Unicorn Gladiators Phase 2

Draft Proposals
21

Hi jpp, I feel this post was a bit aggressive and condescending, especially given it was you who wrote it, so don’t mind my harsh responses. :slight_smile:

Blockquote Players have expressed concerns to me in private that this proposal is a lot of smoke with a UI visual in an attempt to extract more from the CU treasury.

Frankly I expressed the same about Unicorn Fight Club. I still do actually. That game is now 2 months past it’s playtest deadline with absolutely nothing playable for the public. All that team has to show is some photoshopped unicorn outlines and a Pow! animation. Not to mention the bait & switch where it completely changed genres ONE day before the vote. I feel soft rugged that 150k was taken from the DAO for that. Maybe you can see the difference in our approach of deliver first and ask for full funding after we have something of substance to show.

Baseless claims aside, our team has only delivered. We launched our MVP on a bare bones budget. Before the start of our playtest, I was approached by Nowan who had some great ideas and mockups. We saw the art additions as a huge benefit. I also had some private conversations with Aron and we decided to expand the economic depth in a battle pass, jackpot incentives and power ups. The additional features and art are the sole reason our asking price has increased. Surely you of all people understand how adding in jackpot functionality, another contract, 110 cards with unique art, animations, battlepass functionality, a tutorial and a total ui overhaul would increase the price. Right?? Maybe I’m giving you a little too much credit here JPP

Blockquote I can’t comment myself because there’s no way I’m going to connect a wallet to a site build by the author

If you’d like to check out the game it is very easy to make an empty metamask account to connect. Just click on the Arrow next to your metamask account name and click “add account”. It actually takes less time than it does to comment on the forum. Now you know!

Blockquote 1. What did we learn from spending $20k on the initial proposal and what from this learning justifies over a 6x cost increase to continue building?

Well first of all a 6x cost increase is just false lol. Really don’t appreciate blatantly wrong numbers being thrown around, I thought you were more mature than that ser. Original cost was 20k+60k for a total of 80k, new proposed is 20k+130k for a total of 150k. Not even a 2x total increase. Cost increase justification was posted above feel free to scroll up.

Blockquote 2. How many players played the game? How many matches were created? How many repeat players? What and where is their feedback?

We had 41 unique players. Super happy with this number given we have a few hundred human players in CU. Over 300 matches played. Almost all of the unique players played more than 1 match. Gabe was our most active player. Feedback is in the Community Gladiators thread which you yourself have posted in lol. Was generally positive, once players played a few games they understood the rules. Some quotes from the feedback

  • “damn this games looks cool”
  • “Only feedback i have is that the text on the cards was hard to read and unless there is practice mode or we can read all card outside of a match it is very overwhelming. The game look cool overall. Can’t wait for final product. Keep it up”

Blockquote 3. Will you open source your code so that we can properly evaluate what has been built so far?

That’s a question for Zaza, but if that opens us up to malicious actors or code theft then absolutely not. Happy to have it reviewed by LG if they wish.

Blockquote 4. Can you remove the wallet connect so that the community can safely evaluate the game?

Already answered above. Learn to make a burner wallet or use your phone. You’ve been in crypto how many years? Playtest has already concluded and ran for over a month, asking this now is silly.

Blockquote 5. 1. Can you provide more information around the budget breakdown? Nowan’s initial art concept looks great, but how much of this $130k is going towards art vs. development vs. admin costs, etc?

Art and Development are the vast majority of the budget. Don’t have exact numbers as my team members gave me ranges to work with based on variables. This will be 70-85% of the total budget depending on if extra help is needed on the dev side. We have 2 outside devs working with zaza as well as a 3rd on standby if needed.

Blockquote 6. Would you consider delaying this proposal until the wallet connect can be disabled and the tech can be properly evaluated so that the community can make a more informed decision about a massive increase in funding?

Already answered above twice. Everyone who actually wanted to play was able to. There’s also multiple gameplay videos. The “Massive” funding is justified. We are providing significantly better art, more economic sinks and more features than other community made games at the exact same price. Can’t beat more for less am i right? Thanks for your time jpp i always appreciate days I have to deal with you

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22

I’m sorry if you felt my tone was “a bit aggressive and condescending” as I’m just trying to fulfill my role as councilor.

Quick responses to correct some things. And then I’ll leave you to it and wish you luck.

  1. I’d invite you to consider letting your game and reputation speak for itself and stop with comparisons to any other games or proposals. If the community trusts you with a $130k budget to deliver what you say and they think that’s in the best interest of the DAO, then they’ll vote that way regardless of whatever other proposals exist.

