Unicorn Fight Club - A Bridge Proposal

Draft Proposals
21

I’m going to give a long meta update to you all instead of responding individually…

It appears that I’ve done a poor job of explaining this through the proposal, so I’ll try again. I also understand that there is a lot of sensitivity around builder proposals given the last few not-so-ideal situations that came up.

We fully recognize that it would be very difficult to evaluate this proposal without the community being able to get their hands on the final product from the original proposal. I would say the same things as you if this were another proposal. I get it. That deliverable is coming this week. No more for me to say around that.

The reason why we’ve submitted this proposal when we did is because of the timing of the DAO processes for proposals being live, voting, and monthly payouts. Here’s the key point:

  • if this proposal is accepted during this next vote, our team will be able to continue building full steam ahead
  • if this proposal doesn’t get passed now, it will slow us down

It’s that simple.

I’ve already stretched our budget beyond our initial plan to have our developers keep building after launch, but that’s only a short window.

Regardless of which way this goes, we believe we are well positioned from our conversations with people in the know for the Arbitrum Foundation grant that will get us $60k - $150k of additional funding. We also think there’s a chance for us to pull in an additional multiple 6 figures worth of grants from the other sources mentioned in the proposal. So rather than pausing our entire development effort while we wait for the ARB Foundation grant to come in, we’re asking for the DAO support on this.

If the DAO doesn’t think it’s worth it for the (mostly unused) ecosystem fund to provide us with this bridge round to let us keep building and give us the greatest chance of bringing outside funds into the ecosystem for the benefit of us all, so be it. We will slow down, wait for these grant processes to run their course and pick up the pieces later. If the councilors don’t think there’s enough information here after Friday’s launch for the DAO to make a proper decision, so be it.

As I’ve said, I’m trying my best here to thread the needle of timing for the best possible outcome. Hell, we only had access to unicorns data on XAI mainnet on Friday night. My team has been working weekends and pulling all-nighters to get this to you on time and budget, and I’m really proud of what they’ve been able to pull off to get us here. Let’s see where this discussion goes after our Alpha launch this week.

22

Wow. Where do I even start with you jpp? You missed all the timelines you promised by a huge margin. You haven’t given a budget update since 04/15. You stated you have $92,500 left with $14,000 deposited for future work. Total lack of communication from you of the fact you spent your entire budget LOL. You flexed your management skills in the first proposal and somehow overshot your budget by $70k?? Absolute joke.

Next, Unicorn Fight Club has not had a message posted in its discord thread in 1 month. I see no one playing your playtest past the first 2 days. It was not advertised or talked about after the announcement. You spend more time posting cringe messages in serious. I just dont feel the passion. The time when the core game was down was ideal for testing and I saw no push to get the community involved. Big L

Now lets get to your product. 2002’s AddictingGames .com called they want their game back. I’m kidding of course, I don’t think clicking a button and watching health bars drop would make it on the site back then. I asked multiple developers of different skill levels and they all told me your game is extremely simple to code. 5 months for an extremely basic playtest with no web3 integration shows you and your teams utter incompetency.

Sysmal is a battle mechanics genius and has been gracious enough to support us through initial conversations and recommendations for enhanced game designs. His contributions have already been invaluable, and we’re excited to continue to have him as a sounding board in all that we do. We feel comfortable with the system we are taking into the Alpha Launch and have many levers we can tune as needed to keep things balanced and fresh.

So, you took the following ideas I gave you on your first proposal

  • Complete change of genre from turn based instead of autobattler
  • Single class counters instead of class groups
  • Less impact on total stats
  • Squad fighting instead of individual 1v1
  • No swapping mid game of unicorns

Now you are taking time away from our designer to balance and come up with more mechanics for you. Why are you making a game? You have very little original ideas of your own.

You have no place developing a game.

Some questions for you:

  • What have you learned after failing to meet every single deadline you set?

  • What have you learned after failing to stay anywhere close to your set budget?

  • What is the exact price breakdown for the money you’ve spent and the money you’re asking for?

  • Are your contracts verified and audited? If yes, show us proof in this thread.

  • I don’t feel comfortable connecting my wallet to your game site when the alpha is launched. Will you remove the metamask login so I can test the alpha build? I refuse to make a burner wallet and a gameplay video just wont cut it for me. You should probably delay this proposal because 2 days of testing the week that CU comes back online is terrible timing.

  • If this passes, what happens when your team magically spends all the funds and again you can’t meet promises made?

