The Professor’s Library

Project Lead and Team Information:

Architect: O (@O#8888) – I am a long-time moderator for the Forgotten Runes(FR) community and have been involved in the discovery and creation of the FR world and community so far. I have a strong understanding of the project foundations and goals. Answering the questions of new-comers and taking time to ask questions myself, I have a handle on the common misunderstandings of the project and have spent time crafting ways to explain the underlying concepts with clarity. I am also an avid world-builder and story-teller. Everything I have done so far has been of genuine enthusiasm for what we are building together, and I am excited to contribute in an even bigger way.

Art and Animation: Youngwhizzie (@youngwhizzie#5234) – Youngwhizzie is a long-time community member and artist who has been involved from the very beginnings of FRWC. YW creates pixel work that beautifully mirrors the original style of the FRWC collection. Completed mostly in private and without commission, his passion for the project and artistic lore building is organic, in congruence with the authentic spirit of FR world-building. Youngwhizzie’s ideas build visual lore and help me(O) enormously. As the wizard who supported me to begin developing this project, I am delighted to have him onboard. I am looking forward to sharing with you some of the magic he can do with pixels.

Coding Development: tv (@tv#3636) – TV is another long-time community member who is now a member of the Forgotten Council as well as a developer. TV has also been involved from the very beginnings of FRWC, playing a key part in discovering the affinities through the decoder crystal and has already created the ‘Forgotten Marketplace’ and forgottenlewds.com 4. TV is humble but not without confidence that he can continue to deliver at a high-standard for the team and we are lucky to have him onboard. Yet another wizard with a genuine passion for Forgotten Runes that is perfect for the type of project we are proposing.

Music: Minni Jo(@noblefairys#8681) – Minni was introduced to the team by the Busy Wizzy BamBam and is a multi-disciplinary creative. Importantly for us, she creates captivating soundscapes and music in a variety of styles. I am super excited to bring such a creative and powerful force to the team to create a sound and atmosphere for the project that will help to bring it to life even further. Whilst Minni won’t be creating any music for the ‘Proof of Concept’ Stage, she has kindly given us the permission to use some of her existing catalogue. We want to fund for some original music and sound FX created by Minni at Stage 2.

This team is a potent mix of grounded knowledge, enthusiasm, and creativity. Our specific skillsets are tuned towards separate areas that coalesce to form the perfect foundations for creating something special. Whilst we are excited that the team consists of some OG Wizards with established understandings of what Forgotten Runes is and has been, we are even more excited to push boundaries, challenge our own assumptions, and work to broaden both accessibility to and diversity within, the community. We are aware of the responsibility that would be afforded to this team to take on such a task and we would endeavour to work with and for the community to create something we can all be proud of. At the end of the day: We are Wizards. Wizards are gonna make it."

Summary of Project

"We aim to create a fun, immersive, and low-barrier introduction to the cult for as many people as possible from as many different backgrounds as possible.

The project is made up of two main components:

1. A webpage embeddable click-and-point game that informs players about Forgotten Runes and helps them to understand and navigate the surrounding concepts.

2. More detailed written content for a number of specific topics related to Forgotten Runes and NFTs in the form of blogs/articles.

Everything will be accessible through one main website (domain suggestions welcomed(whatisforgottenrunes.com 2?))

The audience for which we are creating this is ‘people who are new to Forgotten Runes and NFTs’.

The click-and-point game will add to the lore of the Runiverse and is based mainly in ‘The Professor’s Library’.

The more detailed blogs will cover specific topics in more detail than is possible or appropriate for an experience that is fun and easy to play through.

Project Goal

"The components and concepts that make up Forgotten Runes are not always easily understood and can be overwhelming in number. Herein arises an issue amongst those who want to be involved:

Where do they start? What are the most important things to understand and be aware of? How can they get involved safely?

Our main aim is to make understanding and being involved in Forgotten Runes as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. We expect that Forgotten Runes will become increasingly well-known outside of crypto-native circles and may become a first landing for new-to-NFT explorers and creatives. We want to lower the barrier to entry by making the fundamentals easy to understand in a fun way.

The Professor’s Library will act as a solution for those looking to dive into understanding Forgotten Runes and support them to begin to contribute to world-building. In terms of what we aim to educate for we aim to cover both the project and safe practices around Web3 and underlying technology.

In terms of supporting accessibility, the click-and-point game will be web-page embeddable to allow for multiple end-points and integrations.

We also hope to showcase the diverse nature of the Runiverse through the lore of ‘The Professor’s Library’ . We want to represent in a way that invites people from multiple backgrounds to feel safe in our community.

The benefits to the cult are focused on growing the community whilst remaining in alignment with the established principles of collaborative world-building and welcoming a diversity of participants.

The longevity of this project relies on the involvement of the community in its continued unfolding. In order for the story to continue to unfold in a collaborative manner, the community must be engaged and understand how to be part of the story.

To be an engaged participant a foundational understanding is needed of what that means; we therefore aim to explain not only the project concept on a high-level – ‘decentralized world-building’, but to also help new participants to understand the components that go into making that a reality; namely, characters and the Book of Lore.

