Abstract
After the successful public launch and month-long playtest of Unicorn Gladiators, the game is moving onto its second phase. This consists of the development and expansion of Unicorn Gladiators with CU token integration, economic sinks, additional game modes, quality of life updates, one time use power ups, and a full artistic rehaul.
Motivation
- Introduce economic sinks in the form of a token rake and Unicorn Soul Battle Pass with a portion of the proceeds going to the treasury and monthly jackpots for the community
- Expand the CU IP with the addition of class based creatures that represent a darker themed version of the CU metaverse
- Improve the game’s overall quality of life by creating an interactive tutorial and improving the user experience for all players
- Add replayability with achievements, quests, battle pass progression, and new game modes
Economic Sinks
The economy will leverage two assets for the economic sinks, the CU token and Unicorn Souls. Both of these assets can be used in a handful of ways broken down below.
Weekly Powerhouse Showdown
This game loop will be built around weekly wager wars where players are pitted against each other in high stake matches battling for CU tokens and earning increased battle pass experience. These matches will replace the standard free mode and require CU tokens to join. Each game will have a 5% token rake that is distributed to the CU treasury, development team, and a community jackpot raffle in equal parts.
Unicorn Soul Battle Pass
The next feature will be in the form of a battle pass that leverages Unicorn Souls providing cosmetics, jackpot tickets, and one time use power ups that can provide a competitive advantage in game. The Unicorn Souls will be sold on the open marketplace with 40% of proceeds going back to the CU treasury, 40% to the development team, and 20% towards the community jackpot raffle. The requirement of a Unicorn Soul incentivizes adults to be burned and creates more demand. In addition to the Unicorn Soul Battle Pass, there will also be a free version of the battle pass. Through the free pass you will still be able to earn lower rarity cosmetics and raffle tickets but there will be significantly less compared to the purchasable Unicorn Soul Battle Pass. In order to progress on both battle passes, you will need to earn experience through playing either the Weekly Powerhouse Showdown or the standard mode.
Underworld Dealer
This will be a shop allowing you to gain access to the Unicorn Soul Battle Pass, purchase rotating cosmetics, and individual or bulk one time use power ups. For the power ups, you have the choice to either roll for a random power up or spend a higher amount to receive the exact power up you prefer. Purchases through the Underworld Dealer will be split evenly between the CU treasury, the development team, and the jackpot pool.
Community Jackpot
The community jackpot will be a raffle that coincides with the Unicorn Soul Battle Pass period. The jackpot will consist of the Weekly Powerhouse Showdown token rake, Unicorn Soul Battle Pass sales, and the sales from the Underworld Dealer. Each raffle ticket is 1 entry to win the entire jackpot thats accumulated over the battle pass period. Raffle tickets from the current Unicorn Soul Battle Pass period will automatically be consumed once the period has concluded.
One Time Use Power Ups
These single use power ups will be useable in-game allowing the user to gain a competitive advantage. The power ups will be replacing our previously planned perks system. They will have game altering effects allowing you to manipulate the board, bets or cards in any player’s hand to give you an edge.
Economy Flow Chart
Art Rehaul and Lore
Everyone’s favorite community artist Nowan has joined the team and brought a fresh perspective along with a ton of great ideas for further artistic improvements. He will take the lead on creating a variety of new assets and design choices for the following categories.
Battle Pass
Visuals of the pass that keeps track of your progress towards each level in both the free and paid versions along with the animations when a new level is achieved.
Unicorn Class Cards
There will be a redesign for all 110 playable in-game cards. Those 110 cards will consist of the 99 unique class-based creature cards and the 11 Shadowcorn cards. Each of these classes will have their own unique animation when activating their power. Creatures will more accurately represent their values with their visual appearance, as shown below.
One-time Use Power ups
There will be individual icons and animations to illustrate their power and impact on the game.
Board UI Overhaul
A more aesthetically pleasing and intuitive board for matches. The space needed to show all cards becomes greater as a game progresses. A few concepts are being considered to provide the most smooth and clean experience for our expanding game board. (Rough idea below)
Background Image
There will be the ability to change your background to a variety of different options. Backgrounds will vary from unicorn class themes, limited editions, Shadowcorns class themes, CU events, and more. Some level of animation will be built within the more rare backgrounds. (Slime background example shown below)
Animations
Numerous animations will be added to enhance the gameplay experience such as Unicorn powers, Power ups, unicorn eliminations, card selection, landing page animations, backgrounds and more.
Profile pictures / Avatars
There will be a variety of avatar choices, including some to unlock, earn, and proudly show off to opponents.
General Theme Direction
The theme will be conveying a much darker vision of CU where monsters, dark magic, backstabbing, and endless death are present at every turn. You can’t escape the Shadowcorns, even in the afterlife.
Lore
After a Unicorn Soul is burned they don’t always end up in unicorn heaven. Some of the more diabolical souls end up in a strange and twisted world known as the Shadowcorn Domain where they transform into evil creatures. These evil creatures are pitted into ruthless arena combat by their overlords for entertainment. They’re now stuck fighting in an eternity of endless combat for their master’s sick pleasure.
Quality of Life Updates
While the majority of the feedback with our initial launch was positive, the onboarding experience for new players was not as intuitive as it could have been. To address this concern, an interactive tutorial will be implemented to explain the basics of the game as well as some more in-depth strategies. In addition to this, there will be a heavier focus on the user experience within the game to make learning and playing a smoother experience.
Replayability
There will be a greater focus on increasing user retention while the paid lobbies are not active. Variety in gameplay, progression and collecting are major reasons why people continue to go back to certain titles. There will be features to accommodate all types of players with a variety of achievements, quests, and different ways to progress in the battle pass. This progression will allow players to receive in game cosmetics, one time use power ups, and jackpot tickets.
New Game Modes
While the weekly $CU entry fee lobbies will remain in our standard game format, new casual game modes will be added. These will implement interesting mechanics that add more elements of randomness and create a fresh experience. The modes will include random bet swapping, unlimited free power ups, and powers changing mid game. A 2v2 mode is in the theorycrafting stage.
Cost & Timelines
Our playable demo will remain live and we’ll continue to update it incrementally after the proposal has passed. We expect our main update, which will include full web3 integration and the Weekly Powerhouse Showdown, to be live tentatively towards the end of Q3. Other upgrades like art, UI, and game design will be pushed live incrementally as they are completed. The cost for this will be split evenly over the course of 4 months from the passing of this proposal. These costs are fully inclusive of art, smart contracts, continued game service, servers, contract audits, and internal testing. We believe these costs are appropriate after delivering on our playtest, and asking each member of the team their estimated quotes along with it being in line with other game’s costs approved by the DAO.
Month 1: 32,500 USDC
Month 2: 32,500 USDC
Month 3: 32,500 USDC
Month 4: 32,500 USDC
Total cost: 130,000 USDC
Conclusion
Many thanks from our whole team to everyone who participated in our playtest and I hope you give us the opportunity to continue building on top of the CU IP.
