Orbiter 8: Launch Demo 3 on Harmony

[zaskoda]

Name of Project / DAO / Company

Orbiter 8 by Partavate Studios

Application type

Launches

Proposal overview

Partavate Studios is crafting a unique decentralized game, Orbiter 8. In Janurary 2022, we released a feature rich milestone demo of Orbiter 8 to four networks. We propose porting Orbiter 8 Demo 3 to the Harmony One network.

Demo 3 Features:

• Massively Multiplayer On-Chain Virtual World: Our world dynamically generates as gamers move to the edge of the map. Their turns pay for world creation, democratizing the cost of world generation.

• New Galactic Trade System: Move between space ports trading goods to earn in game currency that can be used to upgrade your ships and planets.
  

• New Galactic Chat: Use the networks broadcast mechanism to send in-game chat messages to other users anywhere in the galaxy.
  

• New Upgrade Systems: Orbiter 8 spacecrafts can now be upgraded with new holds. Planets can be upgraded to add space stations.
  

• Earn Passive Revenue: Earn passive credits while you’re offline as gamers trade at your space port.

• Unstoppable code: We embrace the idea of “unstoppable code.” Orbiter 8 requires no centralized services, thus it should still be playable in thousands of years, so long as the network is up and running.

• Play On The Go: Play Orbiter 8 on your portable device thanks to the new mobile-friend UI design.
  

• Trade Tokenized Assets: Ships and planets are ERC721 non-fungible tokens with all relevant meta data stored on-chain. Orbiter 8’s in-game currency is an ERC20 token. All tokens can be traded on open exchanges.
  

• Network Mobility: Play across a variety of EVM compatible netowrks, hopefully soon to include Harmony!

What stage of the product or idea are you (and your team) at?

“Demo 3” - our third of our four planned public milestone demos - is complete, public facing, and can be played today on any of the 4 networks we currently support.

Is it live on Harmony and/or another chain?

Demo 3 is running on Ethereum’s Rinkeby and Ropsten test networks as well as Polygon’s Mumbai network and Binance’s test network.

Demo 3 is not currently available on Harmony.

How many active users do you currently have, or aim to acquire?

We current have around 40+ registered gamer avatars and and 58 members in our Discord. We would like to see 100+ users when we release Demo 3 on Harmomy.

How much funding do you need?

We are initially applying for $20k in grants:

• $10k to release Demo 3 with all features to Harmony test net
• $10k to audit our contracts and release Demo 3 to Harmony Main

(note: Demo 3 is a stand alone release and we can not guarantee that assets will be transferable to future demo releases)

What are your milestones?

1: Update Orbiter 8 client to be Harmony Aware
2: Release Orbiter 8 Demo 3 contracts to Harmony Test Net
3: Have Orbiter 8 contracts audited by 3rd party
4: Address any audit concerns
5: Release Demo 3 to Harmony Main Net

What help do you need, or what gaps are there in your team?

To release Demo 3, we have all of the talent we need.

Support in raising awareness of Demo 3 through community promotion would be very valuable to us.

Team

Scott Dudley aka Koda
Game Designer, Software Engineer & Community Builder
Extensive professional game industry experience at

• Gearbox Software
• Realtime Worlds
• Gaiam

Koda’s LinkedIn
Koda’s Moby Games Profile
Koda’s GitHub

Arthur Kepler
Software and Production Engineer and DevOps

• Facebook / Meta
• Navigating Cancer
• Realtime Worlds

Arthur’s LinkedIn
Arthur’s GithHub

Sean Patchen
Process Automation Specialist and Finance

• Prosper Spark
• Card Kingdom

Sean’s LinkedIn

Metrics for Success

We hope to achieve a minimum of 100 players on Harmony’s test network. Our goal is to provide users with an enjoyable gaming experience. While Orbiter 8 has earning potential due to tokenized assets, we consider providing our users with fun and joy to be our primary metrics for success.

External links

Website: orbiter8.com
Demo: Orbiter8: A decentralized space trading game.
Demo 3 Game Trailer: Orbiter 8 Demo 3 Trailer - YouTube
Demo 3 Tutorial: Orbiter 8 Demo 3 Tutorial - YouTube
Twitter: twitter.com/orbiter8game

[AKExcalibur]

I can’t help but think with the James Webb Space Telescope, a new wave of enthusiasm for space and space games is on the horizon. Certain the adventures of SpaceX, et. al. will add to this cultural excitement.

Tying this back to Harmony, the very fast transaction times will be a big win for Orbiter8’s player experience.

[mikemorgan]

I’m so stoked to see this! I’m such a huge fan of Orbiter8 and Partavate. This is going to be a MAJOR boon to the Harmony network, and provide such cool interaction points for people involved with ONE. I legitimately see this being one of the nearest and best user engagement/utility environments with Harmony

[papi]

Hey Team - you mention Polygon and Harmony, what are the other 2 networks you support?

Also, what’s your plan for community building on Harmony and how will you split your time between Harmony, the other 3 networks, such that the Harmony instance doesn’t get ignored and you can still focus on player acquisition and growth?

My concern is that you’ll launch, then focus on other networks, and your app becomes a ghost app.

[zaskoda]

Thanks for your question papi!

Polygon and Harmony, what are the other 2 networks you support?

Since submitting our grant proposal, we have launched to some additional platforms. Demo 3 is currently running on the following test networks:

• Ethereum’s Rinkeby, Ropsten, and Kovan
• Polygon Mumbai
• Binance
• Harmony One
• Arbitrum
• Moonbase (and Moonriver)

Feel free to give any of them try.

Also, what’s your plan for community building on Harmony and how will you split your time between Harmony, the other 3 networks, such that the Harmony instance doesn’t get ignored and you can still focus on player acquisition and growth?

This is a fair question. We want to offer our gamers the best overall experience we can craft. We’ve designed Orbiter 8 such that all game play happens on-chain, so low fees and fast transactions have a significant impact on the quality of the game experience. Harmony provides some of the fastest transaction times we’ve seen thus far, and we think the our community will enjoy playing on your network. If Harmony continues to build a best in class platform, we believe our gamers will continue to demand that we support it.

The Orbiter 8 game client is completely portable and doesn’t require a web server. It can be run off a USB stick or from IPFS. This is part of our commitment to unstoppable code. We want to ensure Orbiter 8 can be played a thousand years from now. However, we do have big plans to augment the functionality of Orbiter 8 using centralized Web 2 services. More specifically, we are building a community portal that will will make it easier to onboard new users and provide additional features that will not appear in the portable game client such as leader boards and achievements.

Many of these features will only be available for select networks. Part of the Web 2 infrastructure for our community portal will include hosting our own RPC nodes for key networks to help provide a solid, reliable interface. In gratitude for their generous grant, we are committed to supporting Polygon and intend to offer that same support to other networks that choose to support us.

Additionally, we intend to explore and implement various bridging solutions. The most simple example will be bridges to allow users to transfer the ERC20 in-game credits between networks. We are also exploring the possibility of bridging our ERC721 ships and allowing the user to travel to other “dimensions” which are effectively other networks. These features are still in early R&D so we’re hesitant to commit to specific implementations.

We view the wide variety of EVM compliant networks a lot like the variety of gaming consoles on the market today. You can often play your favorite game on a variety of consoles with some minor alterations to the experience between them. This is the conceptual model we are following for Orbiter 8.

The gaming market can generally only support a limited number of console systems. Likewise, we believe that the L2 space will eventually draw down to a limited number of networks. While console system stats are important, most gaming systems win or lose market share based on the library of content available to their users. This is why companies like Microsoft and Sony pay a premium to ensure exclusive content. We believe that our best chance at overall success for Orbiter 8 is by aligning with networks interested in mutual support and collaboration and we hope that Harmony will be one of those networks.

[papi]

Thanks for your answer.

Is Orbiter 8 being tracked on DappRadar currently? If not, would be great to see how it’s performing on the other chains.

Dappradar.

We’ll get back to you on an answer soon. Thank you.

[Pioneer]

Very neat approach to gamefi, haven’t seen text-based space exploration with a minimal UI on Harmony. Are there player earning mechanics? Any WP available? Also, I looked at the Discord and Reddit accounts, it seems that the playerbase/ community is non-existent even though you’ve been developing and releasing content cross-chain. Do you have a timeline or dedicated staff to grow the community?

[zaskoda]

Is Orbiter 8 being tracked on DappRadar currently?

Not to my knowledge. As I understand it, DappRadar only tracks mainnets. We have only deployed to testnets.