  2. The original proposal was passed for $20k. Not $20k + $60k. So that’s where my 6x increase in costs comes from, but I’m not going to argue this one. You can call the increase in budget whatever amount you want.

  3. I feel like most of the answers were danced around and / or not properly answered. Let me try again clearly for you in a way that hopefully won’t feel a bit aggressive. What did you learn from the $20k sink from the first proposal that would convince the community to fund a $130k new proposal to keep building? Will you open source your code? Will you delay the proposal until the tech from the first proposal can be evaluated?

23

Blockquote I’d invite you to consider letting your game and reputation speak for itself and stop with comparisons to any other games or proposals.

Thank you for the invitation but you are not someone I would ever party with. If you want to question our costs, then I’ll continue to use your game as a relevant and comparable example. I think it’s a pretty good case for our game when you put them side by side so it’s understandable why you wouldn’t want that.

Blockquote The original proposal was passed for $20k. Not $20k + $60k. So that’s where my 6x increase in costs comes from, but I’m not going to argue this one.

Thank you for not arguing with this by continuing to argue with it JPP. Class act. The $60k was clearly stated in the original proposal and came with community approval of the playtest.

Blockquote 1. I feel like most of the answers were danced around and / or not properly answered. Let me try again clearly for you in a way that hopefully won’t feel a bit aggressive. What did you learn from the $20k sink from the first proposal that would convince the community to fund a $130k new proposal to keep building?

Oddly worded question I struggled to answer this. What did we learn from the $20k sink that would convince the community to fund us? I guess we learned we wanted to expand our games economy to have a bigger impact than just simply games with a rake and we learned how high quality art can really elevate the experience. An aesthetic game is amazing not only for those actively playing, but also for advertising, slides and pitch decks. Incorporating souls to purchase the battle pass helps supply crunch on adult corns even more. Both of those are beneficial to the CU IP.

Blockquote Will you open source your code?

No. Happy for LG to take a look at it.

Blockquote Will you delay the proposal until the tech from the first proposal can be evaluated?

No.

24

Thanks for all your answers thus far.

I support other builders building games. I love Nowan’s art. It looks great.
My concern is regarding the changes to Time and Cost and to the scope changes from your first proposal.

The scope has changed a lot. You’ve outlined the changes well. But why not just go with your first proposal’s plans/projections and scope and then iterate if the live game is well liked? Another proposal could be added at that point to continue to build it out.

1st proposal for reference: Unicorn Gladiators

**Timeframe and cost comparison between the 2 proposals : **

Original Proposal-
Timeframe: Web3 integration and full launch 4-8 weeks after 2nd proposal passes
Total Cost: 1 time payment 25 eth or 60k USDC whichever is smaller USD value at the time

New Proposal-
Timeframe: To be live tentatively towards the end of Q3
Total Cost: 130,000 USDC

Additionally, when the playtest went live, maybe I just missed it, but why no posting in general and/or serious to try to get players to test it out for feedback?

Also, have you looked into applying for grants from XAI and/or ARB as well? That could be another source of funds to help with the continued build out if the game is well liked.

Fyi… game feedback-wise, I did try the game. Granted, maybe it’s not my game type, or I just didn’t understand how to play it, but it felt slow. I got bored quickly and didn’t try it again.

Thanks Dip. Just my initial thoughts.

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25

Sorry IslandGurl I’m getting tired of typing the same thing over and over so I’m going to ask you to please read my previous answers. I’ve explained our thinking in the value of art and the economic features, we want to get the ball rolling asap. Finishing development of the game with the art/ui in mind will make things a lot easier. I’ll gladly go to bat for our artist.

Fair thoughts. Game isn’t meant to be fast paced, its similar to a board game. Power ups and animations will make it more lively. Understanding the strategy and how to use each unicorn class is where the depth comes in and makes it interesting. Tutorial is much needed

26

Not sure why you added the “I’ll gladly go to bat for our artist”. Thinking most of us love Nowan’s art.

Looked over the previous Q’s. and A’s. Not all were answered.

Regardless, there’s enough info in your proposal for the DAO to vote and decide.

27

Not sure why you added the “I’ll gladly go to bat for our artist”.

Because you suggested sticking to the original plan which would mean getting rid of the entire art budget for now :slight_smile:

Looked over the previous Q’s. and A’s. Not all were answered.

I already talked about xai/arb grants and player numbers above

28

Thanks DIp. I had already seen this part.

