AIP-78: Ape Worlds - Create Ape-themed games on the blockchain, no code required

fridayyy · July 1, 2022, 12:11am

Ape Worlds is a no-code game experience using the Vy Worlds engine. In Ape Worlds, any BAYC fan can take Ape-themed game-building blocks and create their own games.

This would allow millions of fans to create and play games together in the BAYC universe and use ApeCoin as the currency of choice for Ape Worlds.

Motivation & Rationale - Why is this a good idea the ApeCoin DAO?

Ape Worlds would get millions of people into the Ape ecosystem and would empower anyone with an internet connection to make their own Ape-themed world, no coding skills required. We believe Ape Worlds could make a big impact for the ApeCoin DAO, including:

Expected impact

REACH: 1m wallets connected to the game to earn an Ape World NFT content via Create-to-earn and P2E challenges. Additional details on reach in the FAQ at the end of the proposal.
APECOIN UTILITY: Tens of thousands of Ape World NFT will be minted and traded using ApeCoin as the medium of exchange for NFT game asset and NFT games created by the community.
ENGAGEMENT: Tens of thousands of games created and minted by the community.
FREE STUFF: All ApeCoin holders get access to airdrops during alpha.
PLAY & EARN: Closer to launch, we will request an additional $APE allocation of tokens to gift engaged players via our Play & Earn systems (more details below in Background #5)
REACH: 10m views for the Ape Worlds trailer.

Background Materials

The game
The engine
The Characters
Tokens for Testers and Ape World Builders
Key Terms

#1 The Games

Currently, the games are Fall-Guys inspired and include racing games, score-based games, and eliminations games. In July, we are releasing our first 3rd person shooter game type and will release new game types regularly.

#2 The Game Builder

Our no-code game engine is easy enough that anyone can build a game. You can run around and click on anything to move it around and create your own games.

#3 The characters

The characters in Ape Worlds games would be vinyl toys that are based on a few Apes that we could work out a licensing deal with. See examples below.

If there are BAYC holders interested in licensing their Ape for a drop, please tweet at @PlayVyWorlds with a pic of your Ape. We want to talk with you!

#4 $APE Tokens for Testers and Ape World Builders
We are planning on reserving 5% (50,000 $APE) of the requested $APE tokens to make available to ApeCoin DAO members who help with testing and building the UGC games that are featured on the platform.

Creating a polished game experience is a massive undertaking and we want to make sure that members who step up to build the initial games and help with test can be fairly compensated. These tokens ensure we have support during development and 6 months post launch.

#5 Key Terms

UGC: user-generated content, in our case user-generated games, made by the community.
Game Types: game modes developed for the platform. These are the underlying rules that govern how games work.
Game Blocks: in-game assets that are assembled on the play space to make the games. These assets can be off chain or have rarer game blocks on-chain as NFT.
Vinyl, digital vinyl toy, Vy: terms for playable characters on the platform.

The Team behind the proposal (Knock Knock Games)

Logo - Medium

Ape Worlds would be developed using the Vy Worlds engine. Vy Worlds is backed by Knock Knock Games, an SF-based gaming startup founded by former Zynga, EA, Gameloft, and Jam City folks who have shipped games with over 100m installs and $500m in revenue.

About the Knock Knock founding team

Andrew Friday, CEO: former product leader at Zynga, Glu, and serial entrepreneur. Launched 6 Instant Games at Zynga, resulting in >100m installs. Crypto investor since 2016.

Sean “Smasher” Maher, CTO: Dir Eng at Jam City including, lead engineer for Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. Also led eng teams on Family Guy, Marvel, and was the eng lead for the Griffin game engine.

James Boyle, VP product: VP Product at Jam City. Ran Family Guy: Quest for Stuff, oversaw development of first Harry Potter mobile game. Under his and Sean’s leadership, these games earned over $400m in total lifetime revenue.

Specification Notes

Our engine runs natively on the web, so anyone can play the game directly via a link shared on social or your website. You can even embed the game on your website.
All of the characters and game-building blocks will be run in the Vy Worlds engine. We have a working alpha that the community can play at Play.VyWorlds.com .
Ape Worlds will work with Metamask on the ETH network, no network switching required to play. Minting of NFT assets based on in-game actions would take place on L2 via ImmutableX gas free.
- Any Metamask wallet will be able to play the game and mint free NFT they won in-game by connecting their wallet to Immutable. This requires no special wallet or side chain.
- Using the ApeCoin token: Immutable X now supports $APE, so the Ape Worlds marketplace can also support $APE.

Steps to Implement & Timeline

Below is the roadmap to develop Ape Worlds. You can read through our roadmap overview deck that has additional details here.

