one. The second and third Dungeon Depths both have a dungeon boss at the end, with the boss of the third Dungeon Depth being the most challenging. Defeating the boss of the third Dungeon Depth requires careful planning and skills. If you falter at any stage of any Dungeon Depth, you would have to restart from the first room of the Dungeon Depth in which you were vanquished.

• AAA-worthy visual graphics and sound effects for an all-around immersive gameplay experience.

• Agile control interface of Avatar when using WASD movement keys and spacebar for quick dodges and retreats.

• The combination of fast-paced battles, variety in card choices, and skill points allocation will test the player's critical thinking skills and strategic planning abilities.

• Gameplay flow can be improved by reducing the delay between the casting of skills and when the skills come into effect.

• Battlefield clarity can be improved by adding more camera angles to the sole available camera angle in the demo to give players a better view of who’s attacking who on the battlefield.

• Waiting time for the restoration process of Avatars and Doods in the Campfire Room is a bit slow though it's a step up from the previous demo phase.

• Place your Avatar at the back to minimize damage from enemies, and place your Guardian or Warrior at the front to take the brunt of the damage and also to protect the back line.

• Use the correct skills by drawing or buffing based on the flow of the battle as well as the type and status of your Doods to optimize their abilities.

• Plan the allocation of your skill points in the skill tree to help you gain more strength and advantage on the battlefield. Feel free to experiment, as resetting your skill points is free and can be done as often as possible.

• Watch out for the AOE attacks marked by red markers on the ground in the boss battle. Make fast getaways by improving your movement speed on the skill tree and timely use of movement spells like Storm Spear.

• Be bold to grind and level up your Avatar and Apostles Doods a bit to handle the increasing difficulty level. There's no shame in restarting a Dungeon Depth to farm up the early rooms for Experience Points (XPs).

• Stock up on Potions every time you reach the shop in a Dungeon Depth.

• Make sure you have at least 1 Priest Apostle on your team and save some Potions for the boss fight. Trust me, you will need it.

To be eligible to participate in the public demo, you need to mint a Lunisolar Battlepass at the Apeiron Marketplace using Solar and Lunar fragments which can be purchased from OpenSea.

Thanks to the partnership between Avocado DAO and Apeiron, Avocadian scholars can participate in the demo for free by obtaining a battlepass which comes with an hour of game time. You can get your battlepass from Avocado DAO by participating in our Apeiron webinar on 28 January 2023. More webinars are set to be announced, so check the announcements on our Discord.

Each battlepass gives you an hour of game time. You can extend your game time by completing our Apeiron: Dungeon Depth Clearances Quest, which requires you to clear the first, second, and third Dungeon Depths in the game.

To get your hands on some Apeiron NFTs, you can participate in the Speedrun contest by clearing the game, i.e., by taking down the boss of the third Dungeon Depth as fast as possible. Although the prizes to be won are yet to be decided by the Apeiron team, Avocado DAO will consider the performance scores on the Speedrun leaderboard to determine the rarity of the NFTs which will be rented out to Avocadian scholars when our scholarship program is launched in May 2023.

If the demo is anything to go by, fans of God games are in store for an out-of-this-world gaming experience as we look forward to the full release of Aperion. Content-wise, the full version of the game is set to feature additional Avatars from different planet types, more Dungeon Depths, and additional bosses to take on. Gameplay-wise, the full version of the game would offer a smoother and more enjoyable experience as the developers work on fixing any bugs or glitches manifested in the demo runs. Competition-wise, the full version of the game would have more competitive leaderboards as more players join the bandwagon of Gods in Apeiron. As we await the launch of the full version of Apeiron, we’ll have to leave things in the godly hands of the developer of the game.