A fun free to play AAA quality hyper casual mobile game ready for mass adoption

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Matt Blanchard

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

matt@madshapes.com

Additional applicants

Simon Belingar

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

10

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

No

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.” .

None

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

No

[GENERAL] If NO, please describe which outputs are not going to be open source. If YES, please write “Project will be fully open source.”

Initially, the game code and the smart contract code will not be open source. We will consider making the smart contract open-source when the game is more mature.

[METADATA] Category of Proposal

Gaming

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Cosmic Champs is a real-time strategy game set in a retro-future where ships crewed by Champs traverse the cosmos, descending to do battle on hostile, resource-rich planets. Champs compete in online battle arenas in a tower-rush format game, fighting tooth, nail, and antenna for their share of Cosmic Gold and intergalactic fame. It's a fun and addictive game that has a similar gameplay experience to the hugely successful Clash Royale.

 

Cosmic Champs harnesses the power of the blockchain and removes much of the onboarding friction that has limited many blockchain games. Our 3d NFTs and token will enhance the gameplay experience but are not required to play. Players don’t even need to connect a wallet. Playing Cosmic Champs will be as easy as web2 mobile games: go to your preferred app store, download the app, and play. There are a few million (at best) gamers playing crypto games but there are an estimated 2.6 billion mobile gamers in the world. Games are the perfect vehicle for onboarding millions of new users into crypto but breaking down the barriers to entry is key to tapping into this huge pool of users.

 

We have a working beta version of our game that is currently available on Android, iOS, and browser. The NFTs currently boost the base statistics of the characters. There are no play-to-earn mechanisms in the game at the moment. In the future we will reward users with tokens but it will be a small number of tokens so we can sustainably manage the token for the long term. Players will be drawn to our game because it is fun to play not because it pays out tokens.

Cosmic Champs aims to increase adoption and awareness of Cardano by developing a game that is very easy to access and has a killer gameplay experience.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

To thrive an ecosystem requires a critical mass of users and to gain that critical mass high quality products and infrastructure are required. Gaming is the perfect vehicle to funnel new users into an ecosystem, however, many of the existing games don't have an equivalent gaming experience for users and have many barriers to entry that limit accessibility, especially for non-crypto natives.

Our solution is a very fun AAA quality game that is as easy to access as a free-to-play web2 game. Any mobile gamer regardless of their experience with crypto will be able to play our game. This means our solution has the potential to increase adoption of Cardano by bringing in new users who will create new wallets. Games also have a large number of micro transactions so these new users will add many new transactions to the blockchain.

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

Number of users (e.g., daily active users)

Number of connected wallets

Volume of on-chain transaction (NFTs and token)

Feedback from players about the gameplay experience

We expect to have 100,000 downloads of the app in the first 12 months and 300,000 in the 2nd year. A game requires about 10,000 daily active users to ensure players can always find an opponent. We aim to reach this critical mass within 6 months of launch.

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

We will disseminate information to our community via our website, blog (long form content), and social media channels (short form content). The social media channels include Twitter, Telegram, Discord, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube. We also host community gaming sessions on Twitch where the community can battle against the team.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

We have been developing Cosmic Champs for 2 years so much of the game and web infrastructure has already been built. We have a working beta that can be played right now. We just hosted a 1 day tournament with over 2000 games played. We have 2 seasons of NFTs that have been released and sold out. Our team have worked on AAA games such as Call of Duty. We have a track record on this project that shows we are already delivering and we will continue to deliver.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

The main goals are:

1. a fun player experience
2. easily accessible game
3. drive adoption of Cardano

To validate our approach to these goals we will:

1. get feedback from the players
2. track the number of players, the number of wallets connected, and volume of transactions

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

1. Launch our beta game on Cardano (October 2023). To do this we will need to integrate popular Cardano wallets into our app and bridge some of our existing NFT collection over to Cardano.
2. Add new characters to the game (November 2023). We will develop 6 new characters with a huge number of NFT skins for each that we will launch on Cardano. This will increase the variety of decks and the amount of fun players have with our game.
3. Improve the useability of the mobile app (November 2023). this requires an aesthetic makeover of the app and adding new functionality such as an in-game store and tournaments.
4. Increase functionality of on-chain assets (February 2024). This will include adding smart contracts to will allow players to earn tokens and NFTs through playing and allowing NFT holders to lend their NFTs to other users for a fee.
5. Officially launch game (April 2024) - this will be the public launch of V1 of the game.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

1. Wallet integration (October 2023) - we will integrate popular Cardano wallets into our app so Cardano users can access our beta.
2. Bridge existing NFTs to Cardano (October 2023) - at the same time as integrating the wallet we will bring some of our existing NFT collection over to Cardano so Cardano users can immediately harness the power of the blockchain in our game.
3. Redesign the UI of the mobile app (November 2023) - this is an aesthetic makeover and adding new functionality such as an in-game store and tournaments.
4. Design new NFT collection and launch on Cardano (November 2023) - we will design 6 new characters and a huge collection of skins to sell on Cardano.
5. Add smart contract for on-chain rewards and NFT loans (February 2024) - this will allow people to earn tokens and NFTs through playing the game and will allow NFT holders to lend their NFTs to other users for a fee.
6. Officially launch game (April 2024) - this will be the public launch of V1 of the game

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

All development work will be conducted in-house by our team.

Wallet integration - $4000

Bridge NFT collection - $2000

Redesign UI - $5000

Design and launch NFT collection - $20000

Develop smart contract - $30000

Total $61000

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

AAA quality games like Cosmic Champs cost more than $1 million to develop. For a tiny fraction of the cost we will launch our game on Cardano which will drive adoption.

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agreed to Fund10 rules and also that data in the Submission Form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.

I Accept