My council vote is no. I sincerely hope my other council members don’t fall for jpp’s false promises again. Fool me once am i right?

23

I’m not positive yet on this. will still see what the community says and will review further.

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24

I appreciate the information and clarification on the background on this. I do agree that a grant process would be best. Provided the demonstration goes well and the feedback is reasonably good (we know there are some folks that will just fud) I will vote to move this to snapshot for DAO vote. Now this said, the community review will have to obviously be done, which will weigh on the DAO vote as to if this proposal passes.

So, since we are talking stage one of the process I would like to see the demo and then depending on how that goes I will vote to move this forward. I’m not apposed to supporting 3rd party games, but following from Surf Labs treatment of the DAO and their lack of concern on communication I would like to see that change.

So, in the end, the demo will push me one way or another. I look forward to it.

25

Lets not rush things when it comes to funding from treasury. I would also like to see the demo as well as the game and community response towards it before evaluating if another round of funding makes sense.

26

Thanks @jbp3 for the proposal.

at this time, do we have some pictures or screenshots that we can post here right now? . or do you prefer to just have it as a Demo video for later on?

I mean if we can have some alpha’s now or little explanation it would be great . but as other councils it is needed for us to make a decision to have something to carry on. Will have to wait for the game to come out and review it based from the previous proposal if they are on the same ground to as what is provided.

like many. I like to support 3rd party games, but given my first hand experience with Surf Labs. i tend to change trust on this matter.

I understand it may slow down your process if we have to do the voting on this proposal by July. but as far as I know when I had the same situation, I written in my proposal that once it passed LG can already send the funds for that time in order to avoid any slowdowns on your development.

maybe you can revise this on that. so that even if it has reviews on the 15th. you can still get the grant like it was a proposal on June,

Back then there were also some special cases where in proposals can be voted on earlier than 15th if there is an urgency to it. or if it has a foreseen impact on the project but you may need to ask Nessa for the logistics on how it can be done.

EOD : If im enjoying the game, if we really are going to profit from it. why not? those grants that was given by Arbitrium or other options will not be brought back to treasury right? it will be your own projects separate runway?

Cheers! thanks again!

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27

Agreed with most stuff said above. No need to rush. Better to postpone the test so it 'd be after P2A and relaunch excitement for better timing. Everyone who participated in surflabs&bingo drama is careful with 3rd party devs now. Too much ppl asking if those secondary games are worth spending ecosystem funds, I’m not sure as well.

28

Hey Jbp3,

Thanks for the proposal and taking the time to respond, here is what I have to say:

Things I am curious/have comments about that have already been addressed:

  • Why the timing of this proposal. I understand your response and it makes sense why you did it in terms of looking out for the team to insure no interruptions. I think from the perspective of looking out for CU members, the timing doesn’t work. Also, giving people 3 days to play and make a decision doesn’t work. Especially, since CU has just been relaunched. This process of trying the game should take a couple of weeks at minimum (which yes will interrupt your production schedule, but as a DAO, that is ok since the interruption schedule should not come at the expense of rushing things for the members of CU). The benefit of this, is that you would be able to give us actual metrics of community AND game engagement throughout the 3 weeks. For example, bingo was insane the first week or so, but then it lost most of its members afterwards. We need to make sure this game can actually keep user engagement, and if it doesn’t, this will actually provide you with even more valuable information on what may have been missing. TLDR: lets not rush this, it wont benefit CU nor you and I would like to see both succeed and profit from this.
  • I appreciate that you are taking the effort to gain funding from external sources to reduce the load on the DAO, especially since you have already went above budget and time. This is an important step to show that you aren’t going to keep on asking for more and more from the grant fund.

Things that may have not been properly addressed that I would like more clarification on please:

