Tiny Colony will soon launch on the ImmutableX blockchain platform today as a game that combines base building, tower defense, and management simulation as you build a colony with pixelated ants.

The title will launch its alpha release soon and Tiny Game studio is also raising a round of funding early.

Since 2018, film producer Arshia Navabi has been immersing himself in the world of Tiny Colony, writing the game’s lore and backstory as it transitioned from film to games. He formally started the company in 2021 and raised money through various non-fungible coin and token (NFT) sales.

And he brought together a team of industry veterans from Electronic Arts, Capcom and Sony PlayStation to create the first hybrid management sim/base building/tower defense game on Web3. The Vancouver, Canada-based company built the title on ImmutableX, the Layer 2 blockchain scaling solution on Ethereum from game company Web3 Immutable.

“I had been working in the Vancouver film industry for about seven years before I got into the blockchain space. I consider myself a storyteller and a system builder. While I was working in the movie industry, I was also initially working on Tiny Colony as a mobile game,” he said. “And then the opportunity came to launch Tiny Colony as a blockchain game. So we decided to move in that direction.”

The company held an “initial DEX offering” in January 2022, raising around $3 million to build the game. He also minted and sold 18,000 NFTs on Fractal.

Tiny Colony was first developed on the Solana blockchain, but the company migrated the title to ImmutableX to take advantage of the platform’s scaling features while maintaining Ethereum’s focus on security and decentralization.

The game uses a pixel art style. The goal is to run an efficient ant colony. It is a 2D game where you create an ant farm and start collecting resources. You have to maximize resources, grow your population and make sure your ants are happy. From time to time, other colonies will attack your colony and you will have to defend your base using catapults, ballistae, traps and oil wells.

Prior to the move, Tiny Colony was one of the best-selling collections on the Fractal digital marketplace, with over 18,000 NFT assets sold and $3 million raised.

The partnership with Immutable will allow the Tiny Colony team to resume game development and capitalize on dedicated technical support and product lifecycle consultation.

By adopting ImmutableX technology, Tiny Colony will be able to offer many new features and capabilities, including faster and more responsive performance; enhanced security; improved accessibility for new Web3 players with the inclusion of a built-in crypto wallet; the option to pay for in-game assets with fiat currency and more.

“We are delighted to welcome Tiny Colony to the rapidly growing ImmutableX family and provide the team with our complete set of tools and solutions to make the game as accessible, engaging and efficient as possible,” said Andrew Sorokovsky, Vice President of global business. development on Immutable, in a statement. “The team’s goal of building a fun and engaging Web3 game that provides a variety of entertainment options and freedom of asset ownership aligns perfectly with Immutable’s mission to power the next generation of gaming.”

Navabi worked on the production team for popular titles at Netflix, Disney, Prime and Paramount. As a storyteller and visionary, Arshia assembled an experienced team of writers, artists, developers, and animators from triple-A-acclaimed studios to bring Tiny Colony to life.

As one of the first blockchain-based construction simulations, Tiny Colony allows players to build and manage a complex underground humanoid ant colony, following seven different factions, all intertwined through an engaging story and rich lore, Navabi said.

To succeed, players must take advantage of strategic farming, mining, cell construction, hatching larvae, and defending their colony against raiders if they are to survive and thrive. Other game modes in development include Gladiator Wars and Tiny Survivors, where players can use their earned assets across all game modes. Players will also earn NFTs through multiple game modes, which can be used in-game or traded, he said.

Existing Tiny Colony NFT holders can access an MVP version of the game (which has been available since June 2022) to test the core mechanics and provide feedback to the development team.

“We are delighted to partner with ImmutableX as we establish ourselves in the world of Web3 games. ImmutableX has a strong reputation for creating high-quality games and supporting Web3 game projects through its native platform,” said Navabi. “This partnership allows us to benefit from the dedicated technical support, product lifecycle consultation, and long-term guidance provided by ImmutableX’s experienced team as we continue to develop Tiny Colony.”

Navabi is aware that some players oppose blockchain gaming as scams.

“I think it’s important to focus on creating fun games,” he said. “I think it’s important to keep blockchain on the back burner and not try to cultivate a new audience. We are trying to create a game that is fun for Web2 and Web3 users. And we are really taking it very seriously and making sure that our priority is to create a fun game.”

Blockchain’s big draw for him remains asset ownership, as he feels players should own the assets they pay for.

“That’s the most exciting element to me for the blockchain space. So we hope that we can be part of the movement that is yet to come to eventually bring all games to asset ownership,” Navabi said. “Within any new space that has an opportunity to make money, there are a lot of bad actors in the early years. I’m a firm believer that if we’re here for the long haul, we can really contribute to that element of asset ownership.”

The team has a core of 12 people, although it also has several contractors.

Navabi expects the game to be ready about a year after the next round of funding closes. At some point, he hopes to port the title to mobile platforms.

Navabi believes that good studios will continue to raise money in the blockchain gaming space, despite the tough economy and the collapse of FTX. Tiny Colony will use the ImmutableX NFT marketplace and several of its supporting technologies.

“I think investors are seeing fewer illegitimate projects and that clears up the space for us,” he said.