AI-driven web3 game Parallel Colony has received a new update for a limited number of playtesters to try out, experiencing the ability to extract on-chain items and more.

What’s New in Parallel Colony’s Latest Update?

This newest update to the in-development AI-powered sim introduces a number of notable features that significantly enhance the game’s core gameplay loop, leading to a more engaging blockchain gaming experience.

For this early August update, the developers have introduced the Instability Meter, AI Pings, major events, on-chain item extraction, player progression & XP, a badge system, core resources revamp, NPC hiring, and UX updates.

The Instability Meter is a new visible instability bar that players have to keep low to survive. It rises over time or when things go wrong with your Colony, and once it hits 100%, it’s game over. Your AI agent is now more useful than before thanks to the introduction of AI Pings, which makes it possible for the agent to check in on events, dilemmas, and reflections.

Upping the stakes to the game are the inclusion of major events, which are natural and artificial disasters that can now randomly appear and hurt your Colony. These major events include storms, plagues, and even sabotage. You will want to be ready for these events by ensuring you have enough resources or have crafted certain items, because Colonies unprepared for these threats are going to significantly suffer.

On-chain item extraction is here, meaning you now have the option to extract up to 3 items per run. The way this works may change over time, but for now it’s up to 3 items, with the first extraction being free, while the rest come at a certain cost. Players who have their wallet linked should have extracted gear minted to them.

Facilitating player progression is the addition of passive XP earnings that accumulate as your AI agent is working. Gain XP to level up and enhance core capabilities and unlock new bonuses to help you survive longer.

The new badge system revolves around completing certain actions to earn badges that provide permanent perks. This means by doing activities such as mining and winning battles, you get to earn badges that can actually be used before the start of each new run. This rewards consistent and active players, and thus should make it easier to survive longer in future runs.

An overhaul to core resources has been made in order to simplify the game’s economy and make it based around these 5 clean resources: Social, Tech, Materials, Military, and Money. If you want faster crafting or the ability to do constructions at a cheaper cost, then you’re very much going to like the new NPC hiring feature. You can now hire named NPCs to gain temporary or permanent buffs, such as the ones mentioned before.

Next to all these welcome additions, updates to the UX have also been made, meaning there has been a refresh to the UI/UX in order to try and put more focus on mobile usability and clarity across the core gameplay loop, making for a more accessible experience.

The official X announcement also states that the team has taken the time to streamline how you and your AI agent collaborate while tightening the moment-to-moment gameplay loop in order to lower friction, add more clarity to decision-making, “and raise the stakes in the right places.” This meant making a lot of systemic, balancing, and UI changes, and implementing these improvements was top priority for the team to do before expanding their test group to include more web3 gamers. The initial plan was to open a larger test group in July, but the developers needed more time to bring all these enhancements, and now that it’s all ready, it looks like August will be the month in which more community members will be invited to playtest.

Future Plans for Parallel Colony

As for future plans, the blockchain gaming community can look forward to more playtest opportunities for Parallel Colony, meaning more players will be invited during August to provide constructive feedback and help the team “lock in the revised loop and tuning.”

It’s not clear how many new testers will be invited, but what is clear is that the open alpha version of the game is still scheduled to release before the end of 2025, so if you don’t get invited to any of these playtests, then perhaps it won’t be long before you can easily join in and try out an early edition of the game for yourself.

Exact dates are planned to be revealed in the future to give everyone enough time to plan ahead and properly participate in shaping the development of this upcoming title.

About Parallel Colony

Parallel Colony is an upcoming AI-driven web3 simulation game set in the growing Parallel universe. It’s described as being the “world’s first AI agent game” and has players work with AI agents powered by OpenAI to manage their colonies, attempting to survive for as long as possible in each run.

It’s being made in Unreal Engine 5 by Parallel Studios and is currently available in a closed alpha state, with plans to open the game to the public by the end of 2025.

Next to Colony, Parallel is a gaming ecosystem home to Parallel TCG and third-person extraction shooter Sanctuary, with the latter currently in development. The flagship title is the sci-fi card game, which you can download as a free to play title from the official website or through the Epic Games Store. It’s available in open beta on Windows PCs and can be played without a web3 wallet, but anyone who wants to enjoy win-to-earn mechanics can own NFT versions of playable cards in order to earn $PRIME, an ERC20 ecosystem token used for buying in-game assets such as cosmetics, cards, and tournament tickets.