AIP-364: The Battle for Goblin Town - A Bored Game

PROPOSAL NAME:

The Battle for Goblin Town - A Bored Game

PROPOSAL CATEGORY:

Ecosystem Fund Allocation

Click here to watch the trailer

Screen Shot 2023-11-03 at 11.13.31 AM.png

TEAM DESCRIPTION:

We are the founding team behind the web3 project Forgotten Runes Wizard’s Cult (launched in June, 2021). Currently we are collaborating directly with Yuga on both Legends of the Mara as well as being one of the original partner projects in 10ktf.

Needless to say our appreciation and understanding of the Yuga ecosystem and its community runs VERY deep. The ultimate vision for this proposal if voted through is to provide an engaging and fun social gaming experience tailored for all web3 communities powered by ApeCoin.

The company is run by Dotta, Elf, and Bearsnake. We are all serial entrepreneurs with experience in Games, Film/TV, and Tech over the past 15 years. We have had built and sold multiple start ups between the group including one of the larger entertainment/tech acquisitions of 2015 to Disney.

Our team of 10+ best-in-class coders and artists has a very public reputation for shipping high quality on chain experiences along with producing widely distributed, mainstream media expressions. Forgotten Runes is speed running the next great fantasy franchise comprised of Digital collectables, An animated Series, Comic Books, Video Games and more.

Resources:

Related Work:

ABSTRACT:

We are near completion for an on-chain strategy game inspired by Settlers of Catan, titled
“The Battle for Goblin Town.”

See: (https://twitter.com/GoblinTown_Game)

Actual gameplay footage. Image shows resource tiles, settlements, roads and in-progress battles

BFGT combines the joy and nostalgia of a tabletop experience with the ownership and utility of web3, with a strategic decision-making system driven by economic game theory.

Our initial plan was to independently launch the game in a more open manner but after discussions with key ApeCoin DAO members it became clear that our game could provide significant value to this community by making it exclusive to ApeCoin.

BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM:

Our intention with this AIP is to create an economically self-sustaining video game that lives on for a long time. We see this game providing real utility and enjoyment to the ApeCoin DAO and ApeCoin holders while introducing new users to the ApeCoin Ecosystem.

  • DAO REVENUE:
    -15% of the mint and ongoing game revenue will be returned directly to the ApeCoin DAO.
    -15% of ApeCoin generated during mint and ongoing game revenue will be burned (that is, transferred to a dead address, effectively removing it from circulation and reducing the supply). This creates what we believe is the first true ApeCoin Sink.
    -20% of ongoing game revenue will go towards supporting future prize pool (or burn).
  • VOTER AIRDROP: Voters who vote on this proposal will receive an airdrop of NFT Chests at a rate of 1 crate per 1,000 votes). Chests contain gameplay pieces: screelings, bosses, structures and cards. These pieces are NFTs that can either be used in-game or traded. Regarding the airdrop, the original holders will receive the crates, NOT the people they have delegated their ApeCoin to. To address this we will use the karma api to track delegates https://documenter.getpostman.com/view/26295147/2s93RTPrfg
  • $APE EXCLUSIVE: $APE will be used exclusively as the as the currency for minting and any non-resource purchases to buy into the game
  • For example: during gameplay, $APE can be used to buy card packs (card previews below)

THE MINT

The mint will be a 72 hour “open edition” to get crates for your initial game pieces. (Only one crate is required to play, but we expect most users will want to start with multiple crates).

Expand the ApeCoin gaming ecosystem

  • Establish another strong Web3 game in the ApeCoin ecosystem
  • Provide diversity to the ecosystem by releasing a new genre of Web3 game
  • Growth in community through new players, cross-promotion with other ApeCoin games, and improved user retention

Marketing

  • Improve brand visibility and attract a wider audience
  • Extend ApeCoin to a new demographic of players
  • Use of ApeCoin mark

The Battle for Goblin Town is directly aligned with the APE Community’s vision to be the foundation of Web3 culture through gaming, arts, and entertainment. We designed a game that embodies Web3 culture by focusing on the following goals:

Engaging and Fun

  • The main motivation for developing The Battle for Goblin Town was to produce an entertaining, engaging, and social game. Never. Be. Bored.
  • We wanted to capture the same feeling that you get from playing any classic tabletop board game with your friends and family. A family that games together, stays together!
  • The core game loop is simple: Take over Goblin Town!
  • Players may accomplish this in many different ways, from forming alliances with their closest friends, negotiating trades with their neighbors, and taking calculated risks to expand your territory or destroy your enemies’ territories.

