Bringing MMORPG Gaming to Cardano!

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Cardano has yet to see a large MMORPG with blockchain integrations go live. Flooftopia will bring this well-beloved genre to Cardano, and, in doing so, bring many new users to the Cardano Ecosystem!

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Coding: Dirk

Game Programmer: Simon

Art: Christian

Story: Chris

Marketing: Conward

Game Design: Alex

2D-3D Artist/Animator: Oleg

Lighting Artist: Lena

Strategic Advisor: Marcin

(Additional Team Detail Below)

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Flooftopia is a community-driven NFT MMO game that caters to all demographics while implementing Cardano Blockchain Integrations. This makes Flooftopia a great game to bring gamers into the Cardano Ecosystem as it doesn't require an NFT to get access to the game or to play it, but will allow web 3.0 connections and uses such as NFTs and more for those who wish to use that functionality.

Here is a quick overview of Flooftopia's gameplay & mechanics.

Flooftopia will be in a 3D environment where players will be able to jump, run, walk, craft, speak with NPCs, trade, go questing, and much more! A unique and challenging feature of Flooftopia is that it is NOT combat-centered. Though as other games have proven, you do not need combat to take on bosses or to cooperate with players and compete with other guilds.

As with most MMOs, Flooftopia will have skills that players can level up (i.e. fishing, woodcutting, etc.) As the player levels their skills, the proficiency of the skill will increase and new abilities/options will become available.

Similar to the skilling system that is common in MMOs, Flooftopia will have many professions that users will be able to pick from and switch between. Each profession will bring value to the player and/or other players within their group, guilds, or village (i.e. Angler may increase a player's fishing ability or provide an invisible +2 bonus to their fishing level and others around them.) Though, some more beneficial professions may have higher level requirements or quests having been completed.

Players will be able to build individual or guild houses and move the individual houses of multiple players together to form a village. Housing will always have benefits for the players with individual houses offering the smallest, and villages offering the biggest advantages!

Overall, Flooftopia is an MMO game that will have players working together in a social/cooperative manner. Whether it is the elements or bosses that players will have to overcome, there will be benefits to players working together. This will be accomplished in multiple ways such as:

• Joining NPC-led guilds that specialize in different skills or game-aspects
• Join/start your own group, guild, or village
• Cooperate to take on bosses & challenges
• Work together on an in-game scale to overcome obstacles
• Compete with or against other groups, guilds, or villages, and more!

It is with this blend of MMO common features and unique features/mechanics that Flooftopia will be a game that users will want to play and will help bring gamers into the crypto space.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Flooftopia is the ideal project to make the Cardano Ecosystem the premier blockchain for gaming. We are appealing to all audiences with our unique gameplay and ensuring a high skill ceiling and a low skill floor to minimize barriers to entry.

As stated previously, we are building Flooftopia with a game-first and NFT second mentality. What we mean by this is that we are building Flooftopia to be an engaging and long-lasting gaming staple within the Cardano and gaming ecosystem, and in doing this, we will be able to create value in ownership of game assets to convert gamers (who are already digital natives) to blockchain natives as well.

We'd be measuring:

• Gaming NFT Sales.
• Number of NFT projects that Floofs are interoperable with or that Flooftopia provides interoperability with.
• New Users & changes in the flow of new and returning players.
• Amount of/Quality of gaming content created featuring Flooftopia.
• Gaming partnerships with Flooftopia/Utility provided to blockchain gaming through working with Flooftopia.
• Increase in new wallets made for connecting with Flooftopia (measuring conversion from gamer 'digital native' to blockchain/Cardano native.)

We could communicate these outcomes once we begin NFT sales in July, and continue to monitor and provide new metrics (KPIs) once the game is finally released (i.e. Player retention, Player Satisfaction, etc.)

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Many of the possible risks, shortcomings, or challenges are already being mitigated. I have put in a lot of funding myself to get this project up and running. Therefore, we can say that, should we not get funding, we are still going to be producing Flooftopia.

