Tales In The Blocks|Collab-writing

"Tales in the Blocks" is a collaborative game-book writing tool that allows users to write and illustrate game-book tales using the blockchain to store the content.

Each tale is the product of the content submitted by users, who can add their sentences to the current tale or illustrate the sentences already submitted.

Each tale contains countless other stories: just like in game books, for each sentence already present in a tale, the user can send an alternative, creating a new branch in the tale that other users can decide to continue.

Each alternative sentence can be voted on by users and the most popular ones make up the main tale that is presented upon access to the website.

The user, when sending a sentence, has the ability to generate a unique NFT to collect.

Each sentence can also be voted as the end of the tale: once a particular threshold is reached ( determined by the number of users involved) the tale ends and a limited number of NFTs are generated linked to a PDF that includes all the branches and illustrations collected.

At this point a new tale is initialized.

The website will be a simple viewer of the data saved on the blockchain on the basis of the protocol developed for the Dapp: all the tales will be written, forever, and in an immutable way on the Cardano blockchain!

The project is already extensively developed: the user interface is almost complete and the features illustrated are largely already developed and usable.

It is possible to access two previews:

• http://blocktales.dehlic.it/ - the version to test the mechanism and the interface of the Dapp. It is not connected to the blockchain and data is only saved on the development server.
• http://testnet.blocktales.dehlic.it/ - the version that relies on the Cardano testnet. The payment and content sending mechanism is not yet implemented, but it is possible to interact with the tale by sending transactions on the blockchain testnet.

User experience

Upon accessing the site, the user can view the current tale, exploring the various branches and various illustrations. A number of actions are available:

• Add a new sentence to the current story using the web interface.
  To store the sentence on the blockchain there will be three possible ways:
  - Send a minimum amount of ADA to the dapp wallet (~ 1 ADA + dust) to save the sentence
  - Send a specific amount of ADA to the dapp wallet (~ 3.5 ADA + dust) to save the sentence and obtain the unique NFT of it
  - Send a transaction autonomously with the metadata indicated by the Dappand save the sentence.
• Create an alternate branch in the tale
  To store the alternative sentence on the blockchain there will be three possible ways:
  - Send a minimum amount of ADA to the dapp wallet (~ 1 ADA + dust) to save the sentence
  - Send a specific amount of ADA to the dapp wallet (~ 3.5 ADA + dust) to save the sentence and obtain the unique NFT of it
  - Send a transaction autonomously with the metadata indicated by the Dappand save the sentence.
• Illustrate one of the sentences that make up the tale
  Using the interface in the Dapp, the user can create an illustration and store it on the blockchain in two ways:
  - Send a minimum amount of ADA to the dapp wallet (~ 1 ADA + dust) to save the illustration
  - Send a specific amount of ADA to the dapp wallet (~ 3.5 ADA + dust) to save the illustration and obtain the unique NFT of it
• Vote for a specific branch of the tale
  To save the vote, the user can:
  - Send a minimum amount of ADA to the dapp wallet (~ 1 ADA + dust) to save the vote
  - Send a transaction autonomously with the metadata indicated by the Dapp and save the vote.
• Vote for the end of the tale
  To save the vote, the user can:
  - Send a minimum amount of ADA to the dapp wallet (~ 1 ADA + dust) to save the vote
  - Send a transaction autonomously with the metadata indicated by the Dapp and save the vote.
• Purchase the NFTs of the PDFs of the books-game tales already completed, which will include all the various branches created and all the illustrations.
  Their number will be limited and related to the number of users involved in the creation of the specific tale.
  It will also be possible to purchase the paper copy of the tale linked to the NFT.

Technical Specs

The development consists of three main parts:

• Frontend
  This is the website used by users to view tales and interact with content.
  It is a SPA (Single Page App) developed with the Vue.js framework that consumes data from the Dapp API.
• Backend API
  It is the bridge element that connects the blockchain and the frontend. It parses the data from the blockchain (relying on a cardano-graphql node / Dandelion) and serves them in a specific format that can be consumed by the frontend.
  It also takes care of recording the content sent by users and sending them to the Dapp engine for storage.
  It is developed with the Laravel framework and hosted on a web server.
• Dapp engine
  It is the component that takes care of submitting transactions on the blockchain and minting the various NFTs.
  It is written in JS using the cardanocli-js wrapper to interact with the cardano node.

The generated NFTs will be stored on IPFS.

Marketing and product launch

After the product's public launch a social media marketing campaign will be conducted (mainly on Twitter, Reddit, Telegram, Discord), advertising a "promotional tale" that will be created on purpose to highlight the potential of the product.

Each sentence and illustration addition will be published on social media channels and the related NFT generated will be given away to followers.

Possible Risks

When we thought about this dApp for the first time, ADA price was not so high, so we ignored that the cost to submit any action to the dApp can be too high for the average user.

