Mazes
Alec Maslov started drawing mazes in elementary school. His mazes were simple at first but evolved into complex designs spanning multiple pieces of paper. It seemed to be a phase during his childhood, and he forgot about those mazes as he grew into a young man.
“Are we living in a simulation?”
In April of 2017, Alec gave a TEDx Talk titled “Are We Living in a Simulation?”. The talk centered on the idea that humanity is living in a game-like virtual world. To date, Alec’s TEDx talk has received nearly 330,000 views. The ideas that Alec presented in the talk would come to heavily influence his story. In the talk, Alec asked if humans are creating a “digital soul” when creating NPCs (non-playable characters).
Tokyo
Alec and Manabu connected in 2019 through a mutual friend and started talking about creating a manga together. They exchanged ideas and Manabu sent over art samples. Alec was so impressed that he came to Tokyo to meet Manabu in person in September 2019. He would spend the next 3 months in Tokyo before coming back to the US.
Manabu produced two chapters of the first manga in 2020, which was called “Oroboros Protocol.” They shared their manga at Comitia in Tokyo in February 2020. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and derailed many of their plans, but Alec and Manabu continued corresponding.
Gigas
In 2021, Alec had a breakthrough idea. He wanted to give investors and brands the ability to own characters within a story. The team launched the Gigas NFT collection in early 2022, but then the NFT market collapsed. Alec also went through some big personal changes around this time. The project was hanging by a thread.
A park in Seattle
Another breakthrough came in June 2022. One summer day in Seattle, Alec went to the park with his nephew Nathan. They invented a game using sticks, pine cones, and stones. Nathan loved the game so much that Alec promised to create it for him. This would become the first version of UFB.
Alec would play test and continue building out this game on paper. He couldn't help but think that the game would be easier and better with an app. He started to build the first version of the app in October 2022, launched on Test Flight in January 2023, and published an alpha version of the game on the iOS App Store in April 2023.
Kickstarter and beyond
For the next several months, Alec went around testing the game and app with friends and family. Alec launched a Kickstarter in summer of 2023 to get some more funding for the game and successfully raised over $5,000. With those funds, he launched a new website, new characters, and a new 3D map. He also started building the beta version of the game on the Unity game engine.
The 2024 plan
- April 2024: Beta version of the UFB app built in Unity
- June 2024: Chapter 1 of the UFB manga
- August 2024: Boxes sent to Kickstarter supporters
- November 2024: Full launch of the product
Now
UFB became Easter Egg's first game. The physical box ships with NFC figurines whose digital souls live on the blockchain, and the browser version at easteregg.fun is where we play-test every new map, power and monster before it goes in the box. It's free, there's nothing to install, and you can play it right now.
- 2017TEDx talk “Are We Living in a Simulation?” — the idea of a digital soul
- 2019Alec and Manabu meet in Tokyo
- 2020Oroboros Protocol manga debuts at Comitia, Tokyo
- 2022Gigas collection launches · UFB invented in a Seattle park
- 2023Alpha on the iOS App Store · 1,000+ play-tests · Kickstarter funded
- 2024Unity rebuild, NFC figurines, new heroes and 3D maps
- NowFree browser version at easteregg.fun