Diamond in the Rough: An Interview with Apeiron CTO Gem Ng

Hey Godlings! We have a special treat for you today: an exclusive interview with Foonie Magus’ Chief Technical Officer (CTO) Gem Ng! We sat…

Hey Godlings! We have a special treat for you today: an exclusive interview with Foonie Magus’ Chief Technical Officer (CTO) Gem Ng! We sat down and talked to him about why the blockchain has the potential to transform the industry, how we’re making sure our systems are as secure as they can be, and what’s got him pumped about working in Apeiron after over 14 years in the industry. Let’s jump right in!

Foonie Magus: Hi Gem! Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to us. Could you get us started by introducing yourself?

Gem: Hey! Sure, no problem: so I’m Gem, Foonie Magus’ CTO and Lorescribbler. I’ve been working in game and software development since I graduated from university — around the same time the iPhone 2 launched. I started as a game developer and eventually transitioned into the CTO role in a mobile app development company. I’ve launched…I can’t remember haha. Over 100 titles at least.

An impressive resume! And what an interesting time to launch your career — what with the rise of smartphones and smartphone apps.

Yeah, it was crazy, a big moment. But actually that’s part of the reason I’m here now: I believe that blockchain is the next big wave of change in our industry, and it’s something that I want to be a part of.

Awesome. Before we jump into that, I wanted to ask you if you could briefly explain what a CTO does?

Absolutely. Well, it can be different depending on the company and the projects you might be working on, what stage of the project you’re in, that kind of thing. When the company is small, you’re responsible for all the coding yourself, pretty much. But when the company gets big, you need to recruit people and manage them and then not only write code but make sure all the code everyone else on the team is writing is up to standard. But yeah, basically, the CTO is responsible for the code base. For us in particular, anything related to the blockchain and blockchain asset implementation is what I’m about.

It’s a big responsibility! So let’s talk more about what you just mentioned — the blockchain. Given your expertise, perhaps you can give us some insights on what makes it so transformative? Maybe an ELI5 version if possible?

Right, yeah. I’ll try and use a metaphor to explain it: so imagine that you have five family members and they’re all sharing money. Each of them has an account book keeping track of the money. But the family has a rule: if you want to spend money, you have to get permission and record it in at least three of the account books. Then the other two family members will follow what’s written in the three books where the money spent is recorded. So to go back to the blockchain, it’s a much larger scale, involving tens of thousands of nodes distributed all across the world! In this way, hacking is very difficult, if not impossible.

That’s amazing!

Haha yeah! And what’s super cool about it is that the technology already existed for a long time. The guy Satoshi — the mystery person behind the blockchain — just put it all together.

It’s a fascinating story. So having a technology that is extremely challenging to hack sounds great. Besides security, what would you say are some of the benefits of the blockchain in terms of game development?

The blockchain’s biggest advantage is that it is decentralized: users control all the assets themselves-

These assets are NFTs, right?

Yup, you got it! With NFTs, users control all the assets directly instead of it being stored in some server who knows where owned by who knows who. As the owner, you get to decide what to do with your stuff.

Could you give us an example of how it’ll work compared to the current system?

Sure. So for example when you play an MMO game these days — World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, for example — all your virtual items are stored in the game’s server with the company. If the company decides to shut down the servers, if the game goes offline: that’s it. You lose everything, with no way to recover all of the stuff you’ve saved up after years of playing. All those memories: gone. But with NFTs, as the NFT lives on the blockchain, the asset is always available to you. You can keep it as long as you want and do with it what you want.

Sounds empowering.

Precisely. And since the community owns most of the assets, it makes sense from a developer perspective to move the decision-making process to the community, and thus the community actually participates and owns the whole project collectively.

It’s a whole new world!

And a whole new Metaverse! We’re working to make sure that, at least on our side, our NFT assets can integrate with other games, making them multi-purpose. And when other people catch on and everyone starts working on integration, the use-value of NFTs just gets bigger and bigger. Long Live NFTs!

Long live NFTs! So now that we have an idea of what the blockchain is, let’s talk more on the security side. With this new system, how are you going to make Apeiron safe and secure?

Good question! Well, we’ve talked about how the blockchain by its very nature is very difficult to hack. The other thing it comes down to is the way you’re writing the code for your smart contracts. This is where we’re trying to do everything we can to make sure our code is the best in the business. Whenever someone writes any code, we have an internal review conducted by multiple colleagues to make sure it looks good. And then after that we pass it to be audited by a 3rd party as well.

We’re taking extraordinary measures to ensure our code is the best, which is great.

It’s crucial, but the reality is that no code is perfect. No one can say they’re immune from getting hacked, even after we do all that effort to protect ourselves and our users. So that’s where the second phase of the operation comes in. We’re developing an in-house monitoring system, a unique algorithm that will monitor transactions and help us to sniff out anything fishy. With this system in place, we’ll be able to react immediately in the event of any issues.

It’s preventative and reactive.

Yes it is! And on top of that we’ll also be making our smart contracts upgradeable. If we see an abnormality, we stop the contract and upgrade it ASAP. Security and user interests are always our first priority. We’re committed to making sure that Apeiron’s transactions are as smooth as possible.

Thanks so much for that detailed explanation. I know you’re busy and have to head out soon, but I was hoping I could ask: what has got you most excited about Apeiron?

It’s the game I want to do. I honestly think the gameplay is very interesting. It hits all the genres I love: we’re blending simulation games, old rts games, and card games through our combat system. There’s nothing like it before, and on top of that, we’re developing it all on the blockchain, which is going to make it that much more cutting edge. I’m especially excited for the PvP aspect…I’m quite competitive haha.

Yeah one of the cool things about this project is that there’s something for everyone.

You know, our COO Orange once said that I am the type of person who tries to develop games I love, which can be a good thing sometimes and a bad thing sometimes haha. But in this case, I’m super motivated. Apeiron is just that type of game I want to play, and I hope you do too!

I certainly can’t wait to get my hands on it haha.

Oh and a quick shout-out to the art team! The Avatars for all the planets look amazing — a bit like fantasy Gundams, I think they’re so cool.

Our art team is very talented! Ok, we’re unfortunately out of time…anything else you’d like to share with our readers before signing off?

Apeiron can be one of the best NFT games — so join our events as early as possible!

Thanks Gem, and see you next time!

Hey Godlings! This is Foonie Magus again. Hope you enjoyed this interview with CTO Gem — if you have any further questions about Apeiron and the blockchain, shoot them our way! Just a quick reminder that the Radical Rogue Raffle is ending and that the Bodacious Bard Bonanza NFT giveaway starts TOMORROW, so just like Gem said, get yourselves ready for that, and make sure you’ve done what you need to do for the Rogue giveaway. Next week is the Lunar New Year and we have some surprises in store, so as always, follow us on social media and get involved in the conversation buzzing around Apeiron!

That’s all for now everyone. As always, thanks for reading, and see you around~