[DAO:mdhnz6a] Butterfly Prawn Farm

[dao]

by 0x017fbadca2dbc267bb046624f23831662a6fd718 (BPVerse)

Should the following Tier 5: up to $120,000 USD, 6 months vesting (1 month cliff) grant in the Gaming category be approved?

Abstract

At Butterfly Prawn Farm (BPF), we created a unprecedented Free-To-Play (F2P), Play-to-Earn (P2E) farm game, where players, AKA farmers, harvest plants, collect resources and compete in different monthly events for rewards (wearables).

The team envisage an improved BPF with new game mechanics, multiple events and more wearables while keeping it F2P, P2E friendly. With more than 1800 users weekly, a continual trending place in Decentraland (DCL) and a fast growing game, we strive to bring farmers more content, better experience and fun!

Grant size

120,000 USD

Beneficiary address

0x017fBaDCA2Dbc267Bb046624F23831662A6Fd718

Email address

butterflyprawnfarm@gmail.com

Description

The Butterfly Prawn Farm (BPF) is a newly founded F2P, P2E farm game. BPF’s goal is to boost the community in DCL while giving players a reason to be active. The game allows players, AKA farmers, to harvest crops, collect resources and be rewarded with wearables for their accomplishments. With minimal learning curve, farmers found a reason to log in daily and continue harvesting their crops, making it a daily, social affair for DCL players. Furthermore, BPF continues to host events monthly, rewarding farmers for participating and ascending the leaderboard.

Initially started as a pet project by a single developer, the team quickly expanded into a team of 5 due to high traction and interest from the community. As we progressively improved the game features and mechanics, it requires dedication from the team to ideate and solve complex and challenging problems. The team extensively did pro-bono work for all wearables, events, development, server cost, 3D modelling and design efforts. Therefore, we seek funding from the community, as it would be difficult to continue self-funding and dedicating ourselves to BPF, without the necessary support we hoped for in our expansion plan. The team strongly believes that with the funding and support, BPF will bring more entertainment and value add to the community.

Individual Experience:

1. Solutions Architect: Solutions Architect with 12 years of experience in architecting, designing solutions and software development. He specialized in Human Machine Interface while acting as a consultant for various large scale software projects. He handled projects valued at over $30 Million, which he oversees end-to-end development. He also successfully delivered and operationalised software applications.

2. Business Development Manager: Product Owner with 4 years of experience in software development and product management. His experience includes managing stakeholders requirements, operations & tech integration and system architecting. He successfully delivered software applications of over $20 million and completed multiple Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) with deployment and releases.

3. Lead Full Stack Software Developer #1: Lead Software Developer with 4 years of experience in software development and full SDLC. He oversees software applications, particularly in frontend, backend and deployment. In addition, he actively coached developers on complex technical challenges. He graduated with a Bachelor in Electrical Engineer, First Class Honours.

4. Lead Full Stack Software Developer #2: Lead Software Developer with 4 years of experience in software development, specializing in front-end development. His experience includes drones development, web and java applications. As a lead, he often front technical discussions while offering professional advice in data structures, algorithm design and complexity analysis.

5. Ops & Tech Support: A Marine Chief Engineer with over 10 years of sailing and engineering experience, in charge of operating and maintaining multi-million dollar shipping vessels.
   As a marine engineer and institute of higher education senior lecturer, he spends his time actively imparting knowledge while playing grinding games during down time.

Specification

1. Overall gameplay and server improvements. Server redundancy, improvements and database backup. Airdrops are scheduled and latency is lowered. User Interface (UI) revamp to improve the overall outlook of the farm. Improvement to facilitate better User Experience (UX). To do this, we design and develop UI while incorporating Design Innovation techniques to improve the overall gameplay. While the team improves the gameplay, we are actively looking to improve the shop functions, UI and UX as well. Farmers will be surprised with a new shop interface that improves their overall experience.

2. New plants and plant drops. With the development of new plants, farmers can plant different plants to gain in-game currency (BPF coins) and exchange for wearables. Farmers can also look forward to receiving in-game materials from the plants in the near future!

3. Crafting. With the development of the crafting feature, farmers can expect to combine in-game materials and currency to get wearables and unique in-game items. These wearables and items could provide specific bonuses to events and plants!

4. New Animals. After achieving funds, our designer and developers will work in tandem to design and develop unique animals for players to enjoy and catch. Farmers can anticipate new animals they have never seen before!

5. New wearables. These wearables give bonuses in-game, which encourages farmers to farm and acquire them. As we would engage designers, farmers can look forward to wearables of different styles, collections and appearances. Through our funding, we intend to launch multiple wearables every month to boost farmers’ experience, goals and gameplay in BPF.

