Tiger Trap: A 3D Strategy Game in ICON

[TigerTrapGaming]

Tiger Trap: A 3D Strategy Game in ICON
We propose to build a 3D strategy game with state of the art NFT integration, real-time graphics, multiplayer support, and a unique gameplay. Tiger Trap (Goats and Tigers / Bhag Chal / Tiger Move) is an age-old classic game originating from the South Asia region. The game has 4 tigers and 20 goats, where the tigers hunt the goat while the goats attempt to block the tigers’ movements. The game is a true strategic war between two forces where one tries to beat the other in various topologies.

There are a handful of strategic board games in the crypto world and most of them are still in development. We intend to create one of the first 3D board games built completely with NFT assets and a compelling gameplay.

NFTs & Gaming:
In 2020, the gaming industry was a $160 billion industry with an increase of 9.3% from the previous year. It was forecasted in 2016 that the industry might be $90 billion but there was a huge difference of 77%. The current estimate for 2025 is $265 billion but we can assume that the industry is going to grow at a similar pace. According to Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA), over 804k unique active users connected to blockchain-based games in July 2021. We can clearly see that the blockchain gaming industry is at an early stage but the segment is growing it’s user network at an exponential rate.

The market for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) also surged to new highs in the second quarter of 2021 with $2.5 billion in sales this year, up from $13.7 million in the first half of 2020. With such tremendous growth in NFTs & Gaming, it is the right time for us to build a top-class blockchain-powered 3D board game in the ICON network.

History & Gameplay:
The game is thought to be a depiction of true stories from the Himalayas. It is said that herders used to play during their leisure time in rural areas, which might be the palace for the game’s origin. Kids have been playing this game during their break time for centuries. In the past, the game started with a grid marked by chalk with large pebbles representing tigers and small pebbles representing the goats. In course time, the game has evolved into a famous pass time by people from all ages.

Two sides take part in the game with 4 tigers trying to capture the goat and 20 goats who defend themselves by blocking the tigers.

The general gameplay involves a board with a 25-point grid with 4 tigers trying to attack the goats from four directions while 20 goats pick their spot to block the tiger. In the beginning, all the tigers are placed at the corners of the board and goats outside the board. The game begins by placing one of the goats on the board. Moves can be made along the lines drawn on the board. The tiger moves one step at a time. The turns are alternating between the goats & the tiger. The goat wins by surrounding the four tigers so that none of them can’t make any valid move. The tiger wins by capturing five goats by jumping over the goat similar to draughts or checkers. The tiger may only do so if the spot is unoccupied.

There are several variations of the game 5x5 grid in Nepal and India whereas a triangular-shaped grid is used in Sri Lanka. Likewise, a similar game with the name of Sholo Guti is also popular in South Asian countries like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Nepal. Another game, Fox and Geese has a long history that dates back to the Middle Ages in Europe. Descriptions of the game are found in Greetis Saga, an Icelandic poem written in 1300 AD. The game was also said to be found in the household accounts of Edward the IV of England, who had the game made out of silver. The game is still popular among the royal families of England. It is known to be enjoyed by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Tiger Trap: The Game:
Our goal is to recreate this traditional game in the ICON blockchain. The characters will be IRC-31 tokens where users can have true ownership of the characters. We will store the character’s historical battles right in the blockchain. There will be free NFTs that people can play without paying and NFTs that people can own and play in the game. People can use their own character types, skins, and environments while playing the game. The images will be stored in IPFS which will ensure its permanence. The game data will be stored permanently in the blockchain.

We also intend to have an in-game native token $GOAT (subject to change) which people could earn by just playing the game and beating the opponent. Later, we will use the same token in the Tiger Trap universe.

The characters and gameplay will be in a 3D universe. The game will be a true experiment with a 3D universe, real gameplay mechanics, assets ownership (NFTs) & play-to-earn model with $GOAT token. We are still working on the tokenomics where $GOAT can be used to buy assets, skins, boards, and many other things in the Tiger Trap game ecosystem.

The game will allow users to select their Tiger or Goat NFTs and clash in a brutal turn-based battle. We also plan to have an AI where users can play in Easy, Medium or Hard mode. This will allow users to earn the tokens. There will also be a multiplayer mode, to play with peers.

Another experiment we want to do is to be able to rent or loan NFTs to play the game. We want to introduce a concept of free-to-play where users don’t need to buy the assets rather rent them from the treasure, play the game, level up the NFTs and pay back the treasury with the tokens. The utilities of the tokens in the game will be explored as we progress with the game.

Why ICON Blockchain?

