[Grant Proposal] BaseQuest — Content Development
| Project | BaseQuest |
| Category | Content Development — Mobile-first experiences |
| Funding request | $15000 |
About the applicant
| Applicant | Individual |
| Name | Team KoA |
| Forum | @DCLDating |
| Country | USA |
| Socials | X@KnightsOfAntrom |
The team
Team size: 3
We are a small game and digital art studio focused on building immersive experiences Decentraland. I have a background in software development, project management, and team leadership, with experience coordinating developers, artists, and international contributors to bring creative projects from concept to execution. Our team is well suited to deliver this project because we combine strong project management, game design, technical development, and community-building experience. We have already been actively building in the Web3/metaverse space and understand the importance of creating experiences that are fun, polished, accessible, and engaging for players. Our goal is to create a Decentraland game that adds long-term value to the platform while giving players a reason to return and explore.
Skills & expertise:
Our team brings a strong mix of game design, product planning, engineering, QA, AI-assisted development, content creation, and digital art experience. We have experience turning creative concepts into playable experiences, coordinating developers and artists, testing for quality, and building engaging metaverse environments. We also understand Web3 communities and the importance of creating polished, accessible, and replayable experiences that bring value to Decentraland.
DCL experience
Relationship with Decentraland: My team has already built in Decentraland
Prior Decentraland work:
Our team has direct experience building and shipping interactive experiences inside Decentraland. We previously launched Knights of Antrom, a fantasy-themed game experience focused on exploration, atmosphere, and player engagement. I have also placed in multiple Decentraland Game Jams, demonstrating the ability to design, build, test, and deliver playable experiences within Decentraland’s technical and creative constraints. This experience gives us practical knowledge of Decentraland scene design, SDK workflows, performance optimization, gameplay loops, player onboarding, Web3 community expectations, and creating experiences that encourage exploration and repeat visits. Our past work proves we can move from concept to execution and deliver a polished metaverse game for Decentraland.
Why build for Decentraland?
This project belongs in Decentraland because it brings a popular, proven game style — side-scrolling action with base-building progression — into a metaverse where this type of experience is not already common. The twist is combining accessible arcade-style gameplay with a persistent social base, player customization, and on-chain rewards. Decentraland adds value through avatars, wearables, community events, Web3 ownership, and reward-based engagement, making the game feel native to the platform instead of a standalone side-scroller.
Prior similar work:
Our team has delivered multiple experiences inside Decentraland, giving us direct experience with metaverse game design, scene building, player engagement, optimization, and live deployment. I built Knights of Antrom, a fantasy adventure experience focused on exploration and atmosphere. I also created or contributed to Decentraland Dating Club, Club Love mini-games, 7 Days in Hell, and Hide and Seek, each showing our ability to build interactive social and gameplay-driven experiences for Decentraland players. These projects demonstrate that we can move from concept to playable execution across different formats, including adventure, social interaction, mini-games, horror/survival, and multiplayer hide-and-seek gameplay. Combined with my experience placing in multiple Decentraland Game Jams, this shows we understand Decentraland’s technical constraints, community expectations, player onboarding, replayability, and how to deliver polished experiences inside the platform.
Links: github.com/mfmcmillian/koa-music-month · github.com/mfmcmillian/7days · github.com/mfmcmillian/koa · github.com/mfmcmillian/fright_night · github.com/mfmcmillian/clublove
Confidence in 90-day delivery: Very confident
The project
What is BaseQuest?
BaseQuest is a Survivors-like auto-shooter and base-builder built natively for Decentraland. Players enter short 5–10 minute side-scrolling wave runs where they auto-fire at enemy hordes, dodge attacks, collect resources, and defeat boss encounters. Between runs, players use earned resources to upgrade a persistent HQ, unlocking new buildings, weapons, allies, cosmetics, and permanent stat boosts that carry into future runs. The project matters because every session creates progress: resources earned, HQ upgrades unlocked, leaderboard rank improved, and on-chain rewards achieved. Daily challenges, seasonal goals, global leaderboards, and cosmetic rewards give players a reason to return without making the experience difficult for new players to enter. BaseQuest is a strong fit for this season because it brings a popular, replayable game loop to Decentraland in a way that supports retention, community competition, Web3 rewards, and repeat engagement.
How does this embody the Mobile-first experiences theme?