I’ll be more clear. I get the strong first impression part. I’m curious if you have actually looked into them yet? And what would be required for them? I haven’t checked them out yet. Could they possibly also help supplement any unexpected build out costs as well as be used for marketing and increased rewards? Extra funding sources and being as pro-active as possible with it could help your team.

Re: Nowan. How much is the entire art budget for your new plan? Maybe you could increase the original plan by a partial amount of the total new art budget. The rest could be added with continued build outs. Just a thought.

Again, there is enough info for the DAO to vote on it.

29

I’m curious if you have actually looked into them yet? And what would be required for them? I haven’t checked them out yet. Could they possibly also help supplement any unexpected build out costs as well as be used for marketing and increased rewards?

I haven’t even begun to look into them yet since our proposal could not be approved. Just brief mentions in conversation with Aron. I think marketing and increased rewards would be possible you’d have to assume it would have to benefit xai/arb as well.

Nowan. How much is the entire art budget for your new plan? Maybe you could increase the original plan by a partial amount of the total new art budget. The rest could be added with continued build outs. Just a thought.

Appreciate the thoughts but everything we’ve designed works cohesively and we’d like to keep it that way. Almost none of you have even mentioned the econ we set up, how it allows free players a way to earn through jackpot chances, the game theory of using power ups in paid matches etc. It feels like nobody looked at anything in the proposal besides the price.

This is a passion project and every member on the team will be making less than minimum wage hourly. This is as budget as we can get for what we want to deliver. If community members(not you IG) want to get petty, bring in tribe BS & drama or try to force delays on us, then we simply won’t make the game.

30

I really like the idea of this new proposal. Most of my questions were answered in previous replies. Few questions - can we get a bit more detailed breakdown on the cost increase? Are there any future marketing expenditures included in the proposal or is this just the development cost? Are you expecting to have another proposal down the line in order to fund any maintenance in relation to the game or to help market it?

31

can we get a bit more detailed breakdown on the cost increase?

Cost increase is solely from the following additions

  • 110 new cards each with unique art and theme
  • Cosmetics(avatars, backgrounds etc)
  • Battlepass functionality, contract & art
  • UI revamp
  • Interactive tutorial
  • Underworld Dealer shop
  • Power up design, integration and animations
  • Jackpot implementation
  • New game mode design and implementation

Are there any future marketing expenditures included in the proposal or is this just the development cost?

This is just Dev costs. Depending on the revenue generated we could allocate some of that to marketing down the road.

Are you expecting to have another proposal down the line in order to fund any maintenance in relation to the game or to help market it?

Maintenance costs are expected to be fairly low. Would easily be covered by normal gameplay. Another proposal for marketing would most likely be for an arb grant or leveraging the xai partnership to get more exposure.

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32

Econ set up as outlined would be great if you can pull it off.

So, if you build out the game, a concern is keeping it from becoming yet another built out game loop, that no one is playing. Ie: bumper corns, mob run, trivia, RR…
So far with those it’s been … a proposal gets passed, game loops gets built out, team gets paid, no marketing is done, no one is playing the game. Since there is no marketing budget request (just thoughts on possibly applying for an ARB/XAI grant), what is your strat to keep it from becoming just another game idea that got built out, team got paid, but no marketing is done, and no one plays? Building a game is just one part of the equation. Fyi… I’d ask this Q for any new proposals.

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33

Valid Concerns Islandgurl. Am going to paste my response that I made to TT above.

Ultimately I look at these community made games as doubling down on CU’s success. It’s a trickle down effect where when players join the community they go check out the other games we’ve built on top of the IP. Sometimes it will work in the inverse where someone comes into the community to play a 3rd party game and goes down the CU rabbit hole. Our success will be tied to CU’s success, like CU’s success is now tied to XAI’s success.

As the CU player base grows, all our games will become more popular. Expecting a main game with a handful of real players to have thriving 3rd party games with huge dau isn’t realistic. Almost every single comment has been about the price so I think adding in a robust marketing budget on top of everything would be hilariously foolish. So like I said above, I believe all of these 3rd party games are doubling down on CU’s success. At the very worst it’s great for pitch decks and slides, and is appealing to potential partners that we have high quality community made games. If you watched the latest shillfluencer video we had from Crypto Gains, he highlights Unicorn Party and to outsiders it looks great, despite UP still finding its legs.

34

Ok, Lets put this to vote. You get a yay from me!

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35

your answer is not convincing enough. it doesn’t make sense to jump the cost from 60k $ to a whooping 130k $ majorly because of art. Especially, considering you built out the phase 1 which was majority of the work in very low budget of 20k $.