We are also working with Red Potion Studios (the studio behind AdaQuest), and with their expertise and history, we are able to avoid many of the game development pitfalls that would make us fail to produce what we are promising.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

-- Q3 of 2022 --

• Continued development of Lore/Questlines
• Have >10% of Flooftopia World made through Unreal Engine
• Release of Customizable Floof (NFT) Minting by mid-July

-- Q4 of 2022 --

• Continued development of Flooftopia 3D world with at least 50% completion
• Finish development of Game Design/Play
• Closed Alpha Testing
• Development of Additional Floof Customizations 

-- Q1-2 of 2023 --

• Finish of 1st Iteration of Flooftopia's World (Game is meant to be built on continuously with expansions, as most MMOs are)
• Alpha Released for users to try/test*

*timeline may vary

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Game Design: $2000 (~72 hours @ $35/hr)

Concept Art: $1500

Webpage Development: $1500

3D Modeling/Animation: $2500 (~33 hours @ $75/hr)

Coding: $13500 (135 hours @ $100/hr)

Marketing: $2000

Legal: $2000

Total: $25,000

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Coding: Dirk worked for Ubisoft, founded two gaming studios as a Dev Lead, and is currently working as a Technical Architect. He is the go-to guy, well-versed in everything tech-related, with 20 years of experience!

(LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirk-potulski-71313428/))

Game Programming: Simon studied in game design and worked as an application and videogame programmer for over 5 years and is proficient in a variety of languages including C#, C++, Lua and CIL as well as the Videogame engines Unity and Unreal. Worked previously with Alexander Cimpeanu on several projects including two titles with Ubisoft Campus and as Technical Lead on Faith & Honor Barbarossa at encurio. Further co-created the Harmony library for a high-level approach of altering compiled code in memory for .net framework applications at runtime.

(LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-latusek-094728143/)

Art: Christian is our Illustrator and UX Designer with more than 15 years of professional work in digital art, gamification, interface- and app design in the industry. Starting as a big fan of the classic "point & click" adventures (e.g., Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky, Day of the Tentacle) on DOS and hoarding tons of comic books, he turned his geek hobby into an ever-expanding full-time job!

(LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-hayungs-9ba22457/))

Strategic Advisor: Marcin worked in marketing, sales, and project management for THQ, Ubisoft, CI Games, Daedalic Entertainment, and Rockstar. In the past 10 years, he has helped some start-ups in their initial phase, and he will provide additional guidance for Flooftopia, as well!

(LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcin-kugla-a92b5964/))

Game Design: Alex worked as a creative director at Ubisoft's campus and as lead developer of Faith and Honor Barbarossa. He has considerable experience researching psychological and neurological sweet spots in game-based learning. With over 4 years of experience in game design, Alex is geared to bring the best gaming experience to Flooftopia!

(LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-cimpeanu-b9507a112/))

Narrative Designer: Christopher Smith is a highly experienced writer, and when he is not working on his writing company, Lazy Kid Imaginings, he is building out the questlines, storylines, and dialogue that breath life into the inhabitants of Flooftopia!

(LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-smith-783b6b93/)

Engine Work: Lena is a student in University that wants to work within the gaming industry, and after multiple internships at other companies, she has brought her Unreal Engine-work skills to Flooftopia!

(LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lena-ochmann/)

Marketing: Conward is the lead of marketing and founder of Flooftopia! He has been within the Cardano Ecosystem for 3 years. He is the host of The Cardano Convo Podcast, and he is an avid gamer at heart. After noticing that there weren't any NFT games being built for a broad demographic, he began putting together the ideas that would define Flooftopia!

(LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conwardswift/)

Together, we have decades of professional gaming and business experience. We know that games are a great way to bring people together and into the Cardano Ecosystem. With this in mind, we will create an NFT gaming experience that caters to all ages and the broadest possible demographic.

We are all avid gamers and want to create an inclusive environment that mirrors Cardano's culture and environment.

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

It really depends on the success of the NFT sales as to whether or not we will need to seek further funding. We have successfully gotten the project up to the minting phase (out of our own pockets), but game development is expensive, so we may need further rounds of funding in the future should our sales not make up the entire amount that in necessary to bring Flooftopia into being.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

We will be able to measure the progress of the development of our project by how closely we are able to keep to our timeline (on our website and soon to be released litepaper). If we are able to get the customizable minting of the Floofs up and live by the beginning of July, that would be a great indicator of being on track for the development of the project.

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

Success for the minting/pre-game phase would be an excess of 10,000 Floofs minted with the entire process being problem free or seamless.

When the game is live, a steady player count and healthy MMORPG KPIs such as daily active users (DAU), monthly active users (MAU), and a host of other industry standard metrics.

In short, success for the game would be a steady player count over months or years, steady development, a sustainable business model to facilitate Flooftopia into the future, and, of course, multiple new Cardano Wallets created to allow for use of the blockchain integration within the game. Also continued funds through stake pool operations/incentives and in-game cosmetics would be a great indicator of a sustainable and successful Flooftopia.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This is a an entirely new proposal.