Serum City

What is Serum City?

Serum City is a city builder set in the Mutant Cartel corner of the Yugaverse, made by Novel Labs with Faraway. It leans on the Mutant Ape Yacht Club's own ethos — a gritty, slightly psychedelic world whose mutants are outcasts even among other apes — and renders it in an illustrated, comic-book style rather than the glossy 3D most Web3 city builders reach for. The story is told as you play rather than delivered in front of it, which puts it closer to a transmedia serial than to a standard builder.

What you actually do

The loop is straightforward, and the developers describe it plainly: learn the ropes, build your section of the city, and climb the Mutant Cartel ranks until you are given access to the mysterious Capsule of Kaos. The Capsule is where the game opens up. Powerful Gear is crafted there by players "clever enough to figure out the recipes" — the recipes are not handed to you — and that Gear is what decides your place on the leaderboard. Along the way you accumulate Doubloons and Soul Gems, the two in-game resources, which are tracked on a dynamic NFT pass that updates as you play.

Seasons, prizes and getting in

Serum City runs in seasons, each bringing new collections, mechanics and prizes rather than simply resetting the board; the studio has said Season 2 carries an ApeCoin prize pool starting at a $100,000 minimum. It runs in the browser and, at the time of writing, its own front page describes the current state as super early access. Access is the one real barrier: claiming a pass requires holding an eligible NFT — Mutant Cartel Oaths, Mutant Hounds, or a MAYC or BAYC ape — so this is a game aimed squarely at that community rather than at a general audience.