A Sneak Peek at MetaPals’ 2023 Development Roadmap

It’s the start of a brand new month in 2023…already?!

Time flies when you’re having fun and keeping busy, and we hope your January’s been productive, fulfilling, and joyful 😎 This post will be a snappy one, where we share a lil’ about the upcoming MetaPals content and features for the year ahead. Note that this schedule may change due to unforeseen circumstances, but we’ll try our best to release the updates as planned!

When we launched MetaPals in late November last year, we had to drop several in-game features due to critical issues and bugs that had to be prioritized before the official release. To get back on track and optimize the development process, the team’s adopted the scrum framework in the past months and as a result have been pushing out more and more updates every week (as you might notice from the frequency of patch releases!).

For example, we added more daily reward items to the repertoire over the past weeks — you might have noticed or even claimed things like mobile and desktop wallpapers, as well as a pair of headphones for your MetaPal to wear for a trial period of time! To celebrate festivities and holidays, we will also release seasonal consumables that replace the original ones; for instance, we created Gingerbread treats for Christmas, as well as pineapple tarts for the Lunar New Year so your MetaPals have special treats to snack on!

There’s more to come as we implement and create more ingame content, so remember to log in daily and claim your rewards!

Q1 (January — March): In-Game Content Updates

On top of the usual maintenance and bug fixes that crop up now and then, we’re planning for these game updates over the next few months:

February: Accessories

We know you guys have been waiting fur-ever to dress your MetaPals up in cute, snazzy accessories and show ’em off online; and we promise you’ll be able to by the end of this month! 🙏 We also owe some of you accessories from partipating in past events and contests, and these will also be delivered to your extension inbox once we release the wearables system.

Till then, here’s a quick peek at Ichibu, Tao, and Yeolki sporting some of the accessories we have in store for you:

March: Mini Games

Yep, we’re in the midst of training MetaPals to play games with you on your browser screen! Playing minigames will help increase their Happiness meters, which should be a welcome change to the current only method by patting them with your cursor 😜 We’ll share visuals and mechanics once these are ready.

Q2: Sanctuary Updates, Lore-Based Events and Missions, Pet Shop

April: Sanctuary Updates

While the Kennel is your pitstop to accessing the immediate interactions and shortcuts, the Sanctuary is designed to be the central hub for the MetaPals extension; from purchasing items to finding your friends on the in-game chat system and more. More details to come on the specific features we plan to add here!

May: Lore-Based Events and Missions

Have you noticed any lore anecdotes or titbits while playing MetaPals? We actually have a whole universe and story designed, and this will slowly be integrated with the extension in different forms. Finding or unlocking these sections will grant you extra experience points or even earn you exclusive rewards, all the while as you learn more about your furbabies and their backgrounds!

June: Pet Shop

While accessories will be released very soon, we intend these to be obtained only through events or daily rewards for the time being. Accessory purchase, on the other hand, will only be available when backend blockchain technology is fully integrated.

Q3: Mobile App Development, Multiplayer Pet Park

You read that right: MetaPals will be launched on mobile! We’ll begin mobile app development team recruitment in July, which also means the commencement of mobile app design and development soon thereafter.

MetaPals will also have a multiplayer element in time to come, where pawrents can visit and hang out at the Pet Park to meet other players and even join our in-game events! There’s a whole slew of features we can go on and ideate about here, but that’s all we will share for now 🌚

Q4: Brand Collabs and Integrations with Other Browser Extensions

One of our tenets in building MetaPals is creating eye-catching, strong brand design that anyone will recognize at first glance, and we daresay that’s been a success based on the swoons and faces of delight we got from hosting or exhibiting at past physical events.

We’re not just stopping here, though. Imagine if you could buy your MetaPal a pair of Hello Kitty headphones, or Razer headphones…

On top of MetaPals being emotional companions in the virtual space, we also plan for them to be happy helpers in your work or studies by working and integrating with other existing browser extensions. For example, what if you’re shopping on ASOS and your MetaPal’s able to find a coupon code behind one of the web images of the shirt you’re looking to buy? 👚

2023 is shaping up to be a pawsome year, with lots of features and content to look forward to in MetaPals!

How excited are you for these to drop? 🌻 Tell us what else you’d like to see in the extension, and we’ll definitely look into building them for you!

Curious as to how MetaPals works? Download the Chrome extension here.

And if you’re the sort who digs funny pet content or need the occasional chuckle from social media, you can follow our socials here.