Industry veteran Tomoya Ogawa reveals mobile battler TAT Rumble, with NFTs by Tatsuro Iwamoto

New Japanese studio Kreation Verse, led by CEO Tomoya Ogawa and game director Karin, unveiled its first game, TAT Rumble, during GDC last week.

The anime-style card fighter is based around a martial arts tournament where fighters from around the world “compete for power, wealth, and fame”. It’s a mobile game using 2D characters drawn and animated by legendary artist Tatsuro Iwamoto (hence the name, in part), who is famous to gamers from Capcom’s Ace Attorney series. The cards will be collectible NFTs.

GDC took place in San Francisco in March and welcomed nearly 30,000 attendees.

BlockchainGamer.biz and our partner site PocketGamer.biz were there, and we sat down with Tomoya Ogawa in the bustling lobby of the W hotel opposite Moscone conference centre to discuss his vision for the new game, which will be available for download in the US and Canada on iOS and Android this summer.

Speaking about the formation of gaming startup Kreation Verse, Ogawa-san told us, “Our vision is to be the destination for Japanese creators to go global. Anime or Japanese games are becoming more popular. But there’s a huge gap between Japanese IP holders or creators and the global audience. There’s a big language barrier or culture gap, or they don’t have enough expertise in how to go to market in the US. We will start with our original titles but the vision is to be a publisher for companies to enter the global market. And NFTs can be a new type of digital IP business or digital IP service. Right now, we will focus on NFT gaming to drive more IP worth for our creators. This is the high-level concept!”

Original character art by Tatsuro Iwamoto

Ogawa-san himself is based in Tokyo and has worked in management in the games industry for many years, including the mobile gaming company Akatsuki. He developed and operated the Dragonball Z mobile title, along with Karin. Ogawa-san was CFO of DeNA before that. They started Kreation Verse three years ago.

The first game, TAT Rumble, sees you fighting in the “Twelve Anonymous Tournament” (also, hence the name) using cards drawn from your NFT collection. The card art is the work of Tatsuro Iwamoto.

“We started the NFT collection one and a half years ago with Tatsuro Iwamoto, who is an ex-Capcom artist,” explains Ogawa-san. “These are our original characters, drawn by Tatsuro. Our game concept is a collectible art game. It blends fighting-strategy mechanics and slot machine mechanics too.”

TAT Rumble features gacha mechanics for daily rewards and collectible art, as well as a technology called Martial Byte, which enables players to download and master the techniques of the 12 legendary fighters. With controls designed for mobile devices, TAT Rumble offers quick and intense matches that cater to players of all skill levels. With their background on Dragonball Z, Tomoya Ogawa and Karin understand what makes captivating gameplay based on card decks. The combat technology uses slot spins for moves, which seems an innovative way to combine skill and luck.

Converting players from web2 to web3

“This is mostly a web2 free-to-play mobile game,” explains Ogawa-san. “And then you can get the NFT conversion item. And then, you can convert your characters into NFTs. And if the user [does that], they can get additional power through the NFT conversion. So this is an additional game cycle. There’s the character creation, development and battle. And then on top of that, there’s an NFT cycle, and the user can own the NFTs, export them and sell them on OpenSea or other marketplace.”

Gamers won’t need to create a wallet or prepare any crypto first.

“They can play the mobile game and enjoy it for free,” he continues. “But if the user purchases an item, they can accelerate their progress. There’s also a chance for the user to get that NFT for free. Our hypothesis is the NFT, as a tradable, ownable asset, will drive the users’ engagement and also lifetime value as well. We start from the web2 mobile game, and on top of that, we add the NFT elements.”

It’s possible to pre-register for TAT Rumble now in the US at https://tat-rumble.io/.