Cross-NFT Gaming: NFT Fighters

Overview

"Cross-NFT Gaming" is a multi-proposal project. Each proposal develops a different piece of the larger project and can function independently from one another, or together as part of a larger whole. (See Cross-NFT Gaming: Shared Metaverse https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Cross-NFT-Gaming-Shared-Metaverse/381608-48088))

A common approach to block-chain gaming is to include NFTs, allowing players to earn or pay for unique characters or items that enhance their gameplay experience. However, most of these games are islands unto themselves. Each has its own rules, aesthetics, gameplay, and they operate independently from one another. Achievements in one game don't matter in another, and so while individual games on Cardano may be successful, there is no synergy between projects, and a huge opportunity is lost which could be used to attract many new users to Cardano.

Cross-NFT Gaming breaks this mold by letting players use NFTs from many different games and art projects in a shared environment. NFT Fighters accomplishes this through a trading card game. Every NFT on Cardano has metadata stored on the blockchain. NFT Fighters maps this metadata onto playing cards as images and numeric values for health, attack, and energy. Players then build teams of NFT cards and play against computer opponents and against one another.

A prototype has already been built using NFTs from the Gingerbread Squad NFT project. This proposed project will add an additional 20 NFT projects, including custom card overlays and NFT-specific card battlefields. The game will allow players to add and verify their wallets and create their own NFT dream team. The 20 projects will be decided based on a combination of NFT popularity and engagement/voting within the Cardano NFT community on discord and Twitter. Player rankings, tournaments, customized card overlays, in-game economy with play-to-earn will all be included as part of the development.

Bringing Value to the Cardano Ecosystem

Not all NFT projects increase in value. Too often, new Cardano users are lured into buying NFT projects that immediately lose value, leaving the user with a poor impression of Cardano. NFT Fighters solves this issue by providing utility to these NFTS (as well as thriving NFTs), breathing new life into otherwise dead projects.

Metrics and Goals

NFT Fighters will measure success through the following over the course of 1 year:

• Total users – Minimum 2000 (100 per NFT project), Goal 10000 (500 per NFT project)
• Number of games built on Cardano – Minimum 21, Goal 31 (1 Cross-NFT Game + standalone games for each individual NFT project)
• Amount of value earned by players
• Number of fungible and non-fungible tokens created through the NFT Fighters in-game economy
• Number of tournaments – Minimum 4, Goal 24

Scalability

One of the benefits of NFT Fighters is that all of the necessary data to make the game work already exists on the Cardano blockchain. While the team plans to engage with original NFT artists and create new art assets for the core 20 NFT projects, the core gameplay mechanic of mapping metadata to card stats can be automated, resulting in easy scalability with the potential to include every project on the Cardano NFT space. In addition, monetization through the in-game economy will scale as the number of users increase to take care of any necessary infrastructure and maintenance/upkeep costs.

Core Team

Lead Dev: John Moreland - A Unity developer, 3D artist, and project manager with 12 years of experience creating educational games at Purdue University's Center for Innovation through Visualization and Simulation. "I love making games and playing them. I've dabbled in crypto since 2018 but just started developing with Cardano this year. I see such a bright future and am enthused to be bridging the gap between current tech and sci-fi stuff like Ready Player One https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrmoreland/

Art: kinetic_pixels - A multidisciplinary designer with over 13 years of professional experience in Branding/Identity and Website/Application/Digital Experience design. Has worked on projects with larger Fortune 500 companies as well as smaller startups and independent artists. Currently crafting meaningful products & experiences in the B2B/Enterprise communications software space as Lead Product Designer.

"I'm a Crypto newbie...only started investing in early 2021 which is also when I found Cardano and fell in love with the underlying principles, global mission, and the methodical approach to creating a solution with lasting impact."

Backend Dev: Tanatos - A dev that loves everything related to web development, from the back-end to the front-end. Has been using web technologies professionally on a daily basis for the past 12 years, and has been really enjoying himself doing so.

"I got involved in Cardano this year, but thus far I love everything I'm seeing, that's why I decided to get involved in a bigger capacity than just an investor."

Community/Partnerships: Fenam - Lead mod from the Gingerbread NFT community.

"I am a crypto and human community-based investor. I believe in improving humankind and closing income inequality gaps. My experience is 33 years of being a human and many of them towards the benefit of all of us hopefully."

Budget ($37,000)

• $10,500 (Game Design/Coding – 140 hours @ $75/hr)
• $4,200 (Coding/backend/server – 70 hours @ $60/hr)
• $10,000 Art (20x $1000 flat rate per NFT project, engage original artists when possible, in-house when not)
• $4,000 (Webpage Development)
• $5,000 (Community building)
• $3,300 (Marketing)

Roadmap/Milestones/Timeline

Month 1-3:

• Build collaborations and onboard the first 5 CNFT projects (engage project communities, develop custom art, determine trait mappings to card attributes)
• Establish player rating system & leader board
• Public Release 1 (WebGL)

Month 4-6:

• Add 5 more CNFT projects (increasing total to 10)
• Add multiplayer capability
• Develop in-game economy and play to earn
• Optional integration with "Cross-CNFT Gaming: Shared Metaverse"
• Public Release 2 (WebGL + Android)

Months 7-9:

• Add 5 more CNFT projects (increasing total to 15)
• Tournaments
• Public Release 3 (WebGL + Android + iOS)

Months 10-12:

• Add 5 more CNFT projects (increasing total to 20)
• Campaign Mode
• Public Release 4 (WebGL + Android + iOS)

Methodology

A working prototype has already been developed using the Unity3D game engine for the front end, Blockfrost.io, and a custom-built API for accessing NFT metadata and player accounts, photoshop and other design tools to create custom artwork for card overlays and card battlefield, and engaging the community through discord, Twitter, and hosted virtual events (see Gingerbread Fighters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCVhd_NEyQs). The team will add functionality, additional artwork, and building a player community for tournaments, beta testing and feedback, and building play to earn features.

Challenges and Risks

The onboarding of many NFT projects into the game poses several challenges related to balancing.

The number of traits and rarity levels can be quite different between NFT projects, so care must be taken to normalize NFT trait values before mapping to card attributes in the game.

When Player-vs-Player and tournaments are implemented, another challenge will be to strike a fair balance to ensure whales and single-NFT holders can both enjoy the game and feel they have fair chance of winning. Great care has been taken in the prototype to ensure that different strategies can all be successful using both rare and common NFTs, however as more and more NFTs are added to the game, it will be important to revisit play-balancing and ensure the game remains fun for all. Another possible solution will be the introduction of leagues into gameplay, pairing whales against other whales, etc.