Drunken Dragon Game Systems Dev: Party Items & Chain Quests

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Francisco "Vledic" Aramburo

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

vledic@drunkendragon.games

Additional applicants

-

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

6

[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.” .

No dependencies.

[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.”

All of the source code will not be open source at the beginning. Once the game has matured, we will open-source parts that can be useful to the community.

[METADATA] Category of Proposal

Gaming

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

About This Proposal

In this proposal, we request funding to develop a subset of the game systems we have planned in the last months, as seen on the attached systems dependency graph and the public Miro shared on this proposal.

The proposal is one between two game systems development proposals. Please see our Discord for more information.

Drunken Dragon Inns & Quests base functionality is already running on mainnet with a growing community. It needs your support to keep building as we did last year.

https://ddu.gg

About The Solution

We are developing a game that emotionally hits the massive fantasy fanbase population. Through engaging systems and innovative role-playing, they can get a healthy introduction to Cardano NFTs and start collecting based on their intrinsic interest in the Drunken Dragon Universe and the fantasy world built collaboratively. Furthermore, the Drunken Dragon ecosystem will use decentralized governance; when done correctly, the globe can see how useful Cardano technology can be and how we can transform economies to a more fair, accessible and decentralized nature, starting with the entertainment industry, which already suffers from centralization issues.

Description of The Game

Drunken Dragon: Inns & Quests is a game where you open a fantasy Inn for adventurers in a dynamic world rich with lore that you can affect through quests in an immersive role-playing experience.

You collect NFT furniture to expand your Inn in beauty and functionality and collect NFT adventurers to participate in quests that affect the dynamic role-playing world around you. All of this is to band together with other Inns to form guilds participating in seasonal events that end up on a climactic race to defeat a boss that will affect the world through the season. Only one guild can earn the fame, riches and trophies that come with killing a final seasonal boss. We will introduce the most accomplished players into our comics and the lore of the Drunken Dragon. They will help us shape historical events in Auristar and Thiolden, the city and country they will adventure on.

The game's core concepts divide into three subsets:

1. Adventurer parties, inn management and idle quests. Players own fantasy inns and adventurers and use their resources to send them into quests that impact the role-playing world.
2. Continued simulation of a role-playing world. The world's state changes dynamically, affecting the available quests and player economies.
3. Seasonal events with role-playing moments and race-to-final-boss. World-affecting series of events that evolve based on the quests that the player base decides to do, with a race to kill a final boss that threatens everyone. The guild that kills it first can determine the following role-playing consequences and earn unique NFT trophies to display on their inns. For honour, glory and riches.

About This Proposal's Systems

These systems are complementary to the systems already under development, which takes us closer to the current goal of having races-to-final-boss seasons.

Party Inventory System

This system will enable adventurers to hold items. Receive them as quest loot, keep them while idle in the Inn, and use them in quests as modifiers.

Also, it allows to swap items between the inventory of individual adventurers.

Items System

This system introduces the design of items with limited durability (like weapons, armor and magical items) obtainable through questing. Design quests that have items as requirements and reward items.  

Killing Quests System

The game has several types of quests. This system introduces the first quest type that benefits from and mutates the world state. This system enables the creation of dynamic quests that depend on the simulated populations of monsters and the future NPC factions. It adds to the quests item requirements and loot related to the killed monsters.

Chain Quests System

This system uses the world state and world events systems to offer chain quests. These quests will be the bases of guild races to final bosses in seasons. And will feed the reputation and faction systems and create a path for rare loot.

Guild System

It enables players to band together and fund a guild. Unlocking guild progression in the form of guild quests and raid quests that require several players' adventuring parties to complete and hard-to-find items—also a pillar to the races-to-final-boss.

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

To attract a critical mass of Cardano users, we must develop products which bring intrinsic value to people and realize the benefits of blockchain technology.

In our case, we are developing a decentralized fantasy franchise. A type of "decentralized Disney" where any creator can freely use the IP, but the fans approve official products. With a decentralized marketplace to publish and purchase official products. An organically growing decentralized entertainment industry that anyone can access without permission and is regulated by smart contracts and algorithmic policy-making, where fans can safely invest their emotions knowing that there will always be new indie creators ready to expand the universe.

In a world with a decentralized fantasy franchise pioneered with Cardano technology, we can onboard million of indie creators and fantasy fans into Cardano and to a new type of economic model, where incentivized-shared economies are the norm and any creator has the tools to contribute to a bigger ecosystem.

