- Verse8 said it will hold MapleStory Vibe Camp Season 2 with Nexpace, offering a total prize pool of $15,000 in NXPC.
- Verse8 said it has introduced an AI guide, Agent 8 and AI review to improve efficiency in game development and screening, and plans to provide publishing and follow-up support.
- Verse8 said it has 3.5 million monthly active users, 5,000 active builders and 25,000 cumulative games created, and that it raised a $5 million seed round in March.
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Verse8, an artificial intelligence game creation and publishing platform, said Aug. 19 that it will hold MapleStory Vibe Camp Season 2, a global game jam, with Nexpace, Nexon’s blockchain subsidiary.
The event will run for four weeks from Aug. 19 through Sept. 15. The prize pool totals $15,000 worth of NXPC. This season will also mark the first use of an AI guide in MSU Space, a creative space for MapleStory intellectual property, to support users from the game-planning stage.
The AI guide helps participants flesh out the direction and ideas for the games they want to make. Event schedules, rules and prize details will also be available on the same screen. The feature adds game-planning support to Agent 8, Verse8’s existing natural-language coding AI agent, and will be offered only during the event period.
This season also introduces a new theme: “Short. Simple. Tense.” It is designed to encourage games that let players grasp the core gameplay in about a minute, understand the rules quickly without separate instructions and still deliver tension. Entries that do not follow the theme will still be eligible for judging.
In Season 1, held in June, 693 games using the MapleStory IP were created over three weeks. Of those, 435 passed review and were released. The finished games were played 88,037 times across 114 countries. Return-user rates for the top games ranged from 35% to 70%.
Judging will cover games that do not contain bugs that interfere with gameplay and that use official MapleStory rety and 30% for completeness. Games named to the shortlist, called Official Selection, will split $4,000 in prize money. A total of 23 awards will then be given based on overall rankings and category evaluations. Final winners will be announced on Oct. 8
Verse8 also said it has improved the review process. A review period that took one to two business days in Season 1 will be shortened to within 12 hours for most submissions, with a maximum of 24 hours, through the introduction of AI review and additional staffing. Participants must log in to Verse8, create and publish their games in MSU Space, and complete the official submission process before the deadline.
“Last season, 63% of entries went live as actual services, and 171 creators received prize money,” Chief Executive Officer Kevin Lee said. “If Season 1 showed that anyone can make a game, Season 2 will show how much better the results can get when AI is involved from the planning stage.” He added that the company will continue publishing and follow-up support so games from the event can become live services.
Verse8 said it plans to provide publishing and follow-up support to help keep games made through the event operating over the longer term. Starting with MapleStory, the company also plans to onboard global IP sequentially and expand into an IP-based game creation platform.
Verse8 is an AI game-making platform that lets users build and distribute multiplayer games using only natural-language prompts. It currently has more than 3.5 million monthly active users and more than 5,000 active builders, while the cumulative number of games created has reached 25,000. In March, it raised a $5 million seed round from Nexpace, Story Foundation, Neowiz and MARBLEX.
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