Please describe your proposed solution.

The problem:

Despite the natural benefits blockchain integration provides for video games, especially card games which place maximum importance on the user’s ownership of cards, blockchain-based games currently have difficulty competing in the broader gaming market.

Our approach:

We will develop a true online trading card game experience that will rival the largest games in the genre, with a deep interactive world filled with massive multiplayer social elements similar to those found in roleplaying games.

With social elements in the forefront, and a complex alien world with its own lore, history and mythology in the background, OctoWars aims to inspire a sense of awe and adventure few games can match.

In addition, careful balancing and ground-up redesign of how trading card games play will offer a highly competitive experience expanded upon with player guilds and tournaments, complemented by a cooperative boss raid system tied to an explorable world map, creating an experience which transcends the relatively compact genre of card games.

This is all possible thanks to blockchain-based technology, allowing us to provide players with true ownership over their own cards and certain other assets in the game world. An open market will make it possible for players to freely trade or sell their in-game belongings.

Engagement and impact:

The target audience is primarily PC gamers, especially those with an interest in card games. The expected audience is expanded by board gamers and members of the Cardano ecosystem who may find interest in branching

More about the project:

The complete ruleset for the game is available in the form of a manual:

OctoWars Manual - Public Version.docx

A primarily visual showcase of the game’s identity is available in the form of a presentation:

OctoWars Presentation.pptx

How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

Our project aims to compete with other popular entries in the genre of online card games, all while using blockchain technology to provide true ownership over in-game assets (primarily cards) to players. This way, we will attract gamers who were previously uninterested in Cardano.

By requiring all players to own a crypto wallet, we will directly introduce our playerbase to the Cardano ecosystem. Our focus on social gameplay elements will create another sub-community within the Cardano ecosystem, not only increasing the number of people in the ecosystem, but also opening it up further to gamers who might not already have blockchain related interests.

How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

The main metric by which we intend to measure our project’s success will be the active player count. Both the actual number of active monthly players, as well as whether that number is trending upwards or downwards and at what rate.

The second metric will be the volume of transactions over in-game assets such as trading cards (transferred between players), card packs and cosmetics (bought directly from the game store).

Tertiary metrics include player retention rate, average length of a gameplay session, churn rate after a gameplay session (as a negative metric), as well as the game’s popularity in other media, such as videos and streaming.

Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

Our website is currently under development and will serve as the primary output of features and content, including hosting the game itself, lore, artworks, as well as a newsletter and blog-style posts about the game.

The secondary output platform will be Twitter. Through Twitter we will be posting monthly video updates talking about both the design and development going into Octowars, as well as sharing our reasoning behind most important decisions, and allowing those interested in the project to communicate with the team behind Octowars.

A tertiary output idea is a Discord server, which is currently not a top priority, but is a planned addition. Discord allows the most direct channel of communication with the Octowars team, but is generally the worst way to consistently reach the community consistently with weekly or monthly updates.

What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

Our project was already in a primarily research and design state of development for a period of 2 years as of writing. The gameplay ruleset is completely designed, along with a set of cards that will be available to all players (the “free set”) and the first set of cards to build upon that card pool. The only remaining requirement to deliver a product is to accelerate and expand our development team and our art team, both of which have experienced team leads that worked on multiple large projects before and now work in a closely-knit communication with the design team.

What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

The current goal of our project is to create a fully playable version of the game that contains all functionalities tied to the core card combat gameplay. The roleplaying and world traveling elements of the game are not part of the current developmental 12-month goal, nor the funding goal.

We have determined our approach to be feasible by completing a 2 year long period of research and design, which has provided us with a complete rule set, a card set requiring minimal balance tweaks, an in-house proof of concept, as well as a large pool of illustrations.

Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

The goal we aim to achieve is a playable public release of the game.

In order to achieve that, we need to complete two milestones:

1st is to develop the finalized card combat gameplay.

2nd is to illustrate the artworks required for each card and game asset.

Both of these will be worked on in a parallel manner, and both will be finished at around the 12 month period.

This is an ongoing effort, please see "Manual" for the details on what will actually be implemented.

The funds will be used to scale up the current team.

Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

The finalized core card combat covers all of the features required for a fully-playable experience of the card combat aspect of the game, meaning the core game experience. The roleplaying and world exploration aspects of the game are not part of this milestone.

The artwork milestone encompasses all of the illustrations for the cards available to all players (the free set), all of the cards of the first set (the core set), as well as all graphics required for the core gameplay, such as card backs, the playing board, menu illustrations and the like.

Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

The budget will be equally split between the costs of illustrating the necessary artworks for the game, and developing the game in a technical sense.

With most of the project already funded, the budget would increase the number of artists as well as programmers, and allow for the project to be released in the next 12 months.

Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

The project team is split into a team leader, the game design team, R&D prototyping, the development team, the art team, and visual design team.

The team leader approves and oversees all major decisions.

The game design team has designed the core gameplay and all of its additional systems, as well as the world of OctoWars. The game design team communicates with all other teams in order to keep the vision of the project as clear as possible and the flow of development true to the original goals.

The R&D prototyping team is tasked with making our proof of concept tools and gameplay, as well as being tasked with other technological tests.

The development team is tasked with building the full game and all parts of it. The current goal is to first build the finalized version of the card combat part of the game, which is what the funding would allow for.

The art team is tasked with finishing all of the illustrations required for the card pool, as well as creating the graphics for all of the elements required for the optimal gameplay experience, as well as additional cosmetics for player customization.

The visual design team is tasked with upkeeping a strict visual identity for the project, while also adapting it to the necessities of each upcoming expansion to the game.

Team members (most which are working long term on the project; excluding short term external help)

Aljosa Mohorovic

Ivan Cosic

Karlo Siketic

Mirela Ivankovic Bielen

Ante Kegalj

How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

Our project represents an advertisement of the Cardano ecosystem to the gaming market, via its use of blockchain technology and requirement of a wallet in order to play.