INTRODUCING: MARK MCKENNA’S HEROES & VILLAINS

At CoreStarter we have been working hard to find the very best projects to partner with for the next phase in our development; the release of our INO Launchpad and (soon) Secondary Marketplace. Mark McKenna is a legend in the comic book industry, earning the nickname “The Man of A Thousand Credits”. His work has touched just about every major character there is, for industry juggernauts Marvel (Punisher, Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Deadpool) and DC (Batman, Doom Patrol, Dr. Fate, Aquaman, Teen Titans, Supergirl). He has also done Star Wars (Darkhorse Comics) and published his own independent IPs such as Combat Jacks and Banana Tales.

Not one to be left behind, Mark has also been making a name for himself in the NFT space over the past year, with numerous successful drops involving Universal Monsters, Alice in Wonderland and The Crow.

Heroes & Villains is an under-the-radar (for now!) effort by Mark, his art team (Jay DeFoy and Ross Campbell) and web3/blockchain development firm Masterbrews. Let’s dive into the partnership, the project, and what you can expect from this team in the future.

Masterbrews, in conjunction with Game-Ace Studios, are currently developing a 3D turn-based, strategy RPG game in the vein of Marvel Strikeforce. I am SO excited to bring this partnership to the CoreStarter family and have a front-row seat to watching all of McKenna’s original creations come to life. The game will be supported with a series of NFT collections, which we will discuss in further detail below.

The P2E market has witnessed a tremendous boom in the past 18 months, with everyone and their uncle trying to cash-in on the craze and hype. Unfortunately, this has led to the market becoming oversaturated with a number of games that lack a key fundamental element; they are not fun to play. You could easily say most of these games are DeFi projects in disguise, rather than a game you actually enjoy playing while simultaneously granting you the opportunity to earn. The large majority of such games popping up are not sustainable and will not support a long-term game economy simply from the (lack of) tokenomics design alone. Factor in the lack of fulfilment players are experiencing and you have a recipe for failure.

This is where Heroes & Villains will shine; bringing those elements of fun and excitement to the P2E space, while addressing and solving many of the current issues found in the P2E space through strong planning, their knack for innovation and a long-term vision.

OUR PARTNERSHIP

With Heroes & Villains’ first collection, ORIGINS, still currently minting, you may find yourself wondering how this fits into the INO Launchpad and Partnership in general. If you take a look at their website: https://heroesandvillains.io you will notice the Year One roadmap includes three upcoming expansions: Sidekicks & Henchmen, Mutants and Alliances. Each collection will introduce new characters, attributes and mechanics to both the NFTs and the P2E game. CoreStarter will be hosting Mints for each of these expansions and any future ones to come!

We have worked out a very special exclusive with Sidekicks & Henchmen, which will be our first hosted-mint, for our CoreStarter users who hold both an ORIGINS NFT and $CSTR. More details to come in the near future! In the meantime, the first 50 CoreStarter users who Mint their own ORIGINS NFT with the same wallet staking on sit.corestarter.com will go in a draw to win 1 of 5 Heroes & Villains NFTs, to be drawn after they start trading on our NFT marketplace. Once purchased, please send your wallet address to admin@corestarter.com so we can verify you are staking $CSTR (minimum 1000 $CSTR) and have your H&V NFT in your wallet!

With our NFT marketplace about to be released, we will be opening up CoreStarter as a secondary marketplace for all Heroes & Villains NFTs, comics and passes. Currently you can trade for these on Solanart, Magic Eden and OpenSea. However, they don’t always offer the best experience when working with more advanced features such as H&V’s “evolution” aspect or the fact the mint is not yet closed. We plan to work closely with the Masterbrews team to solve such issues, as well as help develop brand awareness and education around the importance of Web 3.0 as we collaborate with other like-minded partners.

Keep an eye out for our Grand Opening and listing announcement, we will be running several competitions and giveaways to celebrate whilst featuring Heroes & Villains as our flagship project; don’t miss out!

