The Ups and the Downs Of Creating a Play To Earn game

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Well hello there,

If ya don't know who I am on Hive, I don't blame ya. I would say I suffered from a long period of "burnout" when I was producing 3 DTube videos daily and having a 9-5 job. Plus 3 weekly YouTube videos. Did that for a few months, got maybe 2-3 hours of sleep every weeknight and normally wouldn't get up until 4-5pm on Saturday and Sunday.

The narrative was a lot different back then. It was hustle culture, you can sleep when you're dead, type of thing. Only a year or so away from the healthy mindset culture we are promoting now. Regardless, I still lurk around Hive most days.

I've been trying to write this post for over a month!

As I drove home from my parent's place on New Years Day, I was listening to the cryptomaniacs podcasts and as always, was pumped to get posting on Hive again. Told myself I would do it daily starting the next morning. But you know what happened for me when I woke up on Jan 2nd (Aussie Time)?

@nftstudios released their first pre-sale on Hive for ChiFiBots.

For context, I'm the lead game developer for ChiFiBots but this release kind of caught me off guard. They released the pre-sale all while I was asleep haha. There were a few errors in the post but luckily no one was able to comment on them before I edited them.

I remember waking up to messages on pretty much a majority of my main social medias (Facebook, Twitter, Discord, Signal) asking questions about the game and the pre-sale. And I don't think I actually ate anything until 3pm that day. Probably the busiest morning I've had in awhile.

Seriously - here's the actual post

What started off as a little fun project quickly became a full fledged blockchain game with potential to be expanded on for multiple blockchains, devices, and mediums. My background is mainly in creative writing, specially in scriptwriting for web series/short films and character creation. Since moving into the game dev role, I've had to create the game mechanics and oversee every little detail about the game.

Those little buttons you see on game menus. The backgrounds, the titles, the sounds it makes. Someone's gotta do that, oh wait, that's me. I've went from someone who normally does it all, to finding a mix of delegation and work. But slowly, it's all coming together.

Seeing the new logo and the progression of cards gets me excited. Sometimes it felt like this game was never going to get made. Too many hurdles. But now, I'm so freaking close, and people are excited to see this game. A game that I created, it's very strange.

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The toughest part of it all is getting programmers to make the game. Blockchain is one complicated beast and there still isn't any blockchain out there that making a game with little to no code knowledge is possible. We've finally secured a programmer and now the MVP is underway.

I'm getting the pack art done, and looking into the future of what my life could be like in 12 months. Very very different.

I sometimes get strange comments like "oh you still working on that" like they don't understand this isn't just a passion project. It's something that could potentially be bigger than I ever thought possible.

As the days go by I appreciate the relentless effort @aggroed and @gerber do for Splinterlands and Dcity. Both fantastic games, with dcity still my favourite blockchain game.

All I know is that I need to keep moving forward. This blog post has been very therapeutic. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Feel free to follow @nftstudios and join the discord to stay up to date withannouncements and leaks:
https://discord.gg/h2zf69Xamm

Take care, honey bears.

Kevin



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24 comments
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Sensei!
It is so nice to see you and read you!
As a designer veryyy wannabe, I do understand completely how it takes to be on that side and I know nothing still lol
Those things take time, sweat, tears and even blood sometimes and only a few get this...
Just to let you know that I get you and I support you!
And I appreciate all you do!

Hope to read from you more often!
If not, it's ok :)
I'll hunt ya! ahaha

!PIZZA

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Thanks, Eliana. You're the best!

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I'll let you know, if you didn't know already...I'm president of the Mr. Li fan club!

Can't wait to see ChiFi crush it!!

Good to see you posting again sir!

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We are equally each other's biggest fans haha

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Look forward to playing the game and checking it out! Looks pretty cool, I'll have to learn the new blockchain a bit but besides that I hope it brings some value to hive as well some how. Keep up the good work.

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New blockchains are good for everyone :)
Chances are in a decade it really won't matter what blockchain these games are on as they'll all be playable on one app.

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That's exciting! I have been wanting to create a blockchain game since 2017 when it was really only a concept that people talked about as a potential use case. Now seeing real projects come together has me thinking about it again. I hope you'll keep posting updates about what's happening with your game so that if I never get around to doing it, at least I'll be able to live vicariously through your posts. 😉

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You never know unless you try, try and make it as simple as possible and don't fall into the trap of "it needs to be AAA quality" types of graphics.

Most ppl don't care if it's 3d or not.

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I bought into the presale and am very excited to play this game! Go ChiFiBots!

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Wooo, thanks! Hope we don't dissapoint!

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I'll be able to at least play because I bought into the pre-sale but I heard that the game is moving away from Hive. Is the game itself going to be on Hive or is it going to be on a different block chain?

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

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Game was never on Hive, it is in Aspire blockchain.
But what I understand we will get some "bridge" so that we can play it from our Hive accounts without worrying about that blockchain.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

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What he said ^^^
I think the small picture is believing these blockchain games will only be playable on 1 blockchain. Someday, someone will create a "steam app store" or "epic games store" equivalent to a majority of the blockchain games and people will just play it on that app.

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Nice to meet you.
In current scenario I am monitoring my each spend and your game make me excited to participate in presale.

I wish you all the best and to chifibots obviously.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

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Thank you for the support. Hope it makes you happy and rich!

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It has been an honor to walk this path with you so far. And I can't wait to play what you have been cooking up for so long. !1UP

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You have received a 1UP from @flauwy!

The following @oneup-cartel family members will soon upvote your post:
@oneup-curator, @leo-curator, @ctp-curator, @pal-curator
And they will bring !PIZZA 🍕

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