Our game will first introduce fantasy fans to Cardano, attracting creators into the Drunken Dragon ecosystem to kick off our more significant objectives. A game that shows that NFTs are not just speculation and scams. But a fun way to collect and play. We want to break people's fear and get them into something we can all feel passionate about.

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

• Active account numbers.
• Amount of users heavily invested in the evolution of the lore.
• Amount of indie creators becoming interested into the idea of a decentralized fantasy franchise.

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

As we have done in the past and continue to do:

• Continue deployment of preprod test versions on https://preprod.ddu.gg/inq (already working)
• Continue deployment of mainnet partial playable versions to https://ddu.gg/inq (already working)
• Discord weekly development updates.
• YouTube monthly development update videos.
• Social media announcements.

Mainnet Game

https://preprod.ddu.gg/inq

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/@DrunkenDragonEntertainment

Discord

https://discord.gg/drunkendragon

Twitter

https://twitter.com/DrunkenDragnEnt

The game is currectly accessible to the general public and will continue to be. We constantly receive feedback and apply it to our development process and release cycles.

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

We have a track record of delivery through the last 2 years by being an active Cardano project that continues to deliver. We have already developed the following:

• Our mainnet game deployment with basic Inn decoration and Idle Quests. (See https://ddu.gg/inq)
• 4 NFT collections. (See https://ddu.gg/s2)
• A high-quality first volume of a comic series based on Drunken Dragon lore. (See Amazon)
• Built a participating fanbase (See Discord)

We have learnt much as a startup in the last 2 years, having solidified our development team, cofounders, and company processes and values. We deploy game versions almost daily.

Even without catalyst support, we will find the required funding to continue developing, as we are determined to transform the entertainment industry in ways that only blockchain technology can. And to contribute to constructing a more fair, accessible, decentralized world for all.

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

This proposal has a precise subset of the game systems we want to develop next. The final goal of the next 8 months is the creation of playable races-to-final-boss seasons.

Based on our experience working as a team this last year, we are confident that the systems are granular enough to enable continuous delivery month-by-month on an already deployed product.

The project subdivides into systems that individually bring value to the game and are deployable as being developed to validate the value and fun they provide to our players.

The progress is measured by the number of systems we successfully deployed in a playable state.

[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.

Nomenclature

PIS = Party Inventory System

IS = Items System

KQS = Killing Quests System

CQS = Chain Quests System

GS = Guild System

Milestones

Month 1

• General backend architecture design.
• PIS initial implementation.

Month 2

• IS initial implementation interfacing with PIS.
• KQS initial implementation interfacing with PIS.
• Design of quests requirements affected by items and world simulation.
• Design of a first items progression system part of the IS and KQS.

Month 3

• General debugging.
• UI/UX improvements.
• Feedback implementations.

Month 4

• Initial implementation of KQS.
• Initial implementation of GS.
• Design of guild and raid quests.
• Design of rare item progression only obtainable through guild and raid quests.

Month 5

• Final interface improvements between all systems.
• Design of test season.
• Preprod small season test.

Month 6

• General debugging.
• Final UI/UX improvements.
• Feedback implementations.
• Final design of the first season.

Starting Month 7

• Playable first mainnet season without race-to-final-boss

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

The essential deliverable and output is a playable version of the game that includes each mentioned system.

We will output reports, dev updates, test versions, and partial playable game versions as we progress.

As mentioned, we already have a working mainnet version located at https://ddu.gg/inq.

We are continuously deploying updates to the game almost daily.

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

Senior Full-stack Developer and Team Lead: 35,000 ADA

Medior Full-stack Developer: 20,000 ADA

UI/UX Freelance Work: 5,000 ADA

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

The team is a full-time development team (except for the freelance UI/UX designer).

If both of our game systems development proposals get approved, the development team's hourly rate at the current ADA price (0.30 USD/ADA) would be:

Senior full-stack developer and team lead: 21.87 usd/hr

Medior full-stack developer: 12.5 usd/hr

This rate is well below the hourly rate that the team used to make 2 years ago before being full-time at the Drunken Dragon when we were in the backend consulting business:

Senior full-stack developer and team lead: 120 usd/hr

Medior full-stack developer: 25 usd/hr

The current NFT sales and DND pool are financing the three months before any approval of the Catalyst proposals. They will continue to pay for servers, equipment, services and marketing expenses in the future. The requested funds from Catalyst are purely for personnel payment.

[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