LA-based animation studio Baobab Studios is gearing up to expand its NFT-first IP Momoguro into a franchise, starting with its first Roblox game and an eye to animated TV.

Baobab’s action-adventure title Momoguro: Momo Quest was developed internally at the digital studio and will launch on Roblox this summer. In it, kids work together to save an enchanted island inhabited by creatures called Momos from a force of evil monsters called the Singulars. 

The Roblox game, in turn, will inform the development of an animated TV series, which is underway with Momoguro co-creators Martin Allias and Nico Casavecchia directing the project. In between, the studio is launching a second video game, Momoguro: Legends of Uno. This role-playing game will launch later this year on the Momoguro website and allows NFT owners to combine their digital collection of Momos with online avatars to form powerful new creatures. 

Baobab is one of a modest cadre of studios testing NFTs as an IP launch strategy at scale. (TIME Studios Kids & Family is also bullish on the strategy.) The studio launched Momoguro: Holoself NFTs in March with a debut wave of 8,888 tokens, which sold out in less than eight hours. Each NFT unlocks one randomized Momo that users can collect and use in Baobab’s future web3 games. Roblox, with its 67 million daily users, was the next logical step for a beta IP like Momoguro, notes Baobab CEO Maureen Fan. 

Baobab has executed a similar game-first strategy with its 2021 interactive short film Baba Yaga. Following its release on Oculus Quest headsets, Baobab announced its partnership with Disney Branded Television to adapt the fantasy-adventure into a 2D-animated anthology series The Witchverse for Disney+.