Social Mobile NFT Game - Alpha

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The game will be called The Eternal Tournament

Full lite paper here: https://litepaper.minininjaheroes.io

https://minininjaheroes.io/the-eternal-tournament

Important note: We describe the entire project and game here. The funding requested during fund 9 is to continue development and deliver our alpha phase.

Perceived problem

Simple but essential low-hanging fruits use cases are underused to expose

gamers to the ecosystem. Particularly mobile and social games. 

We are missing the fun, quality games that give an excellent experience to the average user. Games looking for wider adoption should be cautious and avoid scaring away crypto newbies by talking about investment and tokens. The average user is not playing games to make money, is probably not very knowledgeable about crypto, and is perhaps even scared of it. To encourage adoption, we should avoid using the “play to earn” expression or other finance-related terms.

On the other hand, NFTs can create new gameplay experiences and game monetization business models that are respectful of the user by, for example, facilitating the ownership and trading of in-game assets.

We should stop thinking about bringing games into blockchain but about getting blockchain to games.

We think the best strategy is to aim at small but extremely high-quality games.

Approach to the problem

The Eternal Tournament is a mobile social game that features NFTs and that will be built from the ground up to be multiplatform (web, iOs and Android)

The game is designed to have the broadest reach possible by being multiplatform and leveraging social media components. The project's scope is purposefully small and focused on ensuring we can deliver as a small team.

Our business model is different and more approachable. The game will be free to play for everyone and feature NFT collections to fight against each other. Our business will benefit by selling NFTs and the trade royalties. 

Other sources of revenue include:

• Partnership with other NFT projects to be featured in tournaments
• Custom ad space for projects, artists, SPOs or marketplaces

A free mode will be available to everybody if they don’t own an NFT. The free mode’s goal is to give a demonstration of the game and encourage the player to acquire his first NFT.

Note that we purposefully stay away from GAMEFI terminology such as “Play to earn,” “Staking,” and “Investing.” We are only making a game. Users could theoretically still make money by trading valuable NFTs, but we are not marketing on that front.

Vision

An eternal multiverse tournament where your NFTs compete for glory and epic NFT rewards. Players get to select fighters and moves for daily fights that compose weekly, monthly and yearly tournaments. The community can follow combat results and tournament updates in-app, on Twitter and Discord with the use of announcer bots. Simple and transparent combat systems with high risk and high reward options encourage the use of mind games on social.

Marketing copy (early draft):

Welcome to the Eternal Tournament—a game where NFTs from your favourite collections clash in a battle for glory. The higher stat NFTs are not always the winners; the Eternal tournament is a strategy game, but it's also a psychological thriller! The only "troll your opponent to win" game.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND TROLLING

Study your opponent’s move history and psychology to try and guess what they will do next… or just YOLO your next move. Troll or Taunt them on social media to try and influence their next move

WINNERS GLORY

After a victory, you can be nice or play dirty by stealing current tournament win rewards or vandalizing your opponent's character. 

When you win a tournament, expect the gloriest of prizes.

PLAY TO MINT - NOT PAY TO WIN

Winning matches and tournaments earn you tickets to be able to mint upgrades and cosmetic rewards.

Are you afraid that the game is going to pay to win? We are also making sure that even a new player playing against a seasoned veteran has a fair chance of winning if he chooses the right move!

SHOW OFF YOUR RARE NFTS

Everybody will be able to see your cunning moves and all the NFT items, emotes, music, and taunts you used during the fight. This is possible because the matches will be published in-game and on our Twitter feed. The Eternal Tournament is the ultimate way to show off your NFTs.

A GAME THAT RESPECTS YOUR TIME

Are you a busy person? Don't worry!

Everyone plays on their own time, so you don’t have to wait for everyone to make a move, but you only have 24 hours to make yours. So don’t fall behind!

Game Value Proposition

• Built as a social NFT game: display NFTs in a public forum demonstrating art and utility capabilities
• Provide Cardano and NFT community visibility to the mainstream gamer through the popular mobile app stores and on Twitter.
• Accessible and interactive with simple gameplay featuring high-risk/reward options,
• NFT tournament rewards
• NFT unlocks and progresses
• Out-of-game (meta) gameplay: NFT trading and social media mind games between players to trick their opponents
• Sustained game enthusiasm supported by limited allowed games per day
• Provides utility value proposition for supported Cardano NFTs and partners

Game Media

Figma design for MVP (Early version, evolving)

OST

MusicOriginal OST already in progress partnered with respected NFT

community artist heavymetalcryp (https://twitter.com/heavymetaltcryp)

OST sample here : https://soundcloud.com/heavymetalteacup/music-samplerthe-

eternal-tournament-ost

Mini Ninja Rap (Included in soundtrack as an NFT) :

Rap: Big Joe The Don

Music: HeavyMetalTCryp

Vocals: Big Joe The Don, Holy Binns and HeavyMetalTCryp

NFT ART

Mini Ninja Heroes (by Jay-P)

Mini Pirate Heroes (by Jay-P)

Weapons (by HeavyMetalTCryp) : Check weapon showcase via twitter.