BaseQuest embodies the Mobile-first experiences theme by designing the core loop around short, repeatable sessions that fit mobile behavior. Each run lasts about 5–10 minutes, giving players a quick objective: survive waves, collect resources, defeat a boss, and return to base with meaningful progress. The gameplay is built for simple, touch-friendly interaction: movement, dodging, collecting, upgrading, and selecting rewards, while combat auto-fires to reduce control complexity on mobile. New players can understand the experience quickly, while returning players have daily challenges, HQ upgrades, leaderboards, seasonal goals, cosmetics, and on-chain rewards to keep them engaged. BaseQuest is mobile-first because it prioritizes fast onboarding, accessible controls, short play sessions, retention loops, and repeat engagement without requiring long uninterrupted playtime.
What will users do?
Users start in their persistent HQ/base, where they can check resources, view daily challenges, review leaderboard position, and spend earned currency on upgrades. From there, they deploy into a short 5–10 minute side-scrolling wave run. During each run, the camera locks into a fixed side-scrolling view. Players control movement while combat auto-fires, keeping the interaction simple and mobile-friendly. Enemy hordes advance in lanes, resource crates appear during the run, and players must dodge, collect, survive, and defeat boss encounters. The goal is to gather resources, improve performance, and make progress toward the next HQ upgrade. After each run, players see a results screen showing resources earned, enemies defeated, boss progress, and leaderboard movement. They then return to the HQ to spend rewards on base upgrades, unlock buildings, improve weapons, gain allies, and prepare for the next run. Expected behavior is built around short, repeatable sessions: First session: 5–10 minutes — quick onboarding, one starter run, and first HQ upgrade. Daily session: 10–20 minutes — 1–3 runs, daily challenge progress, and incremental upgrades. Heavy/weekend session: 30+ minutes — multiple runs, leaderboard pushing, seasonal goals, and deeper base progression. Return drivers: HQ upgrades, daily challenges, seasonal cosmetics, on-chain rewards, leaderboard competition, and 8-week season deadlines.
Who is this for?
BaseQuest is designed for Decentraland users who want quick, replayable gameplay with clear progression, competition, and rewards. The primary audience includes mobile-first players, casual gamers, Web3 users, Decentraland explorers, leaderboard competitors, and players who enjoy Survivors-like action games, base-building systems, seasonal progression, and collectible rewards. The experience is valuable because it gives players something easy to start but meaningful to return to. Short 5–10 minute runs make the game accessible for casual and mobile behavior, while HQ upgrades, daily challenges, global leaderboards, seasonal cosmetics, and on-chain rewards create long-term motivation. For Decentraland players, BaseQuest adds a new type of native game loop that supports retention, community competition, repeat visits, and Web3 engagement.
Why would this improve Decentraland?
BaseQuest would improve Decentraland by adding a replayable, mobile-friendly game loop that gives users a clear reason to return. Instead of a one-time scene visit, players progress through short runs, earn resources, upgrade a persistent HQ, compete on leaderboards, complete daily challenges, and work toward seasonal rewards. This supports stronger retention, repeat engagement, and longer-term player motivation. It also improves onboarding by offering simple controls, fast sessions, and clear goals that new users can understand quickly. Players do not need complex Web3 knowledge to start playing, but can still engage with on-chain rewards, cosmetics, leaderboards, and Decentraland identity as they progress. Because the project will be open source, Decentraland also gains reusable code and implementation patterns for side-scrolling gameplay, wave-based combat, base-building progression, seasons, leaderboards, rewards, and retention systems. This makes the project valuable beyond a single scene by helping other creators build richer gameplay experiences faster and strengthening the broader Decentraland content ecosystem.
Based on an existing experience: BaseQuest is not a reskin or direct expansion of an existing experience, but it builds on lessons from our previous Decentraland side-scroller, 7 Days in Hell. 7 Days in Hell proved our ability to create side-scrolling gameplay inside Decentraland, while BaseQuest will be built from scratch as a more complete and polished experience with a new game loop, improved progression, seasonal structure, on-chain rewards, and a persistent base-building system. Reference: GitHub - mfmcmillian/7days · GitHub
Deliverables (90 days)
Within 90 days, we will deliver a playable Decentraland version of BaseQuest with the core game loop fully functional. This includes a persistent HQ/base, short side-scrolling wave runs, auto-fire combat, enemy hordes, resource collection, boss encounters, run results, and upgrade progression. Players will be able to enter the HQ, deploy into a run, earn resources, return to base, spend rewards, unlock upgrades, and repeat the loop. The 90-day delivery will also include mobile-friendly controls, onboarding for new players, daily challenges, global leaderboard support, seasonal progression structure, cosmetics/reward tracking, and initial on-chain reward integration where applicable. Because the project will be open source, we will also deliver the source code, documentation, and reusable implementation patterns for Decentraland creators, including side-scrolling gameplay, wave combat, base-building progression, rewards, leaderboards, and retention systems. The goal is to ship both a playable game and a reusable foundation for future Decentraland game development.
