Near Kingdoms <> Gaming DAO

NDC [Archived] Gaming DAO
1

Main information:

Project Name: Near Kingdoms
Project URL: https://nearkingdoms.com/
Project’s X (Twitter): https://x.com/nearkingdoms

Game information:

About The Game:

Near Kingdoms is a large multiplayer online strategy game in the 4X genre with a Play-to-Earn (P2E) economy based on the Near blockchain. Players create and develop their own cities, build powerful armies, collect resources, form alliances with other players, conquer lands, and participate in in-game events.

Briefly Describe your project:

The main advantages of the game include a focus on the mobile gaming market, an economy that will not depend on the influx of new users, a quality approach to development, and ambitious plans for growth and expansion.

What is the USP ( unique selling point) of your game?:

  • Integration of mini-games. For example, a card game or wheel of fortune in the tavern, lotteries, pet battles, etc.
  • Behind all the objects in the game, there is a story, everyone will have his LORE.
  • The ability to uniquely integrate Near projects into the game as separate kingdoms, with their own design, events, bonuses.
  • Support for 20 languages
  • Use of NFT to customize game objects and get in-game bonuses.
  • Mechanic of unique constructions for each kingdom. Analogous to the wonders of the world.
  • Players can influence the development of the story and the game world.
  • Such a popular system of achievements in big games
  • Telegram integration

How does your game align with the NDC and Gaming WG KPIs?:

Currently, our game is in the MVP stage; it is vast, and we need finances to meet these WG KPIs. But, our project already has an initial audience of over 2,000 NFT NPunks holders waiting for its release.

Please Describe Your User Demographic:
Actual Data:

  • Please Share Sources.
    Predicted Data:
  • Specify It Is A Prediction.
  • Show Sources You Are Basing Predictions On.

According to our research using the data.ai service, the demographics in the genre are as follows:

  • Male - 30% / Female - 70%
  • 25-34 - 20%
  • 35-40 - 22%
  • 16-24 - 25%
  • 40+ - 33%

But these are data for the mobile market, which is not related to the cryptocurrency.

What is your Tech Stack?

Unity / C# / PostgreSQL / Rust

Status of the Project:

What is status of you project? (Concept, In development - Pre-MVP, In development - MVP Live, Live - No NEAR Integrations, Live - with NEAR Integrations on Testnet, Live - with NEAR Integrations on mainnet). In case your game is not launched yet, what is the current state and when is the launch planned?

In development - Pre-MVP

What is financial status of you project? (Bootstrapped (Team is covering expenses), Previous Grant/s,Pre-Seed,1 Seed Round,2+ Seed Rounds,Live Token)

Bootstrapped. Community driven

Monthly Burn Rate In USD:

6000

Team

About Your Team:
How many Team Members are working on the project:

7

Please Tell Us About Your Development Team:

Currently, our team consists of two Unity/C# developers with over 3 years of commercial development experience. They are proactive and diligently working on the project to bring it to the alpha version. They are highly motivated to launch and develop the project.

Additionally, the team includes:

  • Two 3D modelers who are responsible for creating models of buildings and units.
  • A professional artist in charge of the game’s visual style.
  • A UI/UX specialist responsible for the game interface.
  • A game project manager who oversees the entire development, team management, and task assignment.

Please Tell Us About Your BD Team:

We haven’t focused on building a business development team yet, but we plan to address that soon. We also hope to do it with the support of the Gaming DAO community.

Please Tell Us About Your Marketing / Community Building Team:

Currently, our marketing/community team consists of two individuals who engage with the gaming audience: the founder of NPunks and an SMM specialist. As the project progresses, we plan to build a full team and actively expand in this direction.

Support

What Kind Of Support Is Needed?
Please select the areas you request support on (Marketing, Business Concepts,Technical Support,Funding)

Funding and others.

Please provide more information about the selected areas

The development of a game in our genre is an extremely costly undertaking, and we cannot proceed without fundin… We are seeking funding, and in addition to that, it will be crucial for us to receive support in technical, marketing, and business aspects. We intend to build a significant project, promote Near, and actively engage in efforts in this direction.

Grants:

Grant Amount Requested:

$20 000

Please provide a budget breakdown

  • Blockchain Developer: $4000
  • Game Designer: $3000
  • Narrative Game Designer - $500
  • Lead Developer - $4000
  • Additional Developers - $6000
  • UI/UX Designer - $2000
  • Animations & VFX - $500

Roadmap & Milestones:

Milestone 1 | $4000

  • Standalone game token contract
  • Game Smart contract . NEAR Wallet required to play the game. Include:: Heroes, currency (game token), achievements & buildings are chaindata/nfts.
  • Server multiplayer solution (no photon or similiar solutions that won’t fit at scale) that fits to the MMO concept of the game: At least 64 players per zone, no cheating possible.
  • And small game updates

Milestone 2 | $4000

  • Player squad combat system and city siege
  • Combat system, damage calculation, and other components.
  • Squad creation system and hero selection for it
  • Related UI for previous mentioned systems to they are usable in the game, probably with placeholder assets and not final art.
  • Includes working realtime multiplayer for all related points.
  • At least 2 different heroes.
  • At least 12 different units
  • Placeholder / 3rd party assets bought from unity store are fine at this stage

Milestone 3 | $6000

  • Technology learning system
  • Talent tree system for heroes
  • Hero skills system and their visual effects
  • Experience gaining system for heroes
  • Quest system
  • UI/UX design for 12 windows (recruitment of units, hero, buildings, etc.) and 20+ icons.- Hero models for the hero selection screen
  • Global building system up to level 10 with model upgrades for each level- Remove all 3rd party art from the game and replace with your own assets.