Sample use case

• Community Participants / Players: Connect to Twitter and see results from yesterday through the Twitter announcer bot account. 
• Community participants / Players: Click links on Twitter to look at different game results for players that they like. The link leads to our public and free animated game viewer. Later in development, animated game results could be rendered as videos and embedded directly in Twitter posts. 
• Community participants / Players receive a new Twitter or in-app notification about the semi-final players for the day. Information on who they are and their stats is available.
• Community participants / Players know that players have the day to analyze their opponents and choose their moves carefully. Game enthusiasm is sustained over 24 hours.
• Community participants are excited about their favourite player potentially winning the tournament.
• Player A opens the mobile app or a web browser to prepare for the semi-final fight. The player authenticates with Google (or other similar) and reaches the daily fight dashboard.
• Player A inspects the daily next fight dashboard. He is presented with his available moves and customization options as simple buttons. Example: Player A must select an attack and a defence move. He can choose between "Strike" and "Sneak attack" for the attack. He is shown some basic damage simulation for each of these moves. For the defence move, he can choose between "Defensive stance" and "Watchful riposte" and get similar statistical information. He also has buttons to select associated, taunt, emoji or visual special for both attack and defence moves.
• Player A determines his strategy. In his opinion, he decides to go with "sneak attack": a riskier, less predictable move. He also selects taunts that he knows his fans will like. He also chooses an emote that he thinks will trigger his opponent's fan base on Twitter. Player A is a top troll.
• Player A goes on Twitter to tease his opponent.
• NFTCommunity participants watch players start playing mind games with each other on Twitter. They get excited and start participating in the competitive banter!
• NFTCommunity participants / Players excitedly await the results in-app or on Twitter.
• Twitter Announcer Bot reveals combat results at a specific time at the end of the day. Combat results are viewable through the animated game viewer.
• Community Participants / Players watch the semi-final result matches. Twitter engagement is at an all-time high in anticipation of tomorrow's final game!

Users and stakeholders 

By trying to bring mobile gamers, we are reaching out to a potential user pool if the game ever goes viral through social media. This would benefit multiple stakeholders : 

• We as a company would profit from the sales of NFTs and royalties from trading
• The Cardano community would benefit from an influx of new users and greater adoption of the blockchain.
• Featured NFTs projects could see increased sales.
• Featured SPOs, wallets or marketplaces could increase volume because of new user adoption.

Simply said, more Cardano adoption.

Methodology and technology

Part-time team using agile methodologies.

Tech

Game Client

• Flutter/Dart for multi platform dev (web/iOs/Android)
• Google Firebase/Cloud functions (Integration with block frost for now).
• Nami wallet integration (other web3 wallets as they come along).
• A self-hosted node could be used after we have a working product.

Why use a Google stack to build the client?

Fast, efficient and highly integrated way of building multi-platform apps. The

The team has experience building with this stack and is confident that it can quickly

iterate new versions. This stack is perfect for building this app-style type of game.

Smart contracts?

Not needed for this stage. NFT ownership validation does not require smart

contracts. Building a working game client with centralized game logic is sufficient for the early

stages. See the lite paper for more details on this idea.

Outputs and deliverable

We wish to use the funding from fund 9 to deliver the alpha version of the game.

MVP version (Catalyst fund 7) will be worked on and upgraded to the alpha version. Here is the list of features that were planned for the MVP.

Website

Authentication with google or wallet only

Main Menu

Menu Music

Wallet binding page (Connect NAMI or maybe payment proof method)

Next tournament registration

Next fight dashboard

Tournament score leaderboard split by collections

Combat result visualizer in text format only

For the end of fund 9, we would like to deliver the Alpha version of the game. Here are the main deliverables we hope to provide for the alpha version.

Alpha (Catalyst fund 9)

Upgrade the Combat result visualizer from text only to an animated version

Combat music

Enhanced visuals

Working Android version (not necessarily on the play store yet)

Working IOS version (not necessarily on the app store yet)

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

We think the proposed solution addresses the challenge perfectly. We will offer a novel and viable product that is meant at its core to attract users to the ecosystem. It will allow us to progress iteratively to deliver our vision.

The solution is novel because we believe our concept is unique so far by leveraging mobile and social media integration. We differentiate ourselves from existing or currently building games in numerous ways. 

• The social media aspect
• The ecosystem visibility aspect
• The game does not follow a Play to Earn model but instead tries just to make a good game leveraging the advantages of NFTs and blockchain technology.

 The proposed solution is also very viable because it is in tune and even conservative regarding the Ecosystem maturity requirements. The technologies that are used are accessible and established. We do not even need smart contracts or even need to tackle complex Cardano technical issues. We can build a quality app that can reach an audience with the existing technology. When this is achieved, and as the Cardano ecosystem matures, we can evolve the solution to achieve greater decentralization.

The game would provide a fun, accessible and prominent gateway to the Cardano ecosystem and could showcase many elements of the ecosystem. Direct users on how to install a wallet and navigate to an NFT marketplace. Get educated on the different artists and SPOs of our beautiful decentralized ecosystem.