  • This is copy pasted from your original proposal which Nev also referred to it seems “Based on initial conversations with the LG team, if the proposal passes this next session, we would begin work at the start of the new year and have the game playable in Q1. Full release may come in Month 4 depending on the timing and iterations required to meet our objectives. We plan to create a working prototype that allows for playtesting and tuning changes prior to full launch. We expect to get that playtest ready two months after project kickoff and then have one month for final tuning and upgrades as well as completion of the smart contract integration work and extensive security reviews and audits”.
  • The above paragraph needs elaboration (which I understand could be misuage of terminology). You say that Q1 we get the play test (which usually is an alpha) and Month 4 we get “Full Release”. A full release is not an Alpha, a full release should be a fully completed game post alpha and beta. Alpha and beta are testing stages and full release is the launch. Based on your technical terminology used above, we should be getting a full release right now, albeit it being delivered late, and not an Alpha. To me, this is where I felt a bit confused and hesitant to support the proposal. It could be misusage of terminology, but I just wanted to make sure I point this out.
  • Spending $150k for yet to be seen or satisfactory gameplay is very unsettling (Yes, I know we will see it soon through the Alpha which could make things more settling). Yet, it still stands that this sends a signal as mismanagement of funding. In order to properly quell this feeling and allow us to feel more comfortable spending on this game, a detailed explanation of how this $150k was spent would go a long way. To me personally I find it mandatory. A VC or any investment arm (which is what I see this DAO/Grant Program as) would never provide additional funding to any project without exactly know how the money was spent. I am not accusing you of anything here and hope you do not understand this wrong, but I believe when seeking additional funding transparency becomes critical.
  • This may be more visible after the Alpha (so it’s something to keep in mind for now), how profitable is this game? Is the game monetization working? Where do you plan to get your marketing budget from? Is this already calculated in the original budget or is this going to be another future proposal or is it possibly coming from one of those external grants?
  • Lastly, it would be great if you could provide us with game metrics prior to the Alpha launch and after the Alpha launch so that we could get an idea how much further the game has been developed and what it’s potential may be. I personally, will not take “the community told me” or “in DMs people are telling me” as an answer for game engagement. For game engagement only data matters, anything besides that may be misled by people trying to be courteous, which doesn’t make neither you nor CU money.

That is all I have, again I appreciate your effort with the development of this game, it takes a lot of resilience and grit to build a game especially when you are leading it and fighting for your teams effort as well. I obviously tried your game as well because I was trying to see how I could contribute or provide input to help with the game (but I felt it was still far off in development that I couldn’t provide any meaningful contributions at that time. I would like nothing more to see than your team and CU succeeding from this project, but with calculated risk and putting CU first regardless of any emotion attachment to the sunk time and cost already put into this project or any other project.

2 Likes
29

I was waiting for this reply. And you did not disappoint. Kudos.

Let’s start where we normally do. With all of the things that are completely incorrect.

  • We haven’t “missed all of our timelines by a huge margin.” The plan was always to launch in June from Day 1. We got funded in February, put our team together and completed our updated scoped during month 1. Dev started in March and is scheduled to end in June, as has always been the case.
  • It’d be impossible for us to be over budget, since the last segment of the original proposal has not even been paid yet. Plus, as I know you’re aware, the additional funds for the bridge round are for completely new work including focus on artwork, polish and entirely new functionality. All of the requirements from the original proposal will be delivered.
  • I’ll let sysmal speak for himself if he so chooses, but the times we spent geeking out on game design on nights and weekends quite certainly had no negative impact on his LG workload. We ended up comparing similarities in game design decisions and slides for some of the proposed ideas he’s working on, which was a huge point of validation for the work we’ve done so far.

Given the fact that you are pleading with any council member who will listen not to pass this vote for fear of what the DAO might do, I’m going to choose not to answer your trolling questions. I’m aware you will be voting against this as was always going to be the case.

I appreciate your efforts from the original proposal to help us make a better game, but this reply is clearly coming from a bitter place of blaming me and my game for you deciding to pull your proposal. Now that our council responsibilities are both over, this is where we part ways.

30

Hey Prof. Love the questions and glad to have you on the council moving forward. I’m going to respond here briefly and then point you towards my next post.

  • You are right. The timing of this doesn’t work. That was a mistake on my end. There’s too much happening with the relaunch and not enough time for the community. Poor call on my part trying to optimize too much.
  • See my comments above about the incorrect notion on being late and over budget
  • re: our budget:
    • spending breakdown to date: $101,400 for dev; $10,000 on art; $10,000 for product development; $2,000 in infrastructure and services
    • funds remaining: ~$5,600 in cash remaining; $21,000 in final payment due upon approved game launch (with $16k going towards dev and $5k split among the rest of it)
  • re: terminology — please don’t get caught up on the wording and don’t let the loud critics fool you. We are delivering the full release with what was agreed to in the original scope. The naming conventions was advice we got from some people very familiar with the grant process and seeking outside funding. Many games with much larger budgets stay in Alpha and Beta phases for years. We are aligning our terminology to what is expected industry standards to give us the greatest chance for outside fund raising. That is all.
31

I hear the community loud and clear. The timing of this proposal was a mistake on my part, and I’m pulling it from this vote. There’s simply too much happening right now and not enough time for the community to digest it all. I’m also very much aware of the heavy skepticism around 3rd party developers at the moment, given some recent shenanigans. I appreciate all the input and dialogue and love how engaged this community is.

