by 0xc24789c6f165329290ddd3fbeac3b6842a294003
The purpose of this poll is to gather information and feedback on the community sentiment towards larger/more polished community module projects. In this case, I’m looking for feedback on the idea of creating a tower defence module for the community.
The current plan is to create a tower defence creation kit that would handle all the complicated tasks of running the game (enemy spawning/movement, tower placement/upgrade, economy, etc), as well as provide visual assets for use. This would allow users to create their own game fields with ease and provide a foundational starting-point for a new genre of community generated content in Decentraland. The module would be entirely community-owned, meaning anyone could use it to create their own content (monetized or not). I also want to launch 4 tower defence game fields, developed through the tower defence kit. These would act as examples on how to use the kit and provide the community with more entertainment content.
The end goal of the module would be to pull in a gaming-oriented audience to create a community that not only consumes content, but also produces it. One of the reasons a tower defence module was chosen for development is the highly innate modularity of the game genre. The game’s mechanics remain static across different fields of play, but the game can still feel fresh and engaging through different environments and the addition of new enemies/towers could be easily accomplished by community creators. The game type also caters to a wide variety of monetization options (pay-per-play, pay-for-access, etc) that landowners could use to provide premium experiences through.
So, here’s the part where you come in! I’m looking for some community input on how high the quality of the included assets should be (and how much should be spent on them). There are many different ways of sourcing assets available to us, which will result in highly variable outcomes. I’ve put together some of our options for asset generation, as well as the estimated cost of the project.
Brief visual asset list: 8 towers, 6 enemy types, 4 environments.
These assets would require models, textures, animations, as well as being optimized to run well in Decentraland’s environment.
(15k - 25k) If we focus purely on a functional aesthetic/bare-bones graphics we can save a large portion of funding. These assets would likely be created in-house/by community members, so keeping a doctrine of how to create new assets would also be easy. While the art might not be fantastic, the module would still serve its purpose and the included assets could always be updated at a later time.
(25k - 40k) Hiring quality freelancers would give us a median point on quality. Freelancers are quite competitive in the visual design space and finding able professionals would not be an issue. This could also provide us with assets of varying theme/art style if we start with one freelancer then move to another due to availability issues.
(40k - 55k) One of the best options for the highest quality assets would be to partner with an art outsourcing studio. This would be the most expensive, but would result in the highest quality assets for the project. Many game development companies outsource their art through these studios and all that really has to be done on our part is provide our chosen partner with a detailed list of specifications/theming/concept.
So, with those options out in the open, I want to start a conversation about what our target and approach should be before diving too deep into design documentation for this module. Do you think we should start with the tower defence genre or a different one like social games (among us)? Should we stick to creating primarily functional creation kits or spend additional funding to populate them with high quality assets?
- Create with a low visual design budget, focusing mainly on functionality
- Create with a medium visual design budget, through freelancers
- Create with a high visual design budget, through a studio
- We do not need a module like this right now
- Invalid question/options