Alpha for BAYC/MAYC holders (12 weeks to release to Alpha players)

Concept and create hundreds of 3D game building blocks and characters that are BAYC-themed.
Release custom Ape-themed lobby to hang out in between games.
Develop team mode to unlock team-based battles; let’s see some Apes battle apes !
Launch the Ape Worlds project homepage.
Write and animate a series of marketing shorts. Check out this example trailer we dropped a few months ago!

Beta for all Ape Coin holders (4 weeks)

Release v1 of P2E, exclusively for the ApeCoin beta testers to start earning collectible Ape-themed NFT to customize their games!
Release trailers to drum up support for the worldwide launch.

Worldwide Launch (8 weeks prep before WWL)

Ship game minting: creators can mint and sell their BAYC games and sell them in the ApeCoin store.
Build out event systems and prep for play-to-mint events for the WWL.
Ape World Shop & Marketplace: players can mint/buy/sell Ape-themed game blocks and characters using ApeCoin.
Time for testing, QA, and polish.

Live-ops (6+ months)

Release new game modes.
Continue to run game events on a monthly basis for ongoing engagement and growth.
Iterate on making the platform better and reaching more players.

Cost

The current iteration of this proposal has the entire Knock Knock Games team, plus additional artist, animators, designers, and engineers (via hiring or outsourcing) directly working on this project for 6 months to get to worldwide launch, then supporting the Ape Worlds ecosystem over the long-term.

We are requesting 1 million $APE tokens to fund the development and marketing of the product. This is a big ask, but creating a game with a team of 10+ professionals is expensive.

Long-term, we will sustain the Ape Worlds ecosystem by taking a 5% fee on Ape Worlds NFT bought and sold and with additional NFT sales if there is interest from the community.

Token allocation timeline

Project kickoff: 25%
Ship alpha: 25%
Ship beta: 25%
Post WWL (monthly 6 months): 25%

Milestone completion requests will be submitted by the Knock Knock Games team to the ApeCoin Foundation for review before the token allocation are released.

Conclusion

Ape Worlds will empower millions of people to play community-created BAYC-themed games on the blockchain, no code required. This is a big vision and has a team of veteran game developers behind it.

Our team recently joined the ApeCoin DAO and are excited to discuss this with the community!

F.A.Q. ~ BONUS MATERIAL

Is millions of players a realistic goal? How do you expect to hit these kinds of numbers?

Our team has shipped multiple games in the past with millions of installs.
We believe that with the ApeCoin DAO behind the project, and play-to-mint events for players to unlock Ape themed NFT, we can hit those numbers in a few months.
According to our server tests, the Vy Worlds platform can currently handle 100k DAU. Our minting service supports in-game minting and can currently mint 2 NFT per second in-game, with room to expand the output via batching if we believe we need more output.

How would the tester $APE be distributed to testers and builders?
This would happen in the Ape Worlds Discord over approximately 9-12 months during the Alpha, Beta, and WWL phases. Only ApeCoin DAO members would have access to testing and game building contests.

For game building prizes, we currently run multiple game building contests every month for Vy Worlds. We would run similar contests with ApeCoin DAO members.

Testers would get tokens similar to mods. Members who stand out as helpful and want a position could get promoted for a monthly stipend and would have a set of expectations they’d need to mint including: testing the game, reviewing UGC games, supporting member’s questions, and more.

How do I license my Ape to Ape Worlds?
Reach out to @PlayVyWorlds on Twitter and start a conversation. We are exploring a variety of deals, as this is uncharted territory. We would like to license 10-20 Ape and are open to working with entrepreneurial BAYC holders to make a playable vinyl Ape sale a big success.

Where can I learn more about Vy Worlds?
You can also join our Discord here, or play the game at VyWorlds.com. Our whitepaper has additional details.

NoAutoPilot · July 1, 2022, 4:14am

Hey everyone,

My name is NoAutoPilot and I’m the Community Manager for Knock Knock Games. I’d love to answer any questions the community may have about our proposal. Let me know!

Thank you,

ASEC · July 1, 2022, 8:17am

Is there any stats on how such platforms popular? At the moment I would prefer one high quality and deep game instead of the engine.

fridayyy · July 1, 2022, 6:38pm

Here are a few stats on popularity of similar games such as ROBLOX and Fall Guys

ROBLOX’s DAU in July of 2021 was 46 million (Roblox - Roblox Reports August 2021 Key Metrics).
Fall Guys had 20m players as of June of 2022 (Fall Guys - Wikipedia)

Regarding engine vs game question:

I would say the Vy Worlds engine is offering is a game platform where anyone can make a game via the no-code tools (vs it being a serious game engine that only a few very technical people can make something fun).

fridayyy · July 1, 2022, 10:57pm

One more quick update. It looks like $APE actually works on Immutable already. Here is a screenshot of the Immutable store with items for sale in $APE.

We can mark that off of our list of technical risks .

0xSword · July 3, 2022, 12:12am

I spent some time playing the Vy Worlds alpha at the above link. I thought it was really fun & enjoyed the different game modes offered. Using the IP from certain BAYC members for creating ingame avatars seems like a good way to push the larger BAYC brand forward. So I like this!

