Funding request for Grid Gladiator V1

Author: Zygo (#4743) Quorum requirement: 20% (9M) Vote duration: 14 days Link to Discord thread: https://discord.com/channels/732491344970383370/1277791549505273947

Summary

This proposal is for funding another phase of development for Grid Gladiator, a roguelike deck-building grid-based battler based on the assets & lore of the Gotchiverse. Play the (DAO-funded) demo on Itch.io here: https://zygoth.itch.io/grid-gladiator .

The long-term goals of the project are:

#1 Create a great roguelike deck-builder, in order to #2 increase the exposure of crypto-agnostic & crypto-ignorant gamers to the Aavegotchi ecosystem and #3 provide a long-term income stream to the DAO of both cash and new users to the ecosystem

Grid Gladiator is targeted towards people who don’t know about Aavegotchi yet and maybe don’t even have a crypto wallet. Rather than try to monetize the (currently) small number of people that both own Aavegotchi assets and want to play minigames with them, this project is designed to appeal to the wider gaming audience and expose them to the Aavegotchi ecosystem and community. Systems within the game and the Grid Gladiator discord server will incentivize players to engage with GHST, the Aavegotchi community, and its games, particularly the Gotchiverse. (See the expanded community meta-progression system section in the design doc here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nBfL2-QKX6tOcclyTZ63pF90lALQ7ZCQU2h1jlniBHI/edit?usp=sharing)

I am asking for $62,000 worth of DAI to fund the development and marketing of the game for a V1 release on Steam in 12 months, plus an Android release soon after. This is planned to be the last proposal for funding; after release, development will be funded by the game’s monetization system. The game will start making income for the DAO even during the first year of development, with an estimated break-even point of 4-5 years.

Timeline (12 months)

October-January Milestones:

Create Discord voting/proposal system & schedule for the whole year (1 month)
Post Steam store page & demo to begin collecting wishlists (1 week)
Add cross-promotion link within Spellstrife to wishlist Grid Gladiator (1 day)
Improved enemy pathfinding (½ week)
3 act structure with 3 bosses (2 weeks)
More & improved enemies for south beach biome (2 weeks)
Relics system & starting amount of relics [5 boss 15 normal] (3 weeks)
Battlefield Map system (2 weeks)

February-April Milestones

Terrain system (1 week)
44 cards for Radar Gotchi, bringing total to 75 (3 weeks)
2 new biomes (2 weeks)
6 new bosses (2 weeks)
New enemies for the new biomes (3 weeks)

May-JulyMilestones

Overworld Map system (3 weeks)
2nd playable character, set determined by Discord vote (1 week)
75 cards for new character (4 weeks)
Expanded CMP system (2 weeks)
Pay for gameplay trailer creation, update store page assets (1 week)
Participate in June Steam Next Fest (1 week)

August-September Milestones

Implement the community’s character & cards (1 month)
Sponsor at least 5 streamers to play the game on stream (1 week)
Bug-fixing, balancing, polish, testing (3 weeks)
Steam release!

Key performance indicators

Before release:

Steam wishlists
Steam demo plays, and average playtime
Itch.io beta version daily plays & donations

After release:

Steam unique & daily players
Donations
CMP tasks completed, especially trying out Gotchiverse and joining Aavegotchi discord
GHST used in community development system
Grid Gladiator discord # of members

Effect

See below for the simplified funds breakdown and payment milestones. Detailed funds breakdown here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fp98Iy3vL8_KHgMB9JfGVNbsPnSZIe7At9CxUFcs32E/edit

Funds

Artwork $8,000

Music $4,000

SFX $2,000

Programming $42,000

Marketing $6000

Payment milestones

Initial Payment (just after core prop succeeds) $14,000 Milestone 1 (February 1, 2025) $12,000 Milestone 2 (May 1, 2025) $12,000 Milestone 3 (August 1, 2025) $12,000 Milestone 4 (October 1, 2025) $12,000

Completing this proposal will provide the following benefits:

Create a finished free-to-play game in a popular genre that can appeal to non-crypto gamers, released on Steam and mobile.

Create a GHST sink that incentivizes non-crypto users to buy and use it.

Include systems that incentivize players to join the Aavegotchi ecosystem, or donate directly. (see CMP system section here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nBfL2-QKX6tOcclyTZ63pF90lALQ7ZCQU2h1jlniBHI/edit)

Provide income to the DAO, see projections here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1szDl_S-DXiwZ0zAGPS4jFLcCqqG0qD7jBUJXqzEIcTM/edit?usp=sharing

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 larger projects, including the MVP for Grid Gladiator. The payments are mostly milestone-based, which means the DAO can confirm the work has been done before paying.

Any alternative paths (Plan B, Plan C, etc) N/A

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 (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2385240/Spellstrife/). 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.