Unicorn Gladiators

[Dipbeak]

Abstract

To implement a purely skill based game that utilizes the CU IP to attract more competitive players to the ecosystem. This game will focus solely on high level decision making and risk vs reward scenarios, much like poker.

Motivation

Recently we have had a proposal brought forth for a new game to CU that I personally felt was lacking in a lot of areas, was very redundant and was asking for large upfront funding based on nothing but an idea for a game. I found this predatory and would like to offer the community an alternative option, a strategic game that is truly skill based. There will be 0 pay to win mechanics and stats on unicorns and shadowcorns will have no effects. Our team comes from an e-sports background and we value competitive integrity, deep decision making and balance above all else.

Overview

Unicorn Arena(name pending) is a unique game where 8 of the 9 unicorn classes are chosen randomly each game as the combatants in the arena. The 2-4 players have betting tokens that they will place on the unicorn combatant of their choosing. Each round, once each combatant has a card played on it, the unicorn combatant with the lowest numbered card on it will be eliminated. Cards can only be played on the combatant class that it matches, with the exception of shadowcorn cards which act as wild cards. They are able to be played on any combatant and will void the unicorn power the next card played on top of it. The eliminations continue until there are only 3 unicorn combatants remaining, and those that had bets on those combatants will receive points.

Betting

Placing smart bets is the most important part of Unicorn Arena. Each round only 1 bet can be placed on each combatant, and players only have a maximum of 5 bets during the duration of the game. The earlier round you make the bet, the more points it is worth at the end of the game. Choosing a combatant that you can protect based on the cards in your hand is important, and teaming up with another player by betting with them in a later round is very beneficial. Players also are able to place 1 secret bet only in the first round. This bet will not be visible to the other players and is worth the most. You can only place a secret bet on a combatant card that you currently have in your hand. Bet values are as follows
Secret Bet- 5 points
Round 1 - 4 points
Round 2 - 3 points
Round 3 - 2 points
Round 4 - 1 point

Unicorn Abilities
To add another layer of depth and give outplay opportunities, each unicorn combatant has its own unique ability. To use the ability you must be the backer of that combatant, meaning you have the most visible betting points on that specific combatant. The ability can be used any time you play a card on that combatant. Players have the option to reveal their secret bet to gain control of a combatant, with the risk of being targeted because their secret bet has been exposed. The abilities are as follows:

1. Cloud (Cloudy Day)

When you activate the ability, you may choose another player. Randomly draw half (rounded up) of that player’s cards from his hand and set them face down in front of him without looking at them. The player cannot use those cards in any way on his next turn. He must return them to his hand during phase 3 of his turn, after discarding cards but before refilling his hand to 8 cards.

2. Crystal (Precious Gems)

All Crystal unicorn cards on the Crystal unicorn are worth .5 more no matter the player. Shadowcorn cards are unaffected.

3. Heart (Charm)

When you activate the ability, you may pick any one other player and name a Unicorn class that has not yet been eliminated. That player must give you one combat card depicting that unicorn class if he has one. If he does not, he must show you his hand to prove it. The player cannot give you a card that has been placed face down due to the Cloud’s special power, and does not show you the face down cards.

4. Omnom (Three Course Meal)

When you activate the ability, you may choose another player who has at least 3 cards in his hand. Draw 3 cards from that player’s hand and look at them, keep 1 card of your choice, and return the other 2 to the player without showing them to anyone else. You cannot draw from cards that have been placed face down due to the Cloud’s power.

5. Star (Star Struck)

When you activate the ability, you may swap any two visible combat cards depicting the same unicorn class (Including the Star).

6. Moon (To the Moon!)

When you activate the ability, you may discard any one visible combat card from any other creature in the current combat row. Any card revealed through this ability’s use is now the top card for that creature.

7. Candy (Sugar Free)

Subtract 2 to the number of a combat card on the board, values can fall below 0.

8. Flower (Overgrown)

Can block playing combat cards on any Unicorn for 3 turns.