We also aim to have an excellent user experience for the final product to ensure optimal adoption.

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

The most significant difficulty we have faced during development so far is the availability of our part-time resources. We did not have enough budget to ensure we could bring any resources full-time. 

Although there is no significant risk, it could slow down our development in a tangible way.

Hiring quality marketing specialists in the crypto and NFT space is hard. We will be engaging in traditional digital and game marketing. However, We cannot state the importance of this role enough as we are looking for the most significant adoption. We also don’t want to go through a traditional game publisher as it goes against the importance that we hold of being able to bring greater decentralization to the project in the future.

Lousy reception of the game. If the game is not fun enough or does not meet expectations, we will not reach the desired adoption. Fortunately, we plan to continue to iterate on the game and have to playtest as soon as possible to ensure the game evolves to its optimal state.

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

MVP (Fund7) Delivery: August or early September

Alpha (Fund9) Duration : 3-4 months

Important points: 

• We will be hiring a marketing resource to showcase the MVP version. We will have tangible software to show at this point.
• Delivery of NFT collection (Pirates)
• Delivery of the Alpha version of the game with the following features 
• Upgrade the Combat result visualizer from text only to an animated version
• Combat music
• Enhanced visuals
• Working Android version (not necessarily on the play store yet)
• Working IOS version (not necessarily on the app store yet)

Please check our lite paper if you want to see features planned for the beta and release versions here: https://litepaper.minininjaheroes.io/project-information/proposed-roadmap#beta.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Funds will help to pay our staff for the duration of the alpha phase and pay early marketing expenses such as advertising and website rewrite.

Full-time lead developer : 16weeks 35hours/week = 560 hours 52$/hours = 29120$

Full-time marketing specialist : 16weeks 35hours/week = 560 hours 20$/hours = 11200$ 

Project Lead:16weeks 20hours/week = 160 hours 40$/hours = 12800$

Part-time dev 1:16weeks 10hours/week = 160 hours 20$/hours = 3200$

Part-time dev 2:16weeks 10hours/week = 160 hours 20$/hours = 3200$

Part-time QA: 16weeks 10hours/week = 160 hours 20$/hours = 3200$

Artist: 16weeks 10hours/week = 160 hours 20$/hours = 3200$

External Frontend developer: Contractual budget= 4000$

Advertising: Budget =2080$

Website Rewrite: Contractual budget = 3000$

Total: 75000

Notes:

• Salary for part-time staff is somewhat low but has been agreed upon with the part-time team for a short duration since they don't have to quit their primary job.
• The lead developer has an average market salary in our area to ensure he can work on this full-time and not miss other work opportunities.
• Project-lead: Gets compensation for his hours but prefers to keep the total proposal amount low.
• Frontend developer cost: based on market research and prior contract pricing
• Advertising: We selected a low amount for alpha phase
• Website rewrite: is based on estimates for an average marketing site on 99Design.

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

Project Lead

Jean-Francois Rousseau-Ross (Jeff Ross).

rousseaurossjf@objectiweb.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfrross/

Full Stack Developer with eleven years experience and proven leadership in dev

team management. Seasoned knowledge of cloud computing architecture and

security concepts. Jeff is a fan of building highly effective teams and has wanted to jump into game development for years.

Lead developer

Pier-Anthony Morel

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pier-anthony-morel-65408bb1/

Multidisciplinary and highly talented developer. He is also a very powerful DevOp and is enrolled to learn much more about Plutus and Atala Prism.

Part-time Dev

Ionel Alexandru

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ionelalexandru/

Ionel is a senior developer, fast coder and problem-solving master. He is also a math wizard.

Part-time Dev

Maxime Thibault

https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximethibault371/

Bachelor in computer engineering specializing in web and mobile development

with four years of experience. Worked on various applications ranging

from analytic tools for firefighters to banking services.

Part-time QA / Project management

Fernand Jr Goulet

https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernand-jr-goulet-40a54776/

Junior is an experienced QA and Scrum master and will help ensure we deliver quality and follow up with developers to ensure they stay on track.

NFT Artist

Joseph-Antony Pellerin

A self-taught digital artist turned crypto enthusiast. He is inspired

by anime, movies and video game artworks. He is currently busy in school learning web development, but he agrees to keep producing art for us part-time!

Marketing manager

Will hire within the mobile game industry when MVP is released. If you have some experience within the digital marketing space outside of the NFT space please don't hesitate to reach out and send us your resume at rousseaurossjf@objectiweb.com.

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

Yes, we will probably return and ask to fund our beta release.

[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?

• Quantity of features delivered.
• Social media engagement : Discord and Twitter following size.
• Community engagement and the desire to be able to play the alpha version.

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

We hope that at this point, the Cardano community will have been exposed to our project and is excited about playing the game. We also hope to see some new users adopt Cardano because of the project.

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

We participated in Fund7 to develop the app's MVP(Pre-alpha) version. At the time of writing this proposal, we are about 75% done.

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/383974

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

Not applicable.