I like that games can be created by users. That concept has been made really popular as a way for creators to make a living online in metaverse-type worlds & I think the market will see a lot of growth.

From a DAO perspective, we have several million Apecoin that can be alloted to games this year. One area of concern is allotting a large amt of tokens at once can result in them being dumped on the market. This could be made more appealing if tokens were paid out on a schedule.

fridayyy · July 4, 2022, 6:49pm

Thanks 0xSword for the positive feedback & bringing up this concern.

Working with ApeCoin is a big opportunity and a long-term play on our end. I think allocating tokens on a schedule makes a lot of sense. The next iteration of the proposal will include this.

Here are two ways we could go:

Allocate tokens monthly over a 6-9 month period for launching and supporting the platform.
Allocate grants paid out by milestone: project kickoff, ship closed alpha, ship open beta, support post launch.

Either of these would work on our end. Having a small lump at the beginning would be preferable on our end, as it would give us a budget for additional art and eng resources that we’d need at project kickoff.

sand · July 5, 2022, 7:27pm

Will this be solely browser-based? Is there any plans for a mobile app or to make the game a hybrid like Roblox?

fridayyy · July 6, 2022, 4:27am

The game currently works on mobile via web, but we do have an official mobile app on the project roadmap. On our end, creating a mobile app on iOS/Android isn’t technically difficult.

Our primary worry is getting approved by the platforms. Other games have been able to gain approval, so we believe it will be possible if we jump through the appropriate hoops.

sand · July 6, 2022, 1:59pm

Where can I find the roadmap

0xSword · July 6, 2022, 3:04pm

Knock Knock Games has scheduled a Twitter Spaces tomorrow @ 7pm PST to discuss their grant proposal. I’ll be on stage to ask a few questions about their team’s background, plans for funds, & roadmap.

Their official Twitter account is https://twitter.com/PlayVyWorlds and i’ll also tweet the space out. Lets get some eyes on this, it’s important that the DAO begins offering grants to creators of great games!

wAPEd · July 6, 2022, 3:57pm

I tested Play.VyWorlds.com and it looks like a low effort copy of Fall Guys. It freezes all the time and looks just ugly, don’t think that we need to associate our brand with a low-quality copy.

NoAutoPilot · July 6, 2022, 6:31pm

Hey @ASEC, great question thx. I see our Founder @fridayyy shared a reply below, and I wanted to add a few thoughts.

User-generated content has exploded over the past few years - eg. Minecraft or Roblox. What’s special about these games, is it gives the player the ability to create games or experiences, that they can then share with their community and monetize.

The Vy Worlds engine would be similar in function, where it would provide the best tools for Web3 builders to make games. Builders would create games or experiences that they own, as NFTs, that players play, because they’re fun, and that drives ongoing revenue into the project, to develop and launch even more builder tools. It’s a pretty virtuous cycle of creation - earning - development - repeat.

NoAutoPilot · July 6, 2022, 6:33pm

Hey @sand here’s a link to our whitepaper where our WIP roadmap is listed. Happy to answer any questions you may have. Thx!

Link - Vy Worlds Overview - Vy Whitepaper

Hey, @wAPEd I appreciate the honest feedback, thank you. Our project is still in alpha, so what you see should be taken with that in mind. I also feel really great about what our team has done, in launching a Web3 game. Most P2E projects are vague whitepapers and stretched-out launch dates like 2024 / 2025. I think our approach here was a minimum viable product, to prove the market fit. And then from there, prioritize and improve.

Our gameplay numbers have shown that we’re onto something really special. Over 8k connected wallets, nearly 50k games played, and ~4k community-created maps exported.

So, I think all in all, we’re super early on an idea that seems to have gained some traction.

Pearson · July 7, 2022, 2:08am

Hi @fridayyy,

Your topic will be automatically closing in less than 24 hours. Are you content with the feedback received, or do you wish to extend community discussion for a further 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.

-Pearson

octo44 · July 7, 2022, 4:42pm

Yeah, it looks like Fall Guys. Original idea is crucial for this kind of collab

fridayyy · July 7, 2022, 8:00pm

Hi Pearson, we have an AMA to discuss the proposal in a few hours (Thursday 7pm PST) with 0xSword. After that, we will make a final decision about moving forward and making any edits. Could you extend it for 1 additional day?

If anyone wants to join the AMA and discuss the proposal, here is a link:
https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1ypKdEgmdOnGW

I hope to see you all there!

Pearson · July 7, 2022, 11:58pm

Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,

@fridayyy has requested to extend the community discussion period for this AIP idea. This topic will automatically close a further 1 day from now.

We encourage the community to continue to engage in thoughtful discussions through constructive criticism, honest feedback, and helpful suggestions. Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.