ICON has several advantages over other blockchain which encouraged us to launch Tiger Trap. Most importantly, low transaction fees, faster block time & an inclusive community. Blockchain Transmission Protocol (BTP), which allows multi-chain asset transfer, is something we are extremely excited about. The community in ICON is also very active and believes in growing together. The existing gaming NFT projects like ICONbet, Nebula, and Gangstabet have driven a huge supporting community, which we are quite excited to see. We are looking forward to attracting more creative and passionate people to ICON by introducing a full-functional NFT game in ICON. This can be a start to creating more powerful games in the ICON ecosystem.

We intend to introduce lots of inclusive skins & characters in the game considering parts of the regions. This is also part of ICON’s hyper connection to the world. We hope that the 3D characters and game will inspire to foster the growth of more game development in ICON.

Project Milestones:

First Milestone:

• Complete the website & complete the character assets
• Social media and community development

Second Milestone:

• Launch landing page
• Finalize Gameplay & start prototyping
• Start smart contract development
• Continue website development with gameplay
• Continue with character asset development
• Start game development

Third Milestone:

• Complete smart contracts
• Complete website development
• Continue game development & gameplay

Fourth Milestone:

• Integration
• Launch in Testnet
• Feedback from beta users
• Launch in Mainnet

Funding Amount Requested:
We are requesting funding for the initial development, design, artwork and marketing. The funds will be used to hire developers to write the smart contracts, design & development of the website and commission artists for their artwork.

1 SCORE Developers @ $3,000 per month for 3 months = $3,000 x 1 x 3 = $9,000

1 Senior Unity Developer @ $2,500 per month for 4 months = $2,500 x 1 x 4 = $10,000

2 Unity 3D modeler @ $2,000 per month for 3 months = $2,000 x 2 x 3 = $12,000

1 Designer @ $2,500 per month for 2 months = $2,500 x 1 x 2 = $5,000

1 Mobile developer @ $2,500 per month for 2 months = $2,500 x 1 x 2 = $5,000

1 Web Developer @ $2,500 per month for 4 months = $2,500 x 1 x 4 = $10,000

1 Project Manager part-time @ $600 per month for 4 months = $600 x 4 x 1 = $2,400

Total: $53,400

Summary:
NFT has boomed last year but we have not seen an active 3D game with a historic background. We intend to create an exemplary NFT game that will be recognized throughout the NFT community.

Note that we couldn’t post the screenshots in this post as it didn’t allow us to. The proposal will have the character assets attached.

[Ali]

Hi,

This sounds like a great game, and really interested in seeing it launch on ICON, however, I have my reservations.

Is it neseccary that the CPS funds the mobile and web developers ($15k)? Could you not start off with a basic version and then fund future iterations with the funding from NFT sales?
Also the number of modelers and designers take up substanial amount of this CPS proposal ($17k), again, could you not fund most of this through NFT sales?

I’m just under the impression that NFT projects should have a balance between CPS funding and funding through sales, and that CPS should not fund the project in its absolute.

Lastly, seen as this is ecosystem funded, will the SCORE devs work be opensourced?

[paulrouge]

The way the milestones are set up now makes it so that $13000.- dollar will be paid after a website is build and a set of character assets is done. And in the second milestone there is still website development and development on the character assets?

Isn’t $12k for 3d models is way too much. Could you justify that costs? I would say you can get an artist to create models for a tenth of that.

Furthermore I agree with the Ali’s points.

I would recommend:

• Add the screenshots you mentioned (or maybe a youtube link or something), $53k is a lot of money and I can imagine that any p-rep will have a hard time putting in $5.3k up front without a bit more visualisation of what to expect. (You were able to add a picture to the post, adding a screenshots works the same as adding a picture).

• Reconsider the costs. Perhaps you don’t need 3 months of SCORE development for example, isn’t most of the logic is already done (the rules of the game)? Overall I would be much more specific on the costs if you want to get a sponsor prep behind this plan.

I would love for you to succeed but I believe this plan, the way it is now, is way too vague to be asking that kind of money. I can’t imagine funding can be approved without being much more specific. And to be honest, I would be a bit disappointment in the CPS-system if this amount of money is being approved for this plan as it is at the moment of writing.

That may sound harsh, but every dollar can be spend only once, and should be spend best as possible, as it is basically money from all of us.

!! Edit:
I see proposal is already live, including screenshots. I would highly recommend reconsidering the prices you are saying you are paying for the 3d models. You can buy fully rigged 3d characters on sites like turbosquid.com

[TigerTrapGaming]

Hey @Ali & @paulrouge,

Thanks for the response to our proposal. The forum didn’t let us post the images, so it did not convey the proposal fully. The proposal is already live here. You can check them out.

