Unicorn Detective Agency is a new MetaAnimation by Twitch Pixel Studios powered with the crowd via NFTs.
What is a Meta Animation? Well here’s the neat part. Alongside their main — or the “Prime “storyline — is an expanded universe where your NFTs have a chance to take center stage and help create a living, breathing world around the main story.
A collection of 8000 NFTs is coming for a November launch, whose characters make up the “Citizens of Unicornitopia!” .Minting one for yourself comes with some neat perks! NFT holders will become a part of their social space on discord, allowing them to join live storytelling events, and provide them the opportunity to offer up ideas, jokes, fan art and more.. which may be used in the expanded universe of animated shorts.
More information, sneak peeks, and their road map can be found on their discord server: https://discord.gg/dbdQdzFzXb
Here is a sampling of the first NFT Collection:
What Stands out about UDA as an NFT project?
This isn’t another NFT project springing to life during the hype and craze — this is a well developed animated series, primed and ready to produce their first episode. Twitch Pixel Studios aims to change the way we think about animation as an entertainment medium, and how fans interact with their collaborative worlds.
“We didn’t want to come to the table with just an idea, or a few pieces of art, we wanted to be prepped to hit the ground running as soon as crowdfunding could be secured! NFTs were a perfect fit, enabling us to integrate our fans in cool new ways!,” explains creator and co-founder of Twitch Pixel Studios, Jeff Saamanen.
Unicorn Detective Agency has been in development for 4 years by a small team of dedicated artists who worked remotely, donating their free time into nurturing this idea. The pilot episode is ready to produce, with a script, breakdown, shotlists, storyboards, and full character turnarounds rigged and ready for animation, including a whole world of NFTs, carefully created and curated for this universe.
Recognizing the unfortunate rising trend of rug pullers and scam artists in the space, the studio has a new approach to this as well. In partnering with Flair Finance, Twitch Pixel hopes to, offer peace of mind and more control over customer’s purchases.
By aligning with the values of Twitch Pixel, there is excitement over this partnership. “Flair Finance has been pivotal for us — it says it right on their front page: anti-rug pulling, accountability, and transparency!
I set a high moral expectation for our studio and these guys aligned with our philosophy from day one. Through them, we can offer a slow release of funds similar to some crowdfunding platforms which means our supporters purchase their NFTs on good faith. At any time our supporters feel like we aren’t living up to our end, they can return their nft and get back the remainder of their balance. This keeps us accountable, and gives our supporters more peace of mind!“
You can learn more about Flair’s NFT crowdfunding platform on https://flair.finance.
What Makes Unicorn Detective Agency Unique?
Besides being more than an art project, the coolest part is the expanded universe concept, where NFTs holders’ collections can be featured in a fully animated world through their shorts!
A lofty goal, but their approach is unique, and a little clever.
“We actually encourage our artists here at Twitch Pixel to invent their own ideas, characters, and stories, all in our art style. They can tell bite-sized and manageable little stories through our day in the life shorts from around the city of Unicornitopia!”
That’s intriguing enough, but thanks to their NFTs they seem to be doing just a little more, something a little special. Jeff went on to describe their commitment to this expanded world.
“In addition to our usual episode production, we will be dedicating time each week to work on the expanded universe and feature our community’s ideas and NFT characters. Since each NFT is a citizen of Unicornitopia, we can use live storytime events on our discord server where we encourage our collectors to share their ideas, jokes, fan art and more with our team with our showrunners, allowing us to handpick and bring these ideas to life.”
So an expanded universe that their NFT characters inhabit, which grows the lore and world around their main show, with help from the creative minds of their community. That’s pretty cool. But there is one additional layer to this particular onion, which Jeff’s loving wife of 20 years and co-founder Natalie Harvey had to share:
“I am mostly excited about our expanded universe because it gives our internal artists and team the opportunity to grow. Each of us can choose to sit as a showrunner on one of these bite sized and manageable shorts. We each get to produce them from concept to release! We get to expand our skill set and grow an audience around ourselves that we will have forever!”
If their Discord sneak peek channel says anything, it’s that these two and their team have been working hard on this project for some time, and they really do care about it.
“We always joke that since we don’t have kids, this is sorta our baby: we birthed it, raised it, and now it’s kinda time for it to walk on its own, with an awesome community behind it!,” Jeff adds with a laugh.
What’s the story all about?
At the beginning of time, all that existed were the two Dragons: the Mother Ordo, and the Father Chao. Chao was, full of Rage, Passion and Fire, with Ordo tempering him with her Logic, Empathy and Water. The two gave birth to a daughter, Imaginatia, who embodied both of her parents’ essence, but was overcome by her powerful imagination.
From her mind exploded the entirety of our existence. Waves like seizures rolled over her with a crippling intensity that began to tear their innocent child’s mind apart. In order to protect her Ordo and Chao were forced to do the only thing they could think to do: give of themselves so their child could be saved, causing what has become known as the “Ultimate Spark”.
Their scales shattered and became the stars, their bodies torn and the planets made of their flesh and bone, until all that remained was Chaos’ heart, known as the Dark Heart, and Ordos’ heart, known as the Light Heart.
The two hearts encapsulated their child, slowing her mind to the slow droll of their beat, tempering the flow of her consciousness. The blood pumped from Chao and Ordos’ hearts, which created life from the eye of their child’s mind. The beat of their hearts would become the rhythm to which the multiverse itself would dance.
From the merging of the hearts, Imaginatia’s mind was soothed and slowed, allowing life to exist for more than just a blink of an eye. Life was given time to evolve and take form.
Millenia later, a universe was born of this imagination., It is a world of wonder and depravity, a society of strange and adorable creatures and magical monsters, all surviving in a city on the brink of collapse. It is no utopia — they are all under the oppressive thumb of the Sugar Barons, who control the city through the flow of sugar, the lifeblood of their world, and from their greed the divide between the elite and downtrodden grows every day.
In the outlying dregs of the glamorous Rainbowopolis that shadows over them, Flynn and friends set up shop to try and make a difference in the best way they know how.
In the suburb of Mythagin, on the less-than-reputable corner of Boston & Cream, Unicorn Dick: Investigations follows the clues while on the trail of Flynns’ missing mother, led by a series of mysteries that will bring them to the truth. One that will change them, and their not so fair city, forever!
What is in store for the future?
The longevity of their project is baked in. There is a full roster of ideas and shows primed and ready from years of effort and countless hours of devotion. Twitch Pixel wants to set a new standard and create their vision of what it means to be a MetaAnimation studio.
Jeff’s enthusiasm is clear and infectious. “We are a pilot centric animation studio, meaning we focus on developing new and original ideas from the ground up! We have MUCH more on the horizon as can be seen on our website TwitchPixel.com. If Unicorn Detective can be successful, we will launch similar campaigns for our other animated series ideas, all powered by Twitch Pixel Studios and you!”
Where to find them
UDA Website: https://www.twitchpixel.com/UDA
Twitch Pixel Studios: https://TwitchPixel.com
Discord: https://discord.gg/dbdQdzFzXb
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TwitchPixelAnim
Instagram: https://instagram.com/TwitchPixel