6. Monthly events and rewards. Apart from the main objective of P2E, our team aims to give back and engage the community regularly by providing a different avenue to participate in the farm. Monthly events will be unique and farmers can experience different gameplay to enhance their experience. Examples are the ‘Climb the Beanstalk’ event to reach the floating cloud platform and ‘Chasing the Animal’ event with a Magic Flute summoning many animals at once! Rewards are given to hardworking farmers who reached the top of the leaderboards. Farmers can purchase wearables in-game (via in-game currency or MANA) when they participate in such events to gain specific boosts to their stats! These events are proprietary ideas that the team had conceptualized to make BPF a more enjoyable game for everyone.

7. Development of Cloud. For farmers who have reached the floating cloud platform using the beanstalk, there are plans to further develop new and exciting features on the cloud platform. Stay tuned for more!

Personnel

The team consists of 5 team members that complement each other in a vast set of skills and experience. Our collaborative experience includes, full-stack software deployment, product design and product management. At the same time, we are actively recruiting for team players with different skill sets to join our family!

Experience aside, we’re a group of game enthusiasts! Even with our full-time jobs, we have been actively developing and deploying new features in BPF frequently, and we aim to serve and attract the DCL community better, through never-seen-before, events, gameplay and wearables!

Our team is committed to delivering the best we can for the DCL community. As we engage our industrial experience, the team partakes in agile development using SCRUM, where we have meetings (daily stand-up and fortnightly sprints) to keep track of development progress and ideate on new ideas.

We aim to expand the team further with the expertise stated below:
1 x Solutions Architect
2 x Full Stack Developer
1 x Business Development Manager
1 x 3D Environment Artist
1 x Social Media Manager
1 x Ops & Tech Support

Funds breakdown:
Software development: 70k. Of which, backend development will be allocated 35k, while web development will be allocated 35k.

Modelling, graphics and design: 20k

Operations, maintenance and social media (Twitter, discord): 25k. This includes social media premium subscriptions, server costs and wearables listing fees.

Marketing: 5k

Roadmap and milestones

Before receiving funds:
The team developed the baseline for BPF with basic features (harvesting plants and catching of animals). The team developed new mechanisms such as new plant designs and types, additional plots for planting based on a level system, beanstalk, cloud platform, and walking, running and flying animals. The team also launched monthly events such as Climb the Beanstalk and Chasing the Animals. The events include mini-games such as Magic Flute summoning many animals at once. Currently, the team had published 9 wearables with different utilities.

On maintainability, the team fixed bugs promptly that was transparent and visible to farmers. The team embarked on a support channel in discord, to assign moderators to personally help players with technical difficulties. The functionality of gameplay was also improved via leaderboard and shop upgrades.

Receiving funds:
Refer to specifications for in-depth breakdown.

Ongoing development throughout 6 months:

1. Overall gameplay and server improvements
2. New wearables
3. New plants and plant drops
4. New animals
5. Monthly events and rewards

Phase 1:

1. Crafting

Phase 2:

1. Development of Cloud

The team is accountable to the community. There will be monthly updates via social media platforms and active engagement with the community. Suggestions, bugs reporting and discussions are taken seriously and the team looks to implement practical and favorable ideas.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

[mattimus]

The game is very enjoyable but a request for the maximum tier amount should have a more detailed breakdown of funds.

Vroomway has achieved an amazing amount of functionality with half of this amount so I am a little bit hesitant to vote yes without a more clear use of funds.

Can you provide any more details about exact infrastructure costs and estimated budget for each of the features proposed? Maybe some hourly estimates and the rates you plan to pay devs? What is “web development”? Are you planning to have a website for this too or is that for the sdk portions?

There is also no mention of a way to sustain the game long term. Once the 120k is exhausted do you plan to request more funds for infrastructure costs or will the game be able to fund itself through wearables sales or some other means?

The original version was open sourced as terms for the game jam, do you plan to keep the future development of the platform available for other developers to use? If the funds were used to develop a platform other devs can build off of I would be more likely to vote yes for this amount.

[DOCTORdripp]

This looks amazing and I would love to see BP Farm succeed to the highest degree!

However, in agreeance with @mattimus - I am becoming a bit more cautious when it comes to consideration of grants larger than the minimum, for a first time application.

In addition to a projected breakdown of funds, I am withholding my vote until the DCL names of the team are shared. While I do not believe a team needs to be fully irl doxed, I do believe sharing DCL names of expected team members is important for accountability in consideration of larger grants.

Thank you for understanding my concerns. Otherwise, I am two thumbs up & cheering!