In the current design this could be a potential big limitation for the dissemination of the project among users, but unfortunately the minimum ADA per transaction it's something defined in the protocol which cannot be circumvented.

As a first solution to address this problem we'll integrate a direct connection of the Dapp to Nami wallet and Gamechanger wallet, allowing users to submit the transactions with metadata directly from their wallet, paying only the transaction fee (~0.25 ADA with the avg metadata). It will not be possible to purchase the NFT of the sentence or the illustration using this method.

In case we still encounter such a problem after development, we plan to research an alternative system, really similar to what is done by Atala Prism now.

Basically, the idea is to create a "centralized" sidechain during the tale creation, allowing users to submit sentences and illustrations for free and using a cryptographic mechanism, confirm the integrity of all the content submitted. The Dapp engine will submit content in the blockchain in chunks, maintaining the integrity and verifiability and reducing the cost for the final user.

This solution moves away from the initial idea of ​​using the site only as a "viewer" for stories written on the blockchain, but it seems to us an excellent compromise between usability for users and the immutability of the stories.

In case of need this approach will be expanded and a research will be published as a deliverable.

Future development (not included in proposal)

In the future we would like to expand the basic concept of the dApp to target specific market segments, for example:

• Education: adapt the dApp for kids, creating some special features for teachers to engage young students in creative writing
• Comics / Manga: adapt the dApp to support comics collaborative creation

Roadmap

• Branding (4 weeks)
• Desktop interface design (already completed)
• Frontend Development (already completed - needs refinements and integrations)
• Backend development (already completed - needs refinements and integrations)
• Dapp engine development (4 weeks)
• Off-chain testing (2 weeks)
• Testnet deployment and testing (2 weeks)
• Mainnet deployment and testing (2 weeks)
• Final refinements and release (1 week)

Expected launch date:

3 months from the end of governance stage

May 2022

Budget breakdown

• Branding: $800 (~ 20 hours)
• Desktop interface design: $1600 (~ 40 hours)
• Mobile interface design: $1600 (~ 40 hours)
• Frontend development: $2000 (~ 50 hours)
• API development: $1200 (~ 30 hours)
• Dapp engine development: $2400 (~ 60 hours)
• VPS hosting + domain: $30/month * 12 = $360

Avg hourly rate for Development and Design: 40$/hour

Total: $9960

Detailed Experience

Dehlic is a software agency born in Italy in 2012 by the initiative of Lucio Baglione.

Through the continuous research and experimentation of new technologies, frameworks and languages, it focuses its attention on the world of web and mobile applications.

Working in close synergy with communication and design studies (such as Macsiotti, Atto, ParcoStudio, The Clocksmiths, Alvvino, Accapiu), it has as a priority objective to grasp even the smallest details of the idea that emerged in the design phase, in order to implement in the most coherent way.

The strong belief that software, instead of placing only technical limitations, should be a tool for achieving the highest level of satisfaction of needs, supports its work every day.

In more than 9 years of activity it has made products for Max&Co, FILA, Furla, Emergency, BancaEtica, Politecnico Di Milano and many others.

Atto is a visual design and communication studio born in Milan in 2013 through the partnership of two professional graphic designers.

Sara Bianchi and Andrea Zambardi, with the help of Irene Pinatto, design graphics, both on paper and in the digital world; draw artwork for books and catalogues; imagine identities for cultural entities and businesses; love research and are committed to self-publishing; teach at CFP Bauer, Domus Academy, NABA, Scuola Politecnica di Design; love processes, materials and techniques of printing; have a Risograph in their studio; develop workshops; draw illustrations and patterns; create typefaces; make animations; build websites.

They always work in close collaboration with their clients, establishing themselves as active parts of the process that begins – and takes shape – even before the design phase: they analyze the ever-changing themes and objects that are at the center of the requests; they model their visual and formal coherence to provide a value proposal to the clients; they are committed to providing design responses that offer a semantic, as well as visual, value.

They work with care, skill, professionalism and passion. They offer a design service that goes beyond visual communication, thanks to the professionals in constant collaboration with the studio in developing and implementing websites, writing and revising texts – from books to social media – and setting up locations designed for different purposes – from commercial display to installation.

Above all, they are convinced that culture generates culture.

KPIs

• General KPIs
  - Number of sentences submitted through the dApp
  - Number of illustrations submitted through the dApp
  - Number of stories finalized / reinitialized
  - Number of NFTs minted
  - Number of transactions generated on the Cardano blockchain
• Estimate at 3 months from launch:
  - ~ 5 stories created
  - ~ 100 sentences/illustrations submitted
  - ~ 30 votes submitted
  - ~ 50 NFTs minted
  - ~ 500 transactions generated
• Estimate at 6 months from launch:
  - ~ 25 stories created
  - ~ 500 sentences/illustrations submitted
  - ~ 150 votes submitted
  - ~ 250 NFTs minted
  - ~ 2500 transactions generated