Instead of pushing things and rushing forward, we will release the full product and give you all plenty of time to take it all in. Community input has helped us making a vastly better product than we’ve imagined at the start, and we can’t wait to hear what you all think once we go live. I apologize for getting you all riled up when we should be celebrating the tremendous release of the migration and the insane technical effort that LG just put forward.

We will continue on with the grant processes in the background while we gather all of your input and feedback around what comes next. Cheers.

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32

Maybe we can revisit proposal at next session. Give Community 2 weeks to review game and give feedback and see how to proceed by the 15th of July. Will set you guys back a little bit. But give everyone a taste of game and decide what next with better information.

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33

MASSIVE RED FLAGS

JPP has refused to show proof of verified or audited contracts, budget breakdown or take any responsibility for severely missed timelines.

We haven’t “missed all of our timelines by a huge margin.” The plan was always to launch in June from Day 1

An alpha is not a full launch. You claimed the game would be playable in Q1, this was a missed promise.

We expect to get that playtest ready two months after project kickoff and then have one month for final tuning and upgrades as well as completion of the smart contract integration work and extensive security reviews and audits

Your game is “launching” in 1 day. Show the community the extensive security reviews and audits you claimed. If contract is not verified and auditted then no one should be touching it. I will make sure this is known :slight_smile:

It’d be impossible for us to be over budget, since the last segment of the original proposal has not even been paid yet. Plus, as I know you’re aware, the additional funds for the bridge round are for completely new work including focus on artwork, polish and entirely new functionality

This is a lame way of trying to justify blowing all your budget pal. We funded a full game. “Full release” was what was mentioned in your original proposal. I didn’t know a full game is without any focus on real artwork, polish or functionality. You somehow failed to budget for ALL of these things?? Sure call it a “bridge”, in reality you tried to make a game for cheap and pocket as much money as possible. If we don’t have proof of verification and audit I’d really love to know where this $150k went, it wasnt for the art, it wasn’t for the design, it wasn’t for the functionality, it wasn’t for the polish.

I’ll ask these questions in BOLD so maybe you don’t miss them this time. It is your job to answer questions raised by community members.

What is the exact price breakdown for the money you’ve spent and the money you’re asking for?

Are your contracts verified and audited? If yes, show us proof in this thread.

If this passes, what happens when your team magically spends all the funds and again you can’t meet promises made?

Stop dodging every legitimate question I’ve asked and be an adult. You have not earned additional funding and if you can’t even answer basic questions about the fund usage and contracts, then I think the community should consider trying to recover the remaining funds from your estate.

34

Judging by the past experience with the mini-games we had, most of them made by real game developers, I don’t think few days/weeks are enough to judge a game succes.
We had Rainbow Rumble, Bingo, Bumper Corns, etc. that had an initial engagement due to novelty, but died quickly afterwards. And those were actually games, not some unpolished, testing version.
We have to test a full version game within the initial budget of 150k$, as promised, for a longer period of time before even considering another round of funding.
And tbh, as I see this issue raised more often by others in the thread, it’s an absolute MUST to have transparency on how the 150k$ were spent, before spending one more breath on new funding…

35

For posterior: posting this here as he does not have access to join the fun and post on our forums yet…

Screenshot 2024-06-28 at 10.25.58 PM
Screenshot 2024-06-28 at 10.25.58 PM921×258 41.8 KB

36

:thinking:
…

37

So, while I appreciate the spirit of building new things. I believe with our last round of attempting a 3rd Party Partnership is an example of why this is not the best use of resources despite in some of these cases it being a decent idea.

I’m not sure in the condition the game is the best use of funds for the DAO is to continue support. I believe there is enough here that has been paid for that the developers could start to look at acquisition of funding through other means if the wish to continue such as grants and/or venture capital.

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38

Can we link the Alpha here. it seems i might have missed it.

39

Where are we at at the moment. I watched the demo videos. I can see alpha game has been built. The demo showed a practice game. Is it possible to see a non practice game as well. From what I can see game works. So the idea now is to beef up the artwork and make more presentable. Have people been playing? Can we get any stats on games played. Projections on profit based on games played. I know a lot of hard work has gone into this. Just want to have full picture here to the best you can provide. Thanks for taking time to make the demo.

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40

Please refer to the official community thread for proper updates on the project as I’ll be keeping all our communication over there for now. I just posted a new update over there.

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