On-Chain Tilemaps for Game Worlds

[IMPACT]

We want to create a scalable standard for uploading and reading tilemaps on the blockchain. Starting with uploading a games color palette as mapped single pixels and scaling up from there to 16x16 sprites. These 16x16 sprites would then be mapped/assigned a value to represent themselves in the game world using as little storage as possible. They will need to be layerable and have room for a few other key values like whether a game asset can pass through the tile, if the tile will move the asset up or down layers, if the tile transports the asset to a different part of the game world, etc.

An On-chain tilemap standard would;

• Bring in indie game devs and allow them to more easily create games on Cardano.
• Open up a new tilemap nft market.
• Bring token-gated/on-chain gaming to the next level with tile based games.
• After Cardano scaling solutions are implemented, game assets could move through these worlds with micro-transactions to change their position. A future proposal could implement hydra heads as game servers, letting users easily interact with each other on chain in real time.

The biggest challenge is to get the tile maps on chain without the use of ipfs. We will mitigate this by starting at the single pixel level and scaling up from there. This will also keep the standard flexible for projects using sprites smaller than our target 16x16 pixel size.

[FEASIBILITY]

• Talking with indie game devs to discuss their needs in an on-chain tile map standard.
• Finalizing our first open source tile map.
• Creating on-chain pixels/palette and scaling it to 16x16 on testnet.
• Creating a standard for grouping these 16x16 "sprites" into the finished tilemap*
• Building/mapping the first basic game world on testnet.**
• Finalizing and adding the palette and tile map to mainnet.
• Building a basic game world on mainnet with our new on-chain tile map. 🎉

*Example tilemap attached below

**Example basic world built with the tilemap attached below

• $2500 - 60 hours - Researching and communicating best practices with indie game developers and educating them in Cardano and some of the tools it has to offer them.

• $4000 - 30 hours - Plutus/on-chain development.

• $2500 - 50 hours - Graphic design and small game example demo.

• $500 - Blockchain and miscellaneous fees.

Deryck Lance- Founder of Quasar Risk Advisors, insurtech engineering.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/deryck-lance-9405898/

Dominick Garey-Owner Nehemiah Construction. Current Plutus Pioneer Student.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominick-garey-878a65117/

https://github.com/dgarey/

Derrick Oatway - Founder of Adagotchi.io, Currently employed at APM - Atlantic Project Managers. Pixel artist. Graphic designer.

[AUDITABILITY]

We will be collaborating through miro, trello, github and the Hardforq cafe discord channel to help identify team member needs and the needs and talking points we gather from the game developers in the first stage.

Success would be an on chain world that native assets can explore, with a standard for building and scaling these worlds. And of course, success is developers adopting these standards and using Cardano as a platform for indie game development. Bringing these developers in to help with the design phase will be a key component in their trust and adoption.

This is an entirely new proposal. Adagotchi will be continuing to look for and build open source tools for all things blockchain gaming. We want to help build the tools to bring the thousands of talented indie game developers into Cardano. Mass adopt the talent, to mass adopt the people.