Bored Ape Creator’s ‘HV-MTL Forge’ Mech Game Revealed

Yuga Labs’ Dookey Dash took flak from some gamers and Web3 skeptics over its pricey NFTs and toilet humor—but hype around the web game led still to $110 million worth of NFT trades, and the winning player sold his reward NFT for $1.63 million worth of Ethereum. Now, Yuga has revealed the next game to spin out of that experience.

Launching on June 29, HV-MTL Forge is a workshop-building game that revolves around the Bored Ape Yacht Club creator’s HV-MTL robot NFTs. Owners of the Sewer Pass NFTs—which were needed to play Dookey Dash—could swap the pass for a HV-MTL mech suit NFT back in March.

Soon, those HV-MTL NFTs can be used to access the Forge game, which challenges players to build up and customize a workshop and try to earn community votes for having the best space. Users can apparently earn customization features along the way, per a teaser video tweeted today.

An NFT is a blockchain token that can represent ownership in an item, including digital goods like artwork, avatars, and in-game items. HV-MTL NFTs are minted on Ethereum, the most popular and most valuable blockchain network for NFT collectibles and artwork.

“Stoked to crack open Forge next week,” tweeted Yuga Labs co-founder Greg “Garga” Solano today. “Bunch more content coming between now and then to prep you for the experience, but like Dookey Dash, it will just make sense once you’ve played for a bit.”

Yuga Labs revealed the artwork for the HV-MTL mech characters last month. Currently, the NFTs start at a price of 0.88 ETH ($1,570) on the OpenSea secondary marketplace. To date, the HV-MTL NFTs have generated about $38 million worth of secondary trades, per data from CryptoSlam.

Dookey Dash launched in January, with Yuga Labs promising a mysterious reward to players who guided a cartoonish character on a rocket bike through a sewer. Ultimately, professional Fortnite player Kyle “Mongraal” Jackson posted the top score and won a 1-of-1 reward NFT, which he quickly sold for 1,000 ETH—$1.63 million worth at the time.

Like Dookey Dash, HV-MTL Forge looks relatively compact in design. However, Yuga Labs is also designing the significantly larger Otherside metaverse game, which is built around Bored Ape Yacht Club lore and will support avatars from other NFT projects.