Hi all, Zygo here. I am here to propose funding the MVP for Ghostly Gladiator, an Aavegotchi-themed roguelike deck-builder. My draft proposal is below–please let me know what you think! Is this something you would vote to approve in a Snapshot vote? What could I do to improve its chances of being approved?
Summary (include rationale, timeline, goals and any key performance indicators)
This proposal is for funding an MVP of Ghostly Gladiator, a roguelike deck-building grid-based battler based on the assets & lore of the Gotchiverse. The long-term goals of the project are:
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Create a great roguelike deck-builder, in order to
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increase the exposure of crypto-agnostic & crypto-ignorant gamers to the Aavegotchi ecosystem and
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Provide a long-term income stream to the DAO through a community meta-progression system (see the Monetization section of the design doc for details on this part: Design Doc (Ghostly Gladiator) - Google Docs)
We are asking for $6500 worth of DAI to fund the creation of the MVP over 6 weeks, with plans for a larger proposal later if the project is successful with the community. At the end of the 6-week period we would like to run a small XP event for the community to try out the MVP.
Ghostly Gladiator (title not final) is a roguelike deck-building grid-based battler. For a game in the same genre, see Fights in Tight Spaces (or Knights in Tight Spaces).
Fisht Fight (Fisht Fight by zygoth) is a simple example of this genre that I made for a 7-day game jam, and it’s the concept and code that I will be building from. Fisht Fight placed 11th out of 564 entries in the ‘Fun’ category in the Fish Fest game jam (top 2%). We highly recommend that you play Fisht Fight if you want an idea of how Ghostly Gladiator will play.
Basic Gameplay
The game is divided into 10 separate battles, each with different types of monsters. Each turn, the player draws 5 cards from their deck and receives 3 energy. They can use the energy to play cards from their hand in order to move around the battlefield, attack enemies, defend, summon allies, etc. Battles end when all enemies are defeated. After each battle, the player gets to pick a new card from 3 options to add to their deck. The game ends when the player completes all battles (victory) or loses all their HP.
Timeline (6 weeks)
Programming (Zygo)
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Refactor code from Fisht Fight (3 days)
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Change resolution to 1920x1080 and adjust game accordingly (3 days)
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Save/load system (5 days)
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Deck, draw, and discard pile views (2 days)
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Rebalance game to be more beginner-friendly (3 days)
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Integrate new art (3 days)
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Title screen (1 day)
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UI improvements for increased clarity (3 days)
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Tutorial (3 days)
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Bug fixing (3 days)
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System to record player crypto address for an XP event (2 days)
Total: 31 days of work
Art (TBD, I am talking with several artists right now)
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New battle background
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Beta art for all cards
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Title screen art
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Reskin main character as Aavegotchi and enemies as different types of Lickuidators
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New Battle tile sprites (can just use grass from gotchiverse for basic tiles?)
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Card sprite
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Various UI icons like draw/discard pile, card energy icon, block icon, etc.
Music (Mario Sello)
- Title theme
- Battle music
SFX (Zygo)
- Use sounds from Zygo’s sound library & tools like LabChirp/SFXR
Key performance indicators
The game will be hosted on Itch.io, so to begin with the KPIs will be the analytics that they offer. (daily views and plays) In addition, during the XP event the amount of unique crypto addresses that users submit will be a KPI for this proposal. Eventually tracking unique users, time played, and donations would be useful but these are out of scope for the MVP.
Effect
Completing this proposal will provide the following benefits:
Create the MVP for a great free-to-play game in a popular genre that can appeal to non-crypto gamers and thus bring new players to the Aavegotchi ecosystem.
Host an XP event to give Aavegotchi holders an opportunity to try out the game and give feedback
Create a base from which we can build mechanisms that will eventually self-fund the game and bring income to the DAO. (see the Monetization section in the design doc for more details on this: Design Doc (Ghostly Gladiator) - Google Docs)
Acknowledge potential risks or unintended consequences
Risk: the game is not finished or is completed poorly
Mitigations: I have a record of completing jam games and also projects much larger than 1 month; I also have a strong incentive to finish the MVP so I can continue working on the project in the future. Even if this were to occur, the amount of DAI committed to this MVP is small, so the risk of wasting funds is low.
Any alternative paths (Plan B, Plan C, etc)
Not sure what to put here, I always have ideas for other games but this is the one I feel most confident about.
About Me
Hi! I’m Zygo, a game developer that has been involved with Aavegotchi since Haunt 1. I’ve always been interested in making games, and in the last 2 years I’ve been doing it full time. In February of 2024 I released Spellstrife on Steam after 14 months of work (Spellstrife on Steam). Since then, I’ve been doing game jams to practice quick development and test out some of my ideas. See my Itch.io page for my game jam games: https://zygoth.itch.io/ . I’m most familiar with the Phaser3 engine.