Extreme Measures is the title of the upcoming P2E video game, which we touched on earlier in this article. Initial game modes will include:

• Campaign/Story: Play through multiple stages with each chapter culminating in a challenging Boss fight. Heroes and Villains will have separate storylines and new chapters will be released on a regular, continued basis.
• Recruit: Send your Sidekicks & Henchmen into the world to recruit others to your side!
• Clone Lab: Undergo special procedures, create clones and enjoy a very unique take on “breeding”.
• In-game Marketplace: Buy, Sell and Trade items, artifacts, weapons and consumables.

The game will also allow you to de-couple artifacts and weapons from your NFTs, to mint them as individual NFTs of their own or equip new ones, while keeping your NFT’s art and metadata in sync! This is cutting edge and will blow up, in my humble opinion, once others catch wind of it in action.

Upcoming features will expand on the modes and mechanics and feature PvP, Team Battle and more! We’ll continue to share information and sneak peeks on Extreme Measures as we draw closer to its release.

The genesis collection ORIGINS consists of 5,000 unique NFTs living on the Solana blockchain. What sets them apart from other NFTs, aside from their incredible art, is the fact they go through six stages of evolution. In other words, every 48 hours, your NFT acquires a new random trait and its art morphs to match. Finally, after stage 6, you have your full character and his journey is what determines his alignment: hero or villain. A lucky few may also get one of the 15 total UltraRares, which are hand-crafted (non-generative) Supervillains or Superheroes that hold extreme value and have benefits from receiving staking tributes to upcoming in-game perks.

ORIGINS NFTs may currently be staked to earn $HERO or $VILLAIN, also their upcoming in-game currency that will also have public liquidity in the form of $HV token. All Genesis NFTs will be playable characters in the upcoming strategy RPG “Extreme Measures”.

The mint of ORIGINS is still ongoing, with 3249/5000 already minted. I Minted one so I could follow the process and watch my character evolve! Below are screenshots of each evolution and then the rarity of each trait my NFT has taken on.

COMICS

The very first NFT comic, Origins Sourcebook #0, was created through the efforts of the community and a lore-writing contest. The 12 winners were published into a sourcebook including brand-new art by Mark McKenna and his team that all holders were then airdropped free of charge. The winners also received amazing variant covers and free mints as part of their prize package. Sourcebooks will be continued a couple times a year, whenever new expansions are released. There are also plans to release an original, ongoing series named “Extreme Measures” as a video game companion. More info about the comics can be found here.

PASSES

For the most passionate fans, they initially issued and sold a low supply of HeroPass and VillainPass for Year One. These membership cards offer everything from Staking bonuses to free mints. You can see the full list of perks (past, ongoing, future) here.

CONCLUSION

At CoreStarter we feel extremely privileged to be in partnership with a project like Heroes & Villains and with the team at Masterbrews. We look forward to bringing you plenty of exciting updates, collections and opportunities as we continue through 2022 and beyond.

ABOUT MASTERBREWS

“Smart people, smarter contracts”. The team at Masterbrews have been working in the web 3.0 space for a number of years now, firmly believing that we have barely scratched the surface on what web 3.0 is, what it can and what it will do. Their first release was “WhelpS”, which introduced on-chain, provably random “evolving” NFTs to the Ethereum Blockchain. They have since migrated to Polygon and in the coming months will release their first gaming title “Slipstream” from Argentic Studios. Think Mario Kart meets flying, adorably cute dragons. If you want to read more about the team at Masterbrews, click here

$CSTR — Where to buy

Buy on Gate — https://www.gate.io/trade/CSTR_USDT

Swap on Raydium — https://raydium.io/swap/?inputCurrency=G7uYedVqFy97mzjygebnmmaMUVxWHFhNZotY6Zzsprvf&outputCurrency=Es9vMFrzaCERmJfrF4H2FYD4KCoNkY11McCe8BenwNYB&fixed=in

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