We will then go on to explain how one can be involved in world-building with or without the purchase of an NFT.

Finally, we will endeavour to ensure that a diversity of participants will feel able to be involved through simple language throughout with more detailed new-to-crypto explanations and tutorials, in addition to diverse representation amongst the characters and storylines in the game.

Overall, we hope that this will make it easy and fun to learn about and get involved in Forgotten Runes."

Proposal Specification

Specifications

We would like to chase the best outcome we can produce without rushing. We ask that the DAO is happy with regular-ish updates of our progress. We would like to begin by creating the proof-of-concept and returning that to the community as an alpha version. Next, we would like to move into the larger Stage 2 where we build upon the foundations and learnings of Stage 1 to complete Books 2-5 and also introduce the NFT/Web3 Security and Safe on-boarding aspect.

Blog Content

What is Magic Machine? Game Basic Components

• Start Page
• Menu
• Background Art/Animation
• Dialogue Box & Text
• Transitions
• Buttons
• Narrative Elements
• Sound FX and Music

Stage 1 – Proof of Concept

The foundations we lay in Stage 1 will future-proof this project. Regardless of how Forgotten Runes changes or grows, we want to be able to build on the structures we form in Stage 1 and to be able to adapt the content as required in the future. Work has already begun intermittently and includes continuing to discover and fine tune the art and animation style including; buttons, menus, fonts, etc., setting up the underlying development structure for the game, and setting the stage to allow for an expansive narrative already in development.

We aim to deliver the Proof of Concept in mid-August with schedules opening up in mid-June for the whole team able to commit even more regular time to this project. The time dedicated to this stage of development will help us to move through the rest of the content with more speed and efficiency, whilst also demonstrating to the community what it is we are planning to deliver through an alpha version of the concept.

Content

The content we cover in the Proof-of-Concept will be limited to: Book 1 - ‘What is Forgotten Runes?’ – it will be short and to the point, meant only as a launchpad to explore the project in more detail.

Forgotten Runes is a new world of collaborative story-telling led by Magic Machine. Together, as owners of characters in a shared universe; people are telling the stories of wizards, warriors, animals, beasts, and more. Every day stories are written about the Runiverse; how characters fight, love, fall, and grow, where they live, and why they do what they do. Together, we bring them to life through art, animation, music and more. The first character’s people were given the chance to own were the wizards. Simply: Forgotten Runes is a new magical universe, and the community is its author.

Funding

Total time spent by YW on Art and Animation in Stage 1 is expected to total around ~200 hours. Total time spent by TV on development in Stage 1 is expected to be ~190 hours. Total time spent by O on Writing and Management is expected to total ~140 hours. These are inclusive of time for meetings.

Art and Animation: 200 Hours at $80/hour = $16,000 Development: 190 Hours at $85/hour = $16,150 Writing and Management: 140 hours at $75/hour = $10,500 Music: None requested

[on Music: As Minni is busy with other work at the moment she has granted us permission to use some of her previous work as placeholder music for Stage 1. There is therefore no request for funding for music during Stage 1 and we hope to commission some original work from Minni in Stage 2.]

Timeline

The whole team will be able to dedicate more time from mid-June.

We want to deliver by mid-August.

Here ends the overview of what we are currently requesting funding for.

[Stage 1.5 – Assessment and Reflection, consideration of the inclusion of more team members, feedback from DAO and Community. ]

Stage 2

Stage 2 is set up by our work in Stage 1 and is contains the bulk of the content we believe is needed to meet our original aims of on-boarding into understanding and involvement in the project. The Security/Setup arm is meant to serve all but particularly those who are not native to crypto and NFTs. It is in books 2 to 5 that we get to have some real fun with the lore and art, as well as getting into more detail around the concepts outlined in Book 1.

Content

The content in this stage is longer form, will explore more in the narrative and art, and will be more work than the Proof-of-Concept. We cover books 2 – 5 which are meant to give a richer understanding of the way world-building occurs (Character-first) and how to get involved. The Security Blogs and game content is currently in development with help from Madotsuki, who we would also want to ensure was properly compensated.

Game Content – Books 2 to 5 + Security/Setup

What are wizards? (incl. Character components, and DeIP explainer) What is a NFT? (And why does FRWC use them?) What is the Book of Lore? Getting Involved in Collaborative World-building Wallet Security + Setup + How to buy an NFT Blog Content

What is the Forgotten Runes Commercial Rights model?

• How to Set-Up a Wallet
• Wallet Security 101
• How to Buy an NFT
• Writing in the Book of Lore

Funding

We are not requesting funding for Stage 2 at this time. We are open to discussion with the DAO on how best to approach funding for stage 2; per book, or other.

Timeline

Completion by January 2023.

Funding Requested

Art and Animation: $16,000, Coding Development: $16,150, Writing(+): $10,500

Additional Comments & Notes

Longer-term Goals; More content: additional character overviews e.g. Beasts/Souls and additional fundamental concept overviews e.g. ‘What is Expression Agnosticism?’, ‘What is the HoW DAO?’, ‘What are affinities?’ More languages e.g. Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese Audio Narration Lore/character building prompts and tutorials