Working With Faraway to Enable Industry-First, Two-Way Interoperability
About Mini Royale: Nations
Mini Royale: Nations is a web-based, first-person shooter game developed by Faraway. Founded in 2021, the studio is backed by some of the world’s top investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia. In the game, players compete against each other in one of two classic game modes: team deathmatch and capture the flag. With each won game, players collect XP and level up, unlocking new weapons and features within the game.
Looking for a new utility for the heroes
Mini Royale: Nations players can claim heroes won during the game as digital collectibles. They could then trade and sell the characters on marketplaces like Magic Eden. Similarly to other blockchain-based games, Faraway’s hero avatars were only usable in Mini Royale: Nations. The company looked for a way to increase the utility of their avatars and make them more valuable for their players. That led them to partner with Ready Player Me and introduce industry-first, two-way interoperability.
“It has always been our dream to offer utility for items in multiple games, but it was never possible due to closed ecosystems. When we started Faraway, we saw that blending blockchain and gaming enabled that dream. Interoperability is no longer a buzzword – it’s now a reality, and our integration with Ready Player Me is the first real example of it.”
<span class="text-style-quote-author">~ Alex Paley, Co-Founder of Faraway</span>
Two-way integration between Ready Player Me and Mini Royale: Nations
Mini Royale: Nations players can now create or import their existing Ready Player Me avatars into the game. This gives them access to hundreds of unique outfits and seasonal drops provided by Ready Player Me and leading brands—such as New Balance, Adidas and Tommy Hilfiger. They can also enjoy interoperability with live applications from 7,000+ developers.
What makes this partnership unique is the ability for Mini Royale: Nations players to bring their existing heroes to Ready Player Me and compatible apps and games, achieving Faraway’s goal of providing utility to their characters beyond their own platform. This is the first time ever that avatars from a game can be used on any avatar platform.
“Every Mini Royale: Nations hero owner wants their avatar to have as much utility as possible. You can give a certain amount of it in a game that you control, but if an item can be used beyond that, owners are going to love that. Access to thousands of apps and games with Ready Player Me makes their avatars more important and valuable beyond Mini Royale: Nations.”
<span class="text-style-quote-author">~ Alex Paley, Co-Founder of Faraway</span>
Mini Royale: Nations players can connect their Phantom wallets (Solana blockchain) and unlock their heroes as Ready Player Me-compatible avatars in a few clicks. Hero avatars appear in the Wardrobe section of the Ready Player Me Hub, where users can discover all apps and games supporting Ready Player Me. They can choose from 1,000+ live experiences, including other games, social apps, and tools for content creators.
Ready Player Me supports multiple ways of unlocking premium content created by brands and individual content providers. Users can claim new outfits and customization options through unique or multi-use redemption codes and links. Recently, Hugo Boss even made it possible to claim a digital version of their caps through an NFC chip.
Integrating Ready Player Me avatars into Mini Royale: Nations
Faraway used custom web integration to add Ready Player Me avatars to Mini Royale: Nations. The Ready Player Me avatar creator is integrated directly into Mini Royale: Nations’ avatar selector, meaning players don’t have to leave the experience to create an avatar. Since their heroes were already based on the glTF 3D assets standard, they had a running prototype on day one.
“Integrating Ready Player Me was pretty straightforward. Besides a few bugs that had to be ironed out, we only had to align our heroes’ skeletons with Ready Player Me’s.”
<span class="text-style-quote-author">~ Alex Paley, Co-Founder of Faraway</span>
Thanks to the Avatar REST API, they could optimize avatars’ quality, textures size limits and atlas settings to hit their performance goals. The same API also allowed Faraway to get 2D renders of Ready Player Me avatars and display them in their loadout and across the game’s interface. It took a month to launch the two-way interoperability between the platforms publicly.
Increasing value of Mini Royale: Nations’ heroes
The partnership comes with many benefits for Faraway, its players, as well as Ready Player Me’s community. Heroes previously limited to just Mini Royale: Nations can now be used in thousands of apps and games compatible with Ready Player Me. This opens them to social platforms like Spatial, creator tools like Animaze, and other games like HiberWorld. For Faraway, this meant thousands of new experiences for their existing user base without having to put time and resources into developing them on their own.
Owners of Mini Royale: Nations heroes always wanted a social space where they can talk to other players with an avatar that they own. With Ready Player Me’s partner network, we no longer have to build that space because our users can take their heroes to Spatial, Portals, and other platforms.”
<span class=text-style-quote-author>~ Alex Paley, Co-Founder of Faraway</span>
Ready Player Me also helps new users discover Mini Royale: Nations, either through people wearing their hero avatars in other apps and games or through the Ready Player Me Hub. The improved discovery is leading to the potential of attracting new users and growing monthly active users.
Integrate Ready Player Me avatars into your app
Are you looking to attract and retain users for your live app? Or maybe your app is still in development and you’re looking to reduce development time? Get started with the Ready Player Me Avatar Platform for free.