Innovation

  • On-chain gaming
    • NFT integration to provide true ownership of game assets
  • New gaming genre that combines strategy, social interaction, and “yield-farming”-style mechanisms

Play-to-Earn Mechanics

  • Collectors
    • Unique and various rarity NFT collections between Goblin Bosses and Screelings (see photos below)
  • Competitors
    • Establish prize pool to reward top players after each season
  • Opportunist
    • Players may take advantage of economic opportunities on secondary markets by landing rare Bosses and Screelings, or farming booster packs

KEY TERMS:

Launch

  • All voters who vote on this proposal will receive initial airdrop containing a Goblin Chest (at a rate of 1,000 votes to 1). Regarding the airdrop, the original holders will receive the crates, NOT the people they have delegated their ApeCoin to. To address this we will use the karma api to track delegates https://documenter.getpostman.com/view/26295147/2s93RTPrfg

  • Goblin Chests have four rarity tiers, each providing players with the necessary game pieces to establish their first settlement in Goblin Town. Higher tier crates are more than likely to contain a mix of rare Goblin Bosses, Screelings, and Action Cards.

https://goblin-town.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/goblin_chest_teaser.gif(image larger than 4 MB)

Four rarity tiers of Goblin Chests

Building

  • Players will select which location on the map they want to construct their first settlements (which will earn resources with varying yield from the neighboring tile) and roads (which expand the territory and allow new locations for settlements to be built)
  • Settlements acquire resources over time from the hex tiles that they are adjacent to
  • Hex resources include Brambles, Chickens, Kobold Koolaid, Scree Shards, and Devil Slime:

Resources from left to right: Brambles, Chickens, Kobold Koolaid, Scree Shards, and Devil Slime

  • Players may purchase additional settlements and roads using the resources they acquire
  • Players are also able to spend resources to upgrade their settlements to three different tiers (goblin huts, towns, and cities) for greater yield, attack, and defense ratings
  • Settlements may be attacked and destroyed by opposing players:

https://goblin-town.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/buildings_teaser.gif(image larger than 4 MB)

If your Settlement is on fire, that’s not good

Goblin Bands

  • Goblin Bosses
    • Scarce ERC721 NFT collection with procedural names, art, statistics, and rarity
    • Are used to organize Goblin Bands of various size and strength but cannot attack or die

Bosses are the elite-tier battle leader (analogous to Wolves in Wolf Game)

  • Screelings
    • ERC721 NFTs that also have procedural art and statistics
    • Used primarily in combat
    • Screelings burn upon being killed in battle

Screelings are cannon fodder, but don’t tell them that

  • Players assemble Bosses and Screelings into Goblin Bands
    • Goblin Bands are used to defend your settlements, attack enemy Bands and Settlements, and acquire Mystery Crates on the game board

Battles play out over time in “idle-fashion”, but your cards and strategies can tip the balance

  • Players can earn additional Goblin Bosses and Screelings by acquiring Goblin Chests
    • Goblin Chests can be found in Mystery Crates that appear randomly on the game board
    • Players may also purchase Goblin Chests on the secondary market

Booster Card Packs

  • Booster Card Packs include an assortment of playable Action Cards, Settlements, Roads, Bosses, and Screelings:

  • Action Cards can be played at any time to influence the outcome of events
  • Action Card categories include:Attack - damage an enemy goblin band in battle

Heal - restore your goblin band hit points

Organization - increase goblin band capacity

Speed - increase goblin band speed

Strength - upgrade your goblin band base damage

Repair - repair damaged settlements

Siege - attack enemy settlements

Leaderboards & Prize Winners

We’ll divide the prize pool into categories (that will be finalized before gameplay starts). The leaderboards will involve things like:

  • Winner Categories:
    • Longest Road
    • Most Settlements
    • Most Goblins
    • Top Holder of all Resources
    • Most Cards Cracked
    • Most Battles Won
    • Overall Points

SEASONS

Built on Seasons. Season One will last 90 days with two subsequent seasons following back to back (may need to build small window of time to allow for new feature development).

PLATFORMS & TECHNOLOGIES

Web3 Integration

  • An L2 (Arbitrum) will be used to reduce transaction fees and enhance transaction speed
  • L1 will only be used to let $APE holder buy crates. Crates will be auto-minted on L2 for anyone purchasing on L1 (i.e. the NFT will only exist on L2 even though they payment is made on L1).
  • ERC-721 contracts
    • Goblin Bosses (used to lead bands for battles)
    • Screelings (used as band members to give battles extra stats)
    • Crates (contain random items, such as bosses/screelings/cards)
  • ERC-1155 contract
    • Booster Cards
  • Gameplay contracts for the logic of
    • battling (calculating damage, burning fallen screelings)
    • managing bands (screelings can join and leave bands lead by bosses)
    • map layout (calculate information on our hexagon based map)
    • yield generation (different tiles can have different base yield, which is also effected by the nearby settlements’ health)
    • managing cards (these cards can be applied to units and settlements, effecting speed, hp, attack)
  • Our VRGDA based mechanic of in-game pricing (important for balancing the progress of players)
  • Frontend Web App is built using React and Next.js.
  • Backend that is used for hidden metadata (such as crates) is Node.js based

Security
Delegate - Lets users link cold wallets and hot wallets together onchain. They can keep assets in the cold wallet, and play the game from the hot wallet. Trusted by Yuga, Opensea, ArtBlocks and Manifold, this separation of asset ownership from asset utility removes the risk of nearly all phishing attacks.

STEPS TO IMPLEMENT & TIMELINE:

Current State of Game Development

  • Development has been continuous for the past 12 months at our own cost.
  • We are currently running an internal playable on Arbitrum Goerli focused on debugging, balancing the economy, and tweaking mechanics.
  • There will be work required for all $APE related integrations in smart contracts and UIs.

Timeline

  • Feature-complete and in a playable alpha (other than $APE integration) - On Approval
  • Second Alpha with bug fixes in T+30 days
  • $APE integrated in T+60 days
  • Launch and Airdrop window within T+ 60-120 days (est Dec 1st or Jan 1st)

OVERALL COST:

TOTAL: $2m (USD) in ApeCoin

  • 1.5m (USD) in ApeCoin
  • 500k (USD) in ApeCoin to be distributed as a prize pool across the first 3 seasons.

Appendix

Current Forgotten Runes // Yuga Collaborations

Magic Machine / Forgotten Runes already has multiple ties into the Yuga Ecosystem.

10ktf

FRWC is one of the original projects to be included into Neo-Tokyo

https://goblin-town.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/10ktf.png(image larger than 4 MB)

Legends of the Mara

FRWC is one of 4 Non-Yuga owned partner projects included in the highly anticipated game

All Game Art and Animation was produced by our friends at Pixel Shop

image

The Pixel Shop is an independent Art and Game Development Studio founded by @sumiez in 2022. The team is behind all of the art and animation art for Battle for Goblin Town. The Studio’s roots began by animating full NFT collections into pixel sprites to integrate in metaverse projects. Their portfolio of work includes Doodles, Meebits, Moonbirds, CyberBrokers, among others. The Pixel Shop continues to work towards introducing new Web3 utility and entertainment through professional quality pixel art.

DISCLAIMERS

MAGIC MACHINE CONTROL OF GAME RULES

All mechanics and rules above are proposed and aim to be accurate as of the current code. However, as he game progresses Magic Machine may, at its sole discretion change the rules and mechanics of the game.

REVENUE SHARING

Should this proposal pass, 15% of the mint and ongoing $APE revenue to the game will go to the Apecoin DAO, and another 15% of ApeCoin generated during mint and ongoing game revenue will be burned.

The implementation of this will aim to be on-chain, but will be subject to any necessary legal requirements including, but not limited to, the voted address passing the Chainanlysis oracle for U.S. Sanctions Screening and any other requirements imposed by the Apecoin DAO’s and Magic Machine’s legal council.

AIRDROP PARTICIPANTS

Apecoin voters who vote on this proposal will receive an airdrop, should the proposal pass. The wallets that vote on this proposal will receive 1 crate per 1,000 votes, after the vote passes and before the game launches. Some participants may not want to receive this airdrop because of tax or other obligations, so this airdrop will be opt-in.

Magic Machine has also committed to airdropping to it’s own holders in Forgotten Runes as well as participants from the 2022 “Halloween at the Nightmare Imp” event.

1 Crate = 1 playable peice, so we expect most users to start the game with several crates. We anticipate the total number of crates to be airdropped will be around 80,000, including all parties such as Apecoin, FRWC, and marketing.

SUNSETTING

If approved, this proposal provides prize-pool money for 3 seasons. We currently intend for the game to run a long time. If the game continues to profitable, Magic Machine is incentivized to hold future seasons. However, Magic Machine reserves the complete right to discontinue the game as they see fit for any reason.

6 Likes

Great team at Forgotten Runes and this game has serious potential based on what I’ve seen. Hope the DAO supports this AIP.

12 Likes

Here is the proper Notion Doc link. Trying to update prop but wont let me.

6 Likes

I really enjoy Forgotten Runes and their ability for delivering top-notch experiences. The Battle for Goblin Town has one talented team behind it!

The perks this project brings to the ApeCoin ecosystem are muy fuego. It’s not just about spicing up the gaming scene in ApeCoin; it’s also about bringing in new players and expanding our community. The idea of using $APE as the exclusive in-game token is spot on!

The Battle for Goblin Town is totally in tune with the APE community’s vision – it’s all about having a blast, engaging folks, and bringing the Web3 culture together. The play-to-earn mechanics, NFT integration, and gameplay elements show a commitment to these goals.