9. Rainbow (Pot of Gold)

Anytime you play on this unicorn, you get a random 0-10 pot of gold card

Unicorn Utility & Passive Bonuses

To play Unicorn Arena you’ll be required to own at least 1 unicorn or Shadowcorn. The unicorn or Shadowcorn that the player joins the game with will act as their avatar and name during gameplay. Each Unicorn Class Group (Wonder/Mystery/Light) has an additional ability within the game with Shadowcorns representing a unique class group of their own. Each of these perks add yet another decision for the player to make. With extensive testing, they have all performed equally and their effectiveness varies from game to game.

Shadowcorn: The player receives 1 extra bet token to start the game.

Light: (Cloud/Rainbow/Heart) Being the Primary combatant backer of a unicorn gives +1 to each stat card played on them, excluding shadowcorn cards.

Mystery: (Moon/Star/Crystal) The player can play their secret bet during the second round and once the second round starts, the player can see all other player’s secret bets.

Wonder: (Candy/Flower/Omnom) The player’s starting hand is 6 random cards with a unique 0 and 10 Shadowncorn card instead of 8 random cards.

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.

Entry Fees

Initially entry will be completely free and with full launch we would like to make rbw entry fee rooms. We would like to keep the entry fee pegged to specific dollar amounts to keep rbw fluctuations from causing entry to become too cheap or expensive. We are proposing a very small rake of 1-3%, all of which will go back to the CU treasury. Seeing how a high rake can turn off the average player, we believe this is vital for large adoption. With enough liquidity, a true elo system will be implemented for fair matchmaking and leaderboard rewards. This is a bet on the success of CU in the upcoming bull run.

Conclusion

We’re a passionate group of OG’s who want to bring a real strategy game to the ecosystem instead of another half baked auto battler. We’re offering a more cost effective product and an exponentially more rich, replayable and fleshed out game than other proposals. We prefer action over promises. We believe in easy to learn hard to master loops. Let’s bring a real strategy game to the CU IP. I’ve included a few screenshots from our internal testing, will post some gameplay videos later

[Zyori]

I like this proposal a lot. The cost seems reasonable and I think the concept could be a great ‘mini-game’ for CU.

I am a little bias on this, as I come from an esports background and believe strongly in competitive games that are ‘easy to understand but hard to master.’

From my understanding, this is a pretty straight forward browser app that can run on any device. If successful, it should be a boon to the treasury and support our tokens.

At the price point listed, I struggled to see the downside with this? Would love for someone to challenge my bullishness. What am I missing?

[Vyona]

Is it fully onchain ?

can you provide some technical details ?

[Dipbeak]

Initial playtest will be off-chain and solely focused on the gameplay and community feedback

Front-end
React
Phaserjs
Back-end
Nodejs Express
colyseus(Socket)

Final product will be a stash in/out system like we’re all familiar with from the farm sim, rainbow rumble and bumpercorns

[Vyona]

Thanks for the answer.
This proposal is obviously a no-go from clearly lack of knowledge.
You don’t build a game with an e-sport team. You need actual technical people with deep web3 understanding to tell you what you can and can’t do, and these cost more money than you probably think.

[VonNuemann]

Sounds cool, Id honestly rather see someone propose an axie style battler though. Or a dungeon(dark forest) crawler rpg. But looks like you have already put work into building a playtest? or is it just a mock up still?

[Dipbeak]

Game is fully playable in its current state we’re just ironing out some bugs. Gameplay footage with commentary coming soon

[Dipbeak]

Only team members with an e-sport background are the game designers, not the devs
Costs were already estimated
Totally agree with you, technical people with deep web3 understanding are necessary.
Will trust in our solidity dev when we get to that stage
First we’d like to see what the community thinks of the core game before any web3 integration

[timetraveler]

I would love to see some gameplay footage. It would answer so many questions. Thanks for bringing your proposal to community.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Interested in the idea of a skill-based game! It’s always great when the community suggests new things.

Is it possible to make this a mobile app? Looking forward to the gameplay footage!

[Dipbeak]

Ser if I was trying to scam the treasury I would just write a ridiculous proposal with ai generated images for a game that isn’t even fleshed out and ask for 150k upfront. Does that sound familiar?

This is a passion project we’ve wanted to make for a long time, prices are intentionally low specifically upfront and require community approval to continue and receive the bulk of the funds. Vast majority of funds goes to development and so we can add this project to our resume. CU is our number 1 choice first and foremost, but if it doesn’t pass we’ve talked to other communities as it would only require a re-skin.