By asking this much money from treasury you’re turning this project from a reasonably priced project to an overpriced project. This feels like a classic example of bait and switch.

36

Hi Ethereal, very odd you did a complete 180 on your stance and now editted your original comment lol. The increase is not only for art, it adds a significant amount of dev work(in-game shop, showdown, power up functionality, more game modes, item inventory), another contract which needs another audit, game design and significant testing. If you’d like to offer to do all the art and dev work for half the price my team is willing to then by all means come join the project. You are clearly very unaware of how much game dev costs. Feel free to do some actual research on market rates for skilled freelance artists, audits, solidity devs and QA before you come back and post again thanks :slight_smile: Like I said everyone is getting paid significantly lower than they should be to make this happen in a reasonable budget. Not willing to go any lower sorry. If you don’t like it then vote no on 2 separate wallets like you did for our first snapshot

37

Another cash grab attempt by the extractor team.

Nothing has been done on the first proposal, the game as is was already developed a year ago by a single dev on its free time, they shared many screenshots from it in discord. They just banked 20k to host the game on a server and make a playtest and they call that “delivering”. We are still waiting from anything in the web3 part beside a connect wallet button which literally serve no purpose.

I also saw the dev looking for infos in another discord server proposing fully web3 game engine because they literally have no idea what to do.

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38

Thanks Vyoni! Really excited for the release of your playtest in Q1

39

You’re trying too hard for something which you don’t have any basis for. We all can see clearly that you increased the cost just to make your cost equal to 150k $ which is exactly what JBP3 also charged for his game. it’s not a coincidence.

I am also not buying your argument that it cost a lot for dev work and art. you’re either living under a rock or just blatantly lying to get us pass this proposal. AI is here. The artists and developer are more productive and efficient with their work. It costs way less for them to deliver a product by utilizing the AI tools compared to 4 years ago.

if you want votes from my two separate wallet then my suggestions for you is to revert the cost back to what you originally outlined to the community to get the first proposal pass instead of this bait and switch tactic.

Secondly, breakdown your 60k grant into multiple milestone based system for example 20k $ payment on each milestone you deliver from your end.

Full transparency and accountability to the community of your expenses. We need a public report of where each money is being spent on.

if you can amend your proposal accordingly. You’ll have my votes. Otherwise, feel free to sell this over priced game to someone else.

I will also recommend the community to vote no as well unless the author agree for cost reduction and transparency.

As a community the last thing we want is to hurt our treasury by over spending on dead ends.

41

Just reviewing the first proposal from Jan of this year.

Cost & Timelines

We believe in our game’s ability to stand on its own. We are already deep into development and have fully functional prototype still in progress. The next step is to get this in the hands of the CU community to let us know what you think.
Initial Cost: 8 eth or 20k USDC whichever is smaller USD value at the time
We are asking for only a small upfront cost to cover servers, additional feature testing and to cover the hours for our dev who has been hard at work. Only with community approval and feedback will we continue to add in the web3 integration.
Community Playtest: 1 month after proposal approval
We want to be up and running as soon as possible and will be ready to stress test and hear community feedback. We expect this to run 4-6 weeks while we compile feedback and make any necessary changes. After this stage we will have a community vote to decide if they believe our game will add value to the CU ecosystem. If the community collectively decides we should continue then we will move to the web3 integration and full launch stage.
Web3 integration and full launch: 4-8 weeks, 1 time payment 25 eth or 60k USDC whichever is smaller USD value at the time
This is our estimated budget for solidity development and full web3 integration for the game. 10k will be dedicated to security, and all costs will be passed transparently to the DAO.

So if I understand correctly. Please correct me if wrong. We paid the Initial Cost: 8 eth or 20k USDC whichever is smaller USD value at the time

And this got us through the community playtest. Am I correct no web3 integration has happened yet. And this is as outlined in this proposal.

So your proposal is asking to change the outline for phase 2.

from.
Web3 integration and full launch: 4-8 weeks, 1 time payment 25 eth or 60k USDC whichever is smaller USD value at the time

to.

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

And the stated reasons for the change is based on play testing with community.

If I am 100% straight forward I am feeling I would like to see the original proposal happen for the original budget. I do see some good ideas added here in the Phase 2 proposal. I am wanting to support it. I feel stuck making up mind. If origin proposal had been completed and we had a finished project that needed more work I feel I would be better able to say yes. Lets make this better. But I feel its likely easier to not make things twice. So I feel on the fence like I said. Going to have to think about this. But wanted to share how I was feeling and where I was at.

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