Behind the Creators: A Look Inside the Minds of the Builders’ Challenge — Week Two
We chatted with some of the top creators from the Builders Challenge to hear the secrets behind their success and what they learned about creating experiences that players enjoy.
Welcome back to Behind the Creators, a three-part series where we chat with the talented creators from The Sandbox Builders’ Challenge who have caught the attention of The Sandbox Community for their creative and boundary-pushing use of Game Maker mechanics.
Several talented creators took home significant sums of SAND, not just by creating fun, engaging games but by marketing and following important steps to maximize player engagement.
In the second part of this series, we’re sharing some of our conversations with creators The Pickaxe Master and Meta Futura to help others understand what engagement strategies and decisions can lead to popular experiences!
Managing Your Resources
The Pickaxe Master, a gaming brand focused on mining-themed games, began as a board game in 2020. In 2022, it became the first board game to be adapted to The Sandbox Metaverse.
For the Builder’s Challenge, The Pickaxe Master decided to put to use The Sandbox’s Resource Management game mode with the creation of their mining game The Misty Mountain. On why they chose the format, The Pickaxe Master elaborated, “It was an easy choice. The Pickaxe Master was originally born as a traditional board game, so its genre was already decided before we even placed the first Voxel on the Game Maker.”
To maximize player engagement, The Pickaxe Master “…hosted regular events for players, such as Seasonal Mining competitions and Weekly Mining challenges.” They explained. “This was followed with daily marketing campaigns on socials to ensure the events reached the community.”
Building a community can be hard, so The Pickaxe Master led players to Discord and Twitch, which provided a place for members to gather, meet, and play together. They summarized their approach by simply stating, “Be present and be communicative!”
Three Experiences, Impressive Results
Meta Futura Studio benefited from being a structured studio, developing not one, but three high-performing experiences for the Builders’ Challenge. “We had various experiences in store, either built or in the process of being created. However, we wanted to focus on our main game The Legend of the Miners.”
Inspired by their love for 2D arcade games, Meta Futura brought The Legend of the Miners to life with a side-view perspective that perfectly matched their vision. The game’s original story centers on a mining family thwarted by evil elves from reaching the mine’s core. Players take up the pickaxe to recover the treasure and return it to their families. As for the gameplay, “Players compete to solve puzzles and test their skills. We chose this approach because it’s a reliable favorite, and our community already knows it well.”
Beyond just having players in the game, their active participation was crucial for the contest. That’s why The Legend of the Miners, with all its puzzles and missions, was a perfect fit. Starting from the third week, they introduced two new games: Care Bears and The Rainbow Tower Guardian and RUN! RAT! RUN!. They explained, “Our goal was to expand our audience and provide a light-hearted experience considering the significant amount of time players had already dedicated to the contest.”
Regarding the marketing strategy, Meta Futura Studio shared a few key insights, “We aimed to engage players already on the platform, retain them, and then draw in new players from other crypto ecosystems, particularly those with a gaming focus.”
Create YOUR Masterpiece
What strategies will you use when building your next experience on The Sandbox? Download Game Maker 0.10 today to start creating, and buy or rent LAND to publish your masterpiece!
This article is part of an three-part series, to read more, click one of the links below:
