NFT Fighters: Cross-Chain Gaming

[IMPACT]

NFT Fighters is a 2-player card game that lets players uses NFTs from any NFT project inside the game.

Intended audiences are NFT holders and gamers from Cardano, Solana, and Ethereum blockchains.

This will provide a new way for other blockchains to learn about and interact with the Cardano community through gameplay, and will build a new cross-chain community around NFTs and gaming.

The project will foster communication and collaboration between Cardano and other blockchains through the primary outcome (a playable NFT game using NFTs from multiple blockchains), and the secondary outcome (a new cross-chain community of players who communicate and interact through the game and social media channels to discuss gameplay, strategies, and other topics).

Outcomes will be marketed through press releases and social media posts and videos on the game’s website, Twitter, Discord, and YouTube channel.

Tournaments will be streamed on Twitch.

Play-Balancing will be a challenge to make sure the game is fair to all chains and NFT projects. We will normalize NFT trait values to keep things fair.

Recruiting NFT projects from other chains may encounter some “purist” attitudes. This will be overcome by seeking out NFT project communities that are open and enthusiastic about cross-chain gaming.

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. A potential solution will be the introduction of leagues, pairing whales against other whales, etc.

[FEASIBILITY]

Roadmap/Milestones/Timeline

Month 1-2:

- Cardano-Solana Integration (dev)

- Onboard 5 Solana NFT projects (engage project communities, develop custom art, determine trait mappings to card attributes)

- Public Beta 1

Month 3-4:

- Cardano-Ethereum Integration (dev)

- Onboard 5 Ethereum NFT projects (engage project communities, develop custom art, determine trait mappings to card attributes)

- Public Beta 2

Months 5-6:

- Public Release

- Cross-Chain Tournament

Budget ($37,000)

$10,500 (Game Design/Coding – 140 hours @ $75/hr)

$4,200 (Coding/backend/server – 70 hours @ $60/hr)

$10,000 Art (10x $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)

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 last 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."

[AUDITABILITY]

NFT Fighters will measure success through the following:

Number of NFT Project collaborations - Minimum 10 (5 Solana & 5 Ethereum), Goal 20 (5 Solana, 5 Ethereum, 10 from other blockchains)

Total users – Minimum 1000 (100 per NFT project), Goal 5000 (500 per NFT project)

Number of fungible and non-fungible tokens created through the NFT Fighters in-game economy

Number of tournaments – Minimum 1, Goal 4

Success will be a playable game that new players can access through nftfighters.io

There will be an active player community, with NFT projects being used from at least 3 blockchains, and the project will be “done” upon completion of a cross-chain tournament. (However, development will continue past this point and will seek to onboard more chains and nft projects in the future).

This project builds on an unfunded F7 proposal (Cross-Project NFT Gaming - https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/383740).

The team developed the project anyway and has onboarded 6 Cardano NFT projects so far. There is already lots of support for the game and we are ready to expand to multiple blockchains.