Name of Project / DAO / Company
Zitherin
Application type
Product Launch
Proposal overview
Zitherin is a cross chain, novel, retro, NFT-based D&D style game. All token data for the game is stored completely on-chain - there are no pointers to IPFS or any other web resource. Each NFT used in the game will have attributes that can be traded with other players, without trading the entire token.
The artwork is all pixel art, fitting with the retro theme.
Phase 1: Generation 1 Heroes
Each player will be able to mint a generation 1 hero. At mint time, the characteristics of each hero are randomly generated and displayed on the portrait; characteristics such as gender, skin tone, hair style, etc. All generation 1 heroes are minted with the same baseline of hit points and mana pools.
Where Zitherin begins to be unique, is that every attribute of the NFTs are tradable. Zitherin includes an initial web-based marketplace, allowing players to price the attributes on their heroes, and trade these attributes with other players.
At the end of Phase 1, a player will be able to use a web app to mint a hero, view their heroes in the browser, set prices on the attributes of their heroes, and trade attributes with other players of the game.
Deliverables for Phase 1 include:
- ERC721 contract and supporting contracts for generating heroes
- A webapp allowing players to mint and view their heroes, as well as price and trade the attributes of their heroes.
Phase 2: Equipment
Beyond minting heroes, players will be able to mint different sets of equipment. Each bag of equipment minted will contain a variety of items; items such as weapons, shields, rings, armor, etc. The items will be randomly generated at mint time and range in rarity - common, rare, epic, legendary. Each bag of equipment will be a single NFT.
Consistent with the “everything is tradable” theme of Zitherin, individual pieces of gear will be able to be traded with other players, using the same market place as previously mentioned. Players will be able to build gear sets unique to a variety of heroes.
Deliverables for phase 2 include:
- ERC721 contract and supporting contracts for generating equipment
- Updates to the web app allowing players to mint and view their equipment, as well as price and trade their equipment
Phase 3: Equip gear, in-game tokens
Phase 3 aims to make the gear from Phase 2 equip-able to a specific hero. When a player equips their gear, they will see their heroes portrait updated, reflecting the newly equipped gear.
The game will require several game-specific tokens. Phase 3 includes creating and deploying these tokens. They will not yet be usable (coming in Phase 4). The tokens to be used include:
- In-game currency
- Crafting materials
- There will be 2 different types of crafting materials in the game
Deliverables for phase 3 include:
- Updates to the Heroes and Equipment contracts to allow for assigning specific sets of equipment to specific heroes.
- Equipment may not be equipped by more than one hero at a time
- 3 ERC20 contracts:
- In-game currency
- Crafting material 1 (common material)
- Crafting material 2 (rare material)
Phase 4: Encounters
Phase 3 is where the game gets exciting.Encounters will be similar to dungeons in games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest, Rift, etc. Each encounter will contain:
- One or more minor bosses
- A single, primary boss encounter
- Random amount of treasure awarded to the player
Once a player has equipped one of their heroes with a set of gear, that hero is ready to be sent into an encounter. Some encounters are single use - they can only be ran a single time - while others are multi-use; allowing players to experience an encounter, trade them, and grow their collection.
Encounters are not without risk! Heroes may lose hit points during an encounter. Should a heroes hit points reach zero, that hero will need to be resurrected before they can be used any further.
Boss strength and difficulty are determined at mint time, as are treasure rewards. After successfully completing the encounter, the player is rewarded with a bounty of treasure. Treasure can contain in-game currency, crafting materials, equipment, or even heroes. Most treasure will contain in-game currency, and some crafting materials. Contents of treasure are randomly generated at runtime; for multi-use encounters the rewards will be different each time a hero is sent into the encounter.
Deliverables for phase 4 include:
- Updates to Heroes and Equipment contracts to support Encounters
- ERC721 contract and supporting contracts for Encounters
Future Phases
The work as outlined above will take several months to complete. However, the roadmap for Zitherin is long, and quite interesting. Some of the things in mind for far-future work include:
- Crafting - use those crafting supplies!
- Recipes will be new tokens, able to burn crafting supplies and mint new equipment
- Group Encounters - play with your friends/send multiple heroes. The more heroes, the bigger the rewards (and the risk!)
- Additional generations of heroes - burn generation 1 heros to raise generation 2 heros.
- Cross-chain gameplay. Zitherin is built with cross-chain play in mind. This opens the door for fun events and more, such as:
- Chain-specific encounters, gear, bonuses
- World wide contests - pit chain against chain
- Specialized group encounters requiring heroes and equipment from different chains
Current stage of development
Zitherin is in Phase 1 right now. The contracts are being written, and artwork is complete.
Team
Right now the team consists of myself as the primary developer.
I’ve been writing software for over 15 years, and have been building blockchain apps on the side for nearly 10 years; apps from arbitrage bots on centralized exchanges, to games of chance, and mining pool software.
I prototyped the NFT with tradable attributes, completely on chain, as an experiment. Now I’m thrilled to bring the concept to life in an actual game.
You can reach me on Discord at auggyauggy#1844
Proposal ask
$50k, assistance with marketing and community building
Justification
Right now, this project is being developed by a solo developer (me). I’m working on this afterhours. I’ve built the prototype for the NFT with tradable attributes, as well as most of Phase 1, on my nights and weekends. In order to maintain a high quality product, with readable code, producing as few errors as possible, I need additional developers.
The game also needs art. So far, I’ve been paying the artist out of pocket to produce the artwork for the heroes. I’d like to ensure that a high quality graphical product continues to be produced, to match the high quality software.
In addition, I need help with marketing and community building. I’ve been a software developer all of my career, and marketing is not something that comes naturally to me. I’m hoping to lean on the existing Harmony community for assistance with this as well.
Metrics for success
10k players
$1million in total volume
I’ll drop updates in this thread as they’re ready