[TheCryptoTengu]

I agree with @DOCTORdripp. After all the bs we got on our proposal I to want names. Nothing personal im glad to see more stuff be built, but full disclosure even if not doxxed. Id imagine a lot of delegates,whales and users will feel the same. Who is this team of 5

[butterflyprawn]

Hi all,

This is ButterflyPrawn. Please allow me to give a brief introduction of my journey so far in DCL and this project’s short history.

I only joined DCL in January 2022, so unlike many others, I am unable to say that I am ‘here since the start and contributed a lot to DCL’. I started off like many others mining meteors and exploring the popular areas. Although I am no 3D artist by training (I am a software architect/ developer as stated above), I started learning Blender to create wearables in DCL (published about 16 wearables). It was fun and I do make a little money from this small hobby (monetary returns actually do not justify the time, but hey it was fun!).

Looking around DCL, there are vast LANDS but are barren or without any traffic, I start to think that more should be done to boost interest in DCL which I felt is of great potential. In June 2022, I noticed that a Game Jam event is being organised, so I bought a small DEED in Aetheria and proceeded to learn the SDK to code a simple game. However, as I started late and alone (maybe like 15 days left to deadline), the game fell short and I did not make it to top 20.

With a working game code, it is a pity to not deploy this in DCL. I did think of getting grants to build up the game but I felt I should not be wasting the DCL treasury funds until I am sure that the community liked the game and it could really bring value to DCL. Hence, I decided to fund it from my own pocket for a Proof of Concept and to test the receptiveness of the community (note that I am not rich nor supported by any whales). However, LANDs are expensive and to me a pity that it was held by many who are flippers and not even builders. I took the plunge and invested about 20k USD for a small plot of 2X2 LAND which currently hosted the game. The first version of the game is then deployed in July 2022.

Initially the traffic was ‘meh’ in the game until word spread and it exploded overnight (Thanks for all the support though it was unexpected!). Server costs were off the roof and I was left alone to fix critical bugs and exploits. This was when I brought in some of my trusted friends (The other 4 listed above) with software/ social media skillsets to contribute their time and money to maintain the game. Initial thoughts was to supplement the maintenance of the game with wearable sales. However, as most would have known by now, DCL does not have enough traffic to sustain games with purely wearable sales. Furthermore, we want to be able to gift even our free players if they put in effort into the game (under the spirit of P2E). This puts a strain on the income as well as the cost of designing and publishing the wearable has increased recently.

Up to August, player numbers have grown and we are seeing 1.8k weekly users at 1.1hour average session time! (Based on DCL builder numbers, not sure does it mean unique people). Expectations have thus grown with rising numbers and new problems like cyber security/ bots/ backups are starting to come into play and we are sure that the wearables income will not be able to sustain the costs/ efforts put into this pet project which the 5 of us had been slogging/ funding it over the past 2 months. It had been fun for us, which we hoped the same for the community and we will be excited to organize more events and build up features in the game.

I had been looking at various DAO proposals, many of which are seeking funding before work is being done. What is different for us is that I made sure that the game is truly viable and popular before we started to decide to actually seek funding.

I will list the in-game names of my team, but truthfully, they are very new to DCL (They joined after my introduction to them over the past few months but have been digging their heads into the SDK to build up the farm and surveying the other events for inspirations).

For your kind consideration. Thank you so much for your attention and the players for the support and feedback to grow my mini side project to something that actually draws some attention in DCL.

[butterflyprawn]

Hi, thanks for your feedback, we will provide more details on the breakdown, the DAO submission had a small word limit so we had to cut down.

After the grant is exhausted, we will re-assess again if we needed more funds, based on popularity at the moment, no point in us grabbing new funds if there are no longer interest in the game. Draining the treasury for pointless grants will be detrimental to LAND holders like me (Small time holder) The community can decide again when the time comes. Selling wearables was the initial mode of income to sustain the game. But we realized with DCL current traffic and market size, it is currently very challenging.

As for building as a platform for other developers, it will be a different product from a game and require a vastly different skillset, development effort and very good documentation (I know this because I do develop some frameworks in the past). I am more than willing to provide advice to any one who needed some start-up help for using the existing SDK (It had quite a bit of flaws and bugs which we had to work around but otherwise usable).

[ckbubbles]

As someone who made it to a leaderboard in this game, I am a testament at how fun and addicting it can be. I bounded with players I’ve known more deeply, as we raced our way to the top of the p.apple leaderboard. As soon as I saw the title of the proposal I was so excited to read more.

I have yet to vote however, because of the comments above, a clearer budget breakdown would be preferred, as i frequently as for this from others, and please let us know who the team is besides yourself! I know we met and chatted a lil while back on parcel, and it was great to pick your brain a bit, but I was left wanting more!