Very neat approach to gamefi, haven’t seen text-based space exploration with a minimal UI on Harmony.

Because of our approach, the game is client agnostic. This means anyone could build a different interface for the game. We consider the UI we’re building now to be the “reference client” and intend to open source it so that others can build unique interfaces to the game. Our long term vision includes building an Unreal or Unity based client as well. But if someone can build a better client, they’re welcome to do so. They’re even welcome to market and sell it.

Are there player earning mechanics?

Yes, but these mechanics are emergent. Many Play-to-Earn games focus on economics that reward players financially for playing. These games, often times, are not fun. We’re building Orbiter 8 to be fun. It just so happens that, because our in-game currency is an ERC20 token, you actually can play to earn. In the current release, you can build a space port on your planet and earn passive credits when other players trade there. Even better, since the planet itself is an ERC721 NFT, you can trade it on open market places.

We’re not building Orbiter 8 to be an investment vehicle. Rather we’re building a cool game and connecting it to the world of DeFi, allowing open market dynamics to happen. Playing may be profitable. then again, it might not be profitable. But we DO expect it to be fun.

Any WP available?

Sorry, there is no white paper. We are not offering any token sales. And our design docs are still internal.

Also, I looked at the Discord and Reddit accounts, it seems that the playerbase/ community is non-existent even though you’ve been developing and releasing content cross-chain.

Yes, it’s quiet out there right now. This has been intentional. I’ll share the numbers:

Our Orbiter 8 twitter currently has a mere 98 followers.
The Discord channel hosts only 64 members.
And our newsletter also has 64 subscribers.

Have you ever been to Alaska? Everything there is huge. The mountains - huge. The rivers - huge. The trees - also huge. But have you built a fire there? If you build a fire in Alaska, you’ll find that it takes an enormous amount of wood to keep the fire going all night. This is because Alaska has a short growing season in the summer and those GIANT trees have to grow very very fast during the limited time of year when growing is optimal. Meanwhile, if you go to Texas and build a fire using oak, which grows rather slowly, those logs will burn for a long long time. The lesson here is that things that grow fast also burn up fast. We aim to grow slowly, consistently, and to burn bright for a long long time.

Many game projects in this space release early content, build hype, sell a bunch of assets, and then fail to deliver an enjoyable gaming experience - if they manage to release a game at all. Rather than promise the moon and deliver nothing, we’ve been focused on building the game first. At our current stage, our community building efforts have only focused on establishing a presence on various platforms and building a core group of supporters.

Do you have a timeline or dedicated staff to grow the community?

Demo 3 is the third of four planned demos on the roadmap to an MVP. Demo 4 will probably take another year or so to complete. It involves a significant refactor of existing code plus the addition of long list of new features. Since the next release will be an MVP, we are increasing our focus on community building and are actively engaged in recruiting a dedicated community liason right now. There’s an interview on the calendar tomorrow, actually.

[papi]

Hey team - I’m at an offsite this week so, wanted to give you a quick update so you know I’m not ghosting you. I’ll be sure to review next week when i’m back.

[Pioneer]

Hi team,

Great response! With all of this being said I would recommend drafting a WP that goes over your game mechanics, vision, Roadmap, Tokenomics (you mentioned an ERC20), and goals. Maybe even an intro on your team.

[Mattyontap]

Hey @zaskoda, thank you for sharing your proposal with us. I want to provide you with an update on our grants program. The text below is a copy/paste, but I am sending it with the same TLC that I would send any personalized message with. I care about your game and simply want to see you succeed.

As you may be aware, all funding for grants and investments are on hold. I would like to invite you to join our discussion here so that you can be fully informed and stay in the loop as things unfold.

That said, I want to encourage you to continue building. Our goal is clear: to make Harmony the leader in gaming and to make it as easy as possible for you to build, launch, and find success with your game. Most importantly, we care about the relationship we can build together. Please reach out to me on Telegram so we can make this happen. As you build, you still have access to our team for technical support. As you launch on mainnet and gain user traction, there are many ways a partnership with Harmony can lead to great things - even without funding.

Today, we released this video to highlight the many features that makes Harmony a great place for web3 gaming:

Introducing: Harmony’s Game Shard - The Perfect Home For Web3 Games

Thank you for considering Harmony as the home for your game launch. I look forward to cheering you on and am here to assist you in any way I can.

Matty