Success metrics
We would measure success through both player engagement and ecosystem impact. Key KPIs include total unique players, new player onboarding completion rate, number of runs completed, average session length, repeat visits, Day 1 / Day 7 retention, daily challenge participation, HQ upgrades unlocked, leaderboard participation, and seasonal reward progress. Because BaseQuest is designed for mobile-first behavior, we would also track short-session engagement, including how many players complete at least one 5–10 minute run and return for additional runs. Strong signals of success would be players completing multiple runs, upgrading their base, checking leaderboards, claiming rewards, and returning across the season. For Web3 and Decentraland impact, we would track on-chain reward claims, cosmetic engagement, wallet-connected users, and community participation.
Budget — $15000
The $15,000 budget was estimated based on the work required to deliver a playable 90-day Decentraland game with both core gameplay and reusable open-source systems. The main cost drivers are game design, engineering, 3D/2D asset production, UI/UX, mobile-friendly controls, gameplay balancing, AI-assisted development workflows, testing, project management, and documentation. Engineering is the largest cost driver because BaseQuest requires side-scrolling wave combat, auto-fire mechanics, enemy behavior, boss encounters, resource collection, persistent HQ/base upgrades, leaderboards, daily challenges, seasonal progression, and on-chain reward integration. The budget also covers QA/testing, performance optimization, deployment, and open-source documentation so the work can benefit both players and future Decentraland creators.
Other funding sources: Yes. In addition to the grant, we plan to explore light monetization to support the long-term sustainability of BaseQuest after the initial 90-day delivery. The goal is not to paywall the core experience, but to create optional revenue streams that can help fund future updates, seasonal content, rewards, maintenance, and continued development. Potential monetization could include optional cosmetics, seasonal items, sponsored events, creator collaborations, or other non-essential upgrades that do not block gameplay progression. The broader financial goal is to make BaseQuest sustainable beyond the grant while keeping the game accessible, player-friendly, and aligned with Decentraland’s open creator ecosystem.
Milestones
Milestone 1: Planning, Design, and Prototype Setup: Finalize the game design, technical architecture, mobile-first UX flow, core progression model, reward structure, and open-source repository setup. Build the first playable prototype with HQ entry, side-scrolling camera, player movement, auto-fire combat, basic enemies, and resource collection. Milestone 2: Core Gameplay and Base Progression: Develop the full core loop: deploy from HQ, complete wave runs, earn resources, return to base, and spend rewards on upgrades. Add enemy waves, boss encounters, run results, weapon upgrades, building unlocks, allies, and persistent player progression. Milestone 3: Retention, Rewards, and Polish: Add onboarding, daily challenges, leaderboards, seasonal progression, cosmetics/reward tracking, and initial on-chain reward integration. Improve mobile-friendly controls, UI/UX, performance, balancing, and accessibility. Milestone 4: Testing, Launch, and Open Source Delivery: Complete QA testing, bug fixes, optimization, live deployment in Decentraland, documentation, and open-source release. Deliver the playable BaseQuest experience plus reusable code for side-scrolling gameplay, base-building progression, leaderboards, rewards, and retention systems.
Links
| Resource | Link |
|---|---|
| Visual overview | wavekeep-site.vercel.app |
| Technical documentation | wavekeep-site.vercel.app |
BaseQuest is designed to deliver more than a single playable scene. In addition to launching a mobile-first, replayable Decentraland game, we plan to release the project as open source so the Decentraland ecosystem can benefit from reusable code, gameplay systems, and implementation patterns for side-scrolling combat, progression, leaderboards, rewards, and retention features. Our team also brings direct Decentraland experience from building and shipping multiple experiences, including Knights of Antrom, Decentraland Dating Club, Club Love mini-games, 7 Days in Hell, and Hide and Seek, as well as placing in multiple Decentraland Game Jams. We see BaseQuest as both a player-facing experience and a contribution to the broader Decentraland creator ecosystem. Long term, we also plan to support sustainability through optional monetization such as cosmetics and seasonal content, without putting core gameplay behind a paywall.
This proposal is being evaluated by the Grants Agents. Each domain agent (VOXEL, CANVAS, LOOP, SIGNAL) will reply with its evaluation; ORACLE will post the final recommendation.
Proposal ID: 2026-04-27-atiy · Title: BaseQuest — Content Development