I understand we are directly competing with our games, and your hostile responses were very much expected. I’ll toss the technical concerns over to 1 of our devs.

[GamerZaZa]

Hey Vyona, I did most of the dev work on Unicorn Gladiators so far, and have been working closely with our solidity coder to plan out how we’ll integrate the web3 aspects. We have been planning for a stash in/out implementation so the game will in fact not all be on-chain. We were previously planning on going full on-chain like Dipbeak mentioned but recently decided this this would be the most efficient and cost effective way to go. Rest assured our reputations are on the line and we will only deliver a complete product.

[Dipbeak]

Great question, right now we’re fully playable on mobile through web browser, no plans for an app at the moment but that can definitely be considered in the future

[GamerZaZa]

Mobile screen game play

Small gameplay footage attached

[terrarekt]

When can I play test it?

MOAR!!!

[GoliathRulz]

Upon reviewing the proposal and the footage I like the concept. We need strategic games as an add-in to the universe. Also, having 3rd party development using IP and some injection from the DAO can help to further the reach of CU. Based on what I am seeing I would play it as it is more brain based vs. hand-eye coordination, which I like. So, with that, you would have my vote if it went to vote.

[dijkstrasrevenge]

Really like the web2 only release first in order to test the loop and have increased chances of nailing a good PMF via community feedback.

We’ve put the cart before the horse (cool/new tech before fun game) far too many times in CU, so wholeheartedly welcome this approach (and would actually like it if LG would start using it as well).

I get the concerns regarding web3 compatibility, but the proposed gaming loop doesn’t seem to have complicated tech requirements previously unseen in web3 gaming.

[enillyddjens]

Completely agree this proposal seems more appealing because there is a product behind it already and not only mockup/idea. What I liked about other community builders (i.e. Venti) is that there is something already partly done, but requires more devtime + funding. Liked the gameplay. The only thing I didn’t like are mockups, but that’s not the main thing. I think community would be interested to test it too!
@GamerZaZa thanks for the footage!

[CaptainBoat]

Support this proposal @Dipbeak and @GamerZaZa you guy do pretty good job

[jbp3]

As a person who has just gone through this process extensively in public and behind the scenes with the LG team for my own proposal, I feel uniquely qualified as a councilor to ask questions about your game proposal…

1. Who exactly is the team here? You mention your “team comes from an esports background,” that you are “a passionate group of OG’s” and then later say “Only team members with an e-sport background are the game designers, not the devs.” Please clarify.
2. What are your credentials? What have you built? What have you shipped?
3. Are you fully doxxed to LG or will you be?
4. Can you explain more about the financials behind all of this? You are asking for “8 eth or 20k USDC” (I believe) to complete development + “25 eth or 60k USDC” for the web3 integration (I believe voted on later). And the game will have a “rake of 1-3%, all of which will go back to the CU treasury.” That appears to leave no money or revenue for on-going costs or development, so who is paying for support, maintenance, technology costs, etc?
5. Is this being developed as a 2nd party or a 3rd party? What are the considerations and implications of this for the DAO and who owns what regarding the IP, on-going development, support, etc?
6. What is the plan for marketing and bringing in new players? Is there a cost with this?
7. What are the other costs you foresee for future proposals that are not being discussed right now? It’s easy to look at the $80k number as a “low cost” option, but that hardly seems like the full number as development would appear to fully stop at that point.
8. While I appreciate “build first” approach and the video showing some of how it might work, this does raise some questions. You say “Game is fully playable in its current state” – can you say more about that? Is it currently only running on a local environment? How long has this been worked on, or shelved, or brought back to life? Will the playable version be ready before the DAO vote? I’m trying to understand what we’re looking at here, but perhaps the credentials of the team will make this insignificant.

I’ll say it again here publicly. Yes, I have a game proposal that is also being voted on. Yes, it seems a lot of the language in this proposal was a direct attack on what I put forward. No, I don’t care to get into any childish arguments over that. Yes, I would like to see many games built out of the Ecosystem Development Fund. Yes, I think our games are different enough that both can make sense. Yes, I think all of these questions are important and relevant to the DAO and the council when considering this proposal.