A bit of background on the 3d art and the project. We were initially planning to publish this game in Solana, but after talking with GangstaBet team and the NFT games that are being developed in ICON, we decided to build it in ICON. I believe 50% of the NFT assets are already completed and it costs us more than $7k to pay the artists (with no royalty in the future development). The time taken was around 1.5-2 months which included several artists. We weren’t aware of the 3D character development process, but it involves:

• Design/ Rough Sketch (Before we fully commit the work)
• High poly Sculpting
• Retopology (Making it fit for coming pipeline)
• UV (Preparation for texturing)
• Texturing (Coloring and creating various maps)
• Shading
• Rigging (Bone and skinny setup for character) [For Animation / Game]
• Animation [For Game]

We didn’t want to share all the 3D art that was done, but for the sake of transparency, here are the assets. We’ll add more characters if the proposal is accepted. For the game, we will need to do rigging and create animations for each characters (like movement, killing, trapping, celebration etc). The total cost for them will be way more than the asked amount ($12k), hence we will release them iteratively.

The design cost that you have added is for the website design and game UI design. We feel that $5k for a web designer is below the market value ask.

Paul even mentioned that we could use websites like TurboSquid to get 3d characters, but we have created all the assets from scratch and are not willing to take it from a template and use them in the game. We’d rather create the game as an original piece of art.

Ali, yes we can release the game without mobile at first, but we are creating a real-time 3D game, and there is so much scope in the mobile ecosystem for games. Since the game will already be developed in Unity, we will need to work with a mobile dev to easily create a mobile version for the same. $5k is a small ask to start the work on mobile development for a big game like this. We want to get started on the mobile development in the later phases of the progress.

There might be confusion that $10k is for web developer… but there is a huge scope in the development of the platform like minting, marketplace, inventory, game ui etc. Some portion will be shared resources between the dev & unity dev to integrate the game completely.

There will be significant work for the SCORE developer as well. The basic things like minting and marketplace will take less time… but renting and leasing the NFTs as free-to-play will take more time and research. The SCORE dev will also be a shared resource for front-end, back-end work and will be supporting at them in the later half. We also want to mention that we don’t intend to make the SCOREs open-source at this time.

We are happy to take more suggestions and revise the proposal, if needed. At this point, we are fairly confident that the proposed ask is ok looking at the scope of the 3D game, gameplay, assets and implementation of a rent/lease system (which are rarely done). The duration of the game completion is long too - 5 months. It will take a lot of time to complete this project if we want to first-class game. The proceeds from the NFT will go to the treasury and the further development of the game (campaigns, more skins, battle mode etc).

[paulrouge]

Thanks for the extensive answer. In my opinion, based on my experience with 3d modeling, the artist(s) being are paid really well.

Plus not willing to use a fully rigged, high-poly template for basic animals and/or humanoids does not really sound logical. A tiger is a tiger. And 3d models can be easily customised when using a template as a starting point. Not a smart decision, business-wise, if you ask me. And I understand that an artist will try his best in convincing you to let hem spend a lot of time on making a one of a kind tiger or humanoid. But a tiger is a tiger, a humanoid is a humanoid, a (skin)texture is a texture. There is no need to ask an artist to reinvent the wheel, if you ask me.

The rigging and animations of each humanoid (character with 2 legs and 2 arms) should be basic (a person walks as a person walks, no need to built up a rigging system yourself for walking), and templates are free at mixamo.com (and easily editable/extendable if needed).

In my opinion, as far as I can judge at this point, the budget asked for, leaves a lot of room for really generous rewards. And to me it is also not really clear what the expected / promised end product is.

Personally I would have liked to see a partially working prototype with templates set up or something before I would be able to grant $53.000,-

[FerH]

I agree with paulrouge, animations are not something that should break the price, I understand that you want the designs to be original but in terms of animation, you can buy them for 15 dlls and reuse them countless times, it would be very good in my opinion to reconcile those costs, you comment that they do not intend to make their SCORE open source, I thought that releasing them was necessary for a proposal, I would like to know if you have a blog or page where the history of this virtual world comes, friend.

[Ali]

Hey, thank you for your extensive response.

My main point was not the valuation, but the ethos of the fund, i.e. opensourcing and balancing between nft sales and grants.

[TigerTrapGaming]

Thanks for the response. Our team appreciates it a lot.

As for the 3D models and animations, we decided not to go with the templates since we want to have originality in the game. Yes, it is cheaper to buy and export templates but that is something that we are not willing to do (it doesn’t make the game fun). Every character has their personality so animations would need to be different and unique for each of them. We understand that it might not be something that CPS should cover, hence we might decide to have only a few characters to reduce the cost.

It also looks like the proposal will not be accepted for this term. Our team will rethink the proposal with the community feedbacks and might reapply later this year. For now, we decided not to apply for the CPS grant. Thank you for the feedbacks.