Also, being only here for 5 months I can also relate to the “newness” but when you are doing something that brings value that community wants, time shouldn’t matter IMO!

Anyways looking forward to seeing more of the breakdown, and if nothing else keep trying at a proposal, ppl want to see you succeed but sometimes this version submitted might not be for them.

[TheCryptoTengu]

Read what you said today and im in gave you my vote. Your time here shouldnt matter on some things. Performance innovation passion vision abilities and drive I think matter on this kinda stuff. Lots good communication here from you and cool to hear 1000+ almost 2000 people are stopping by a day. Maybe in couple months that will be 10,000. Also cool to think about what may come of your game design with the things you have said. Id still like to see the names but just because someone or a team is new doesnt mean we should look down or doubt them. Im sure @SinfulMeatStick will agree with that and look forward to seeing how he votes.

[BPVerse]

Hi everyone, thank you for your questions. I’m Yurius, the business development manager for ButterflyPrawn Farm. Normally, I’ll be managing the official joint account (including Twitter), responding to queries, updates, and announcements (happy to have chatted with everyone). Often enough, you can find us as moderators in our discord channel (resolving bugs, chatting with players, and giving tips on farming) as well!

In response to @DOCTORdripp, @ckbubbles, and other queries on personnel breakdown, here is the breakdown corresponding to the proposal above.

Official Account: BPVerse

Butterflyprawn: Solutions Architect

Yurius: Business Development Manager

Typlode: Lead Full Stack Software Developer #1

4everhero: Lead Full Stack Software Developer #2

RGBForest: Ops & Tech Manager

P.S: Will be updating the funds’ breakdown soon. Thank you for your patience.

[BPVerse]

Hi everyone, please find the funds breakdown in the link below. Please note that, despite being a generic task, it would be a similar amount of effort and time per month with different developmental tasks. You may also refer to the breakdown of developmental tasks in the link below.

Butterfly Prawn Farm Funds Breakdown

I hope I answered your queries as well. @ckbubbles, @DOCTORdripp, mattimus.

Thank you.

[Billyteacoin]

This has proven to be a fun game that the community loves! I think you deserve a yes from me! I think you will get this passed eventually, even if it doesn’t pass this time I think you can get this grant eventually for sure.

[DedHeadJ]

I love this game and it has become a stop multiple times per day. I appreciate your further explanation of funds, so this is a yes for me. Keep up the great work!

[butterflyprawn]

Thanks everyone for their kind feedback. We will do our best!

[DOCTORdripp]

Thank you for the prompt response and supplementary data. I find your breakdown of funds to be both thorough and accurate.

I’m excited to vote yes and I think that you won’t have any problem getting the votes you need, but still consider directly reaching out to others in the community, asking for consideration of support.

Looking forward to the next stages of your game! Thanks again @butterflyprawn

[Seanny]

This is a good proposal, and your responsiveness @butterflyprawn towards valid questions about the grant made it even better.

1,800 weekly active users are significant for DCL. Keep going.

Hyped to see your project grow over the next 6 months!

[butterflyprawn]

Thanks everyone for the vote of confidence. We will do our best!

[HAZARDOUS]

Yes from me. We need to pull more people into DCL and the gaming community is a huge part of that. At the moment there isn’t a huge amount of game choice that will keeps you coming back for more. I work with dev’s daily, there is so much resource required to build and maintain a game/software. The amount of information you have provided is a big plus. One thing that would have been good to see is your timescale for phase 1 & 2 ? Or is that all happening in the 6 months you accounted for? My concern is that you will run out of funding quickly with the amount of staff that you want to bring on combined with the amount of work you’d like to achieve in that time. I’ll leave that for you to worry about :). I for one would really like to see the next stage of this project and voting yes will help me to gauge how I respond to others pitching for this level of funding in the future. Good luck with it all!

[Vaporizador]

Congrats on reaching the threshold!

[BPVerse]

Hey @HAZARDOUS. I’m elated that you could relate to our situation. At BPF, we’re a highly motivated team where we intend to accomplish phases 1 and 2 within these 6 months. As we lay the foundation and plan for deeper expansion in BPF, it is paramount to focus on the development for maintainability and sustainability. Fret not, as we work in an AGILE environment, it helps the team to consistently monitor the development and adapt to any challenges along the way. We thank you for your support and we’re excited to walk the next stage of this project with you!

[Unknower]

I think building something first and then asking for DAO funds is the right way to go about this. I know first hand that server costs can get out of hand pretty quickly as software scales. This game seems to have been embraced by the community and clearly this is adding something of value to Decentraland. Putting my measly 1000-some VP towards a Yes vote for all of these reasons. Best of luck with the continued expansion!