Milestone 4 | $6000

  • Resource/barbarian search system
  • Alliance system
  • Chat and mail- Items for player use
  • Inventory and item system
  • At least 10 different heroes.
  • At least 24 different units + one for each kingdom.
  • At least 22 different buildings- Game adjustments (according to GDD, experience in previous milestones)
  • Mainnet launch on android, ios and steam.

Have you applied for any other funding programs so far?

Applied for a marketing grant of $5000. Got approval. However, we will not proceed with it. Development funding is more crucial for us.

NEAR integration
Will the game be NEAR exclusive or is it planned to integrate other chains or a web2 version?

Near Web3 + Web2 on IOS/Android

Applicant Information

5 Likes
2

Congratulations! Gaming DAO is pleased to approve Milestone 1, and Milestone 2, for $4000 each! After achieving these Milestones and checking them thoroughly, we will consider financing for M3 and M4

3 Likes
3

This is a report for completing the first milestone in our proposal for our funding request .

Within the scope of the first milestone, we have successfully implemented all the points as per the technical specification (TS).

  1. Standalone game token contract: We have developed a standalone contract, documented its functionality, and thoroughly tested it on the testnet. This contract is responsible for all token operations within the game, including minting, transferring, spending, and more.

  2. Game Smart contract: Contracts for Heroes, Buildings, and Achievements have been developed. These contracts have been tested and designed to simplify player interaction with the game mechanics to the fullest extent.

  3. Server multiplayer solution: We have completely foregone the use of Photon and developed our own server solution capable of handling thousands of concurrent players, limited only by server capacity. All game logic is executed through SignalR hub connections serialized with Message Pack, a fast and secure protocol. Endpoints are solely utilized for connection and hub creation purposes.

  4. Login system via Near : We have developed a microservice consisting of frontend and backend components. Users are redirected to it from the game to log in via a Near wallet. Users can choose from all wallets using the Wallet Selector. Then the user signs a verification transaction and can return to the game where they are already authorized.

We are actively continuing our work and initiating the second milestone.

2 Likes
4

This is a report for completing the second milestone in our proposal for our funding request .

We have completed the following tasks for the milestone.

  • Player squad combat system and city siege
  • Combat system, damage calculation, and other components.
  • Squad creation system and hero selection for it
  • Related UI for previous mentioned systems to they are usable in the game, probably with placeholder assets and not final art.
  • Includes working realtime multiplayer for all related points.
  • At least 2 different heroes.
  • At least 8/12 different units
    And
  • Near contracts call from the game
  • City buildings system for 10 levels

However, since Gaming DAO was unfortunately dissolved, we did not receive the remaining grant of 2000 USDT allocated for the second stage. The game continues to be developed using player funding, and we will be seeking financing again.

1 Like
5

As part of the NDC wind-down budget, the Gaming DAO had allocated these $2,000 in their proposal to NDC House of Merit. I’m not sure what exactly happened — it’s possible that the treasury decreased due to the drop in the NEAR price, especially if the funds weren’t converted into stablecoins.

1 Like
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After the shutdown of NDC and Gaming DAO, the story didn’t just end there. A few projects were still in progress, finalizing their milestones and waiting for payouts. The Gaming DAO team kept working for free: reviewing milestones, supporting the process, and distributing funds.

During the first six months after closure, every project that submitted their milestones on time received their funding. It was a massive amount of work — but the team received no compensation for it.

Some funds remained in the treasury — partly from projects that never submitted milestones, and partly due to NEAR price fluctuations. After a year, with no new submissions coming in, we decided it was fair to cover at least a fraction of our six months of unpaid work with those leftover funds.

When NEAR Kingdom finally came forward with their milestones (a full year after the DAO had already closed), the treasury was empty. That put us in a difficult position. After long internal discussions, we decided to restore funds into the Gaming DAO treasury, carefully review NEAR Kingdom milestones, and — if verified successfully — proceed with their payout.

2 Likes
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It is very interesting how you describe what, in fact, appears to be misappropriation of funds. The money allocated by the NDC Trust was intended strictly for the following purposes:

Total: $73,494
Spreadsheet link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zVCy10GzJhRI_8hpc5oauUlZTs492RVGM90kQ8XAkdY/edit?gid=727295486#gid=727295486

Despite this, you paid yourself additional salaries from funds designated for projects, including:

It’s calls theft. The appropriate course of action is to return these funds to the DAO so they can be used for their original purpose.

8

Paid in USDC, which is not subject to the exchange rate fluctuations you mentioned above.

9

Funds were allocated specifically — you were only supposed to receive your salary for May. So yes, beyond that, you should have been working without pay.

You also mentioned this to the HoM members when they voted on your budget. However, at some point you decided to take the founders’ money and appropriate it for yourselves, paying for work and a budget that was never approved by the NDC Congress or the NDC Trust.

Here are the transactions:

  1. $1,300 – link

  2. $300 – link

  3. $1,800 – link

  4. $3,300 – link

  5. $3,000 – link

Total: $9,700

Moreover, projects co-owned by the Gaming DAO councils received their full payouts.

10

Hi friends! Eugene reached out to me today and said that everything is fine, and the Near Kingdoms team can receive the remaining $2,000 after submitting the milestone. So, in the near future, we’ll prepare the build and send it to Eugene’s team for review and milestone acceptance. I believe everything is going well — we’ll get the funds, and there shouldn’t be any problems. Thanks!

2 Likes
11

Haenko, milestone achieved. When you gonna send money to the founder?