Your proposed timeline and roadmap make sense, and it’s great to see you fine-tuning the game.

I’m 100% on board with the APE-DAO considering this proposal. It’s got the potential to add a whole new, exciting layer to our ecosystem.

Surf the Kali Yuga! (https://youtu.be/uan5ApUZ-oE?list=LL&t=2047)

Cheers from Arizona,
Jensen

4 Likes

I really like the idea but can I ask you to say in more detail how the funds will be used? We are talking about a request of 2 million USD

6 Likes

Great Question. We can probably be more clear on this when the proposal goes up officially.
First thing is to separate the 1.5m from the 500k.

So for the 500k - Having a healthy prize pool is an important component to incentivize play. We are thinking that pool money will be spread across the first few seasons of the game.

As far as the 1.5m - It’s pretty straight forward and tbh not that big of a number. We have spent close to half that on developing the game. It is also a live service game that will have multiple seasons which will entail building out additional mechanics to keep the game fresh. A big chunk of the remainder will go towards covering those costs. Then you have the opportunity cost of our team bringing the game exclusively to ApeCoin which is substantial. What you have left is a fraction of the 1.5m on the table and that would be considered a very reasonable fee for creating the game top to bottom.

Hope this gives you some more clarity!

3 Likes

very excited for a FRWC x apecoin collab

2 Likes

there’s currently an AIP up to create our own L2 apechain. if this passes would you build it on that chain instead of arbitrum? or is arbitrum providing resources for the project as well?

4 Likes

Hi hi. I know we addressed on the spaces today but the short answer is we would love to take this to apechain but our main concern is timing. We foresee apechain launch timeline could be quite far out for mainnet to be live. Regardless we’re open but would love to launch the game sooner than later.

1 Like

I’ve heard a lot about forgotten Runes from people, and they enjoyed it.
I just watched the trailer and I believe this would be a very interesting game, it looks entertaining, hopefully it gets approved.

I don’t know about others but I would love to play… Keep building

3 Likes

Hi @bearsnake,

If you select the “three dots” at the bottom of your original post, then select the “pencil” icon, you should be able to edit your post as you see fit. Please reach out if you have any issues.

Hi @bearsnake,

Your topic would be moving to the AIP Draft phase in approximately 24 hours.

Are you content with the feedback received or do you wish to extend community discussion for another 7 days?

If we do not hear from you within 48 hours after your topic closes, your topic will be moved straight to the AIP Draft process.

We look forward to hearing from you.

-@Facilitators

This topic was automatically closed after 7 days. New replies are no longer allowed.

Hi @bearsnake,

Thank you for your ideas [and the ApeCoin DAO community for the insightful discussions].

A moderator will reach out to the author to finalize the AIP Draft using the appropriate template.

  • Once the AIP Draft is confirmed by the author and meets all DAO-approved guidelines, it will move forward for Administrative Review.
  • @bearsnake please see your messages for the next steps.

Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments. In accordance with DAO-approved guidelines, if the author does not respond within 30 days, the proposal will be automatically transferred to the Withdrawn category, and the author can re-submit the idea

-@Facilitators

3 Likes

Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,

@bearsnake has completed editing their AIP Idea to be their AIP Draft.

Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.

Kind Regards,

-@Facilitators

“Voters who vote YES will receive an airdrop of 1 crate per 1,000 votes and YES-voters receive 30% of the mint revenue, pending legal review”

Can’t tell if this is a joke or not and in what universe this is acceptable.

17 Likes

yeah they are basically buying votes. I don’t like.

the game itself is not my cup of tea and 2M USD is way too much imo. feels a bit like providing exit liquidity.

Rewards for voters is a serious proposition and rewarding voters is common in crypto, specifically in protocols like Curve.

Our original draft airdropped to all Apes, Mutants, and Kodas, but we were specifically advised to incentivize Apecoin holders directly. If voters are feeling altruistic we’re happy to discuss a wider airdrop.

In terms of the team, we’re well known for being not only ethical but also ship quality products for the last two years. I think a better word for our team here is strategic.

This game will be a quality sink for Apecoin and a lot of fun

3 Likes
  • 1.5m (USD) in ApeCoin

Would love to see some more clarity on the above, as it’s not clear to me what kind of costs this is covering.

I’d also like to leave a note that rewarding people to vote “YES” on this proposal is rubbing me the wrong way. I think the goal here should be to convince people of your product, not pulling in as many “YES” votes because you offer them a financial reward for doing so.

I’m supporting what you’re building though, I think it’s cool and we need to see more of this in the scene. Especially with ties to Apecoin. I think this is very important for the future and I’m looking forward to see where this goes!

3 Likes