Vr slotCar racing meets rogue like !¿!¿

[kurtisAikins]

Hello world!

If you, like me, love VR, grew up collecting hotwheels, and thought slotcars were super cool, Or have little ones that do, my project might be of some interest

What is it? Well it’s a slotcar racing game… only sprinkle in mario kart drifting/jumping, and that had a baby with binding of isaac… and it’s VR. I after the feels, of opening a massive/awesome new toy on christmas morning. I’m only targeting the Quest for the time being, as that’s the lowest end device, scaling up is always easier.

So is this a [PROPOSAL]? No, not yet. This is a bit of my “Hello World” to this community, and really the creative economy/dao/nft world as a whole. I’m only in the discovery phase, and I need to learn more before I feel comfortable pitching something to this group. So far, I am in love with this idea that the peoples are the ones supporting the creatives, bypassing the greedy suits. So instead, I plan on taking you along this journey of mine (If I’m allowed), by posting some fun updates here. The goal is, end of year have a demo running on the quest. At that point I can share the demo here, and see what happens.

Why am I building this thing? - Because I want it. That’s really about it. I’ve spend my whole career, working on things that none of the creators actually want…Yes I’ve worked at EA. So, my mission is to make something that I would buy myself. I believe that if I want it badly enough that I would pay for it, others will.

Well that sounds awesome, but what kind of person make such a thing? Great question, I’m a maker I worked in the tv/film/games world, and have since I was 19 (now much older/greyer). Over the years, I’ve been scooping up skills I’ve been able to get my hands on. I’ve been a pro in each categories:
public enum JobTitles
{
ANIMATOR,
CONCEPT ARTIST,
3D CHARACTER ARTIST,
PROGRAMMER
}
…so all the bits you would need to know to be a solo dev Was this my plan all along!!! YES.

[frnvpr]

Really happy to see this! Please keep the updates coming, if you need community engagement let us know and we’ll collaborate on that front, and when you’re ready to make a proposal, we’re all hears and eyes

And welcome!!

[kurtisAikins]

So, Lets get you caught up. I’m at the stage of development where I’m building out the bones of the MVP (minimum viable product). Currently, the focus is on the track. I had been previously using existing track editor tools, but I hit a point where I was rewriting a good chunk of them, to get the look/functionality I’m after. This was causing a lot of delays, because I really didn’t understand them well enough to be rewriting as much as I had been. So, for the last 2 months I’ve been building my own track/track editor from scratch.

Now that your caught up, It’ll make a bit more sense why this is such a milestone for me. This is the first time I’ve got the old car controller, running/talking to the new track.

From here I probably start looking at the car controller, and how I deal with the drifting/fx. Or maybe I start getting the environment art further along.

[frnvpr]

following this will be such a ride, I am already loving it

[kurtisAikins]

thank ya! I want to be able to bring others through the process of what it’s actually like to build a game. Also, the VR part will become apparent soon I opened up the level that I had been working on, for the first time in a couple months, and ya it’s gunna be cool.

[kurtisAikins]

What we have here, is the answer to the question “What exactly are you building?”

[kurtisAikins]

working on FX, and some of the cars controller setup/tuning.

[kurtisAikins]

Art style is established now I designed this look to be really easy to make, and epic performance on devices

[frnvpr]

@microchipgnu @JulianaM @Samiasns check this out!

[kurtisAikins]

Next step, test what this feels like on the Quest

[kurtisAikins]

And here is the spawning system in VR.

[kurtisAikins]

A peak at the trophy/post race scene

[frnvpr]

Enjoying all of these… Is there anything we can help you with? You seem to be making great progress, but if there is any way in which we can be helpful, please let us know!

[kurtisAikins]

Thank ya frnvpr, maybe it’s time to start letting the peoples in on the plan.

Step 1) build the demo.
This is basically what your seeing get built.

Step 2) acquire the capital to buy my own time. It’s wild to me how hard this is, but I’m building up savings, but I will need help.

As a canadian I’m eligible for to win a grant (50k), deadline is feb. If I can land this, it covers step 2 if not I’m on my own, and ill be looking for support.

I’m desperately trying to avoid the old system. I see how badly it’s failing both the creators, and the consumers. All the currently available resources for startups in my field, funnel you to the hands of the greedy suits. I’m sure I’ll be putting out more of my thoughts on this, but just know I see it as one of the main reasons the vr games world currently sucks.

Step 3) build the MVP game!
Building the core of the game experience. I’ll use this to chat with Facebook, quest and start the talks about marketing.

Step 4) add in the concepts of a dao
This will be where I’ll need the most help. As I’m doing all this solo, I’ll eventually hit my limits, of what I can do/ learn in an acceptable amount of time. I would like to build out a Dao that controls this games future. Ideally it’ll be owned by the people who play it, and those that help fund it. They’d/we’d have direct votes into what gets added/what bugs are fixed, and aquiring the funding for it. This is a super rough concept in my head, but that’s the end target. Turning this concept into a reality, is where I’ll be needing help.

Step 5) nft’s
These little cars are a perfect medium for nft’s. Something like nft auction for one off cars. I wanna play around with this. I was thinking of also auctioning off some of the original art as nfts, to help fund the games progress.

In conclusion, I’m not 100% of what the realities of help look like :P. I’m still very new to this world, and a good deal of my focus ends up elsewhere ><. That’s why I’m here, I was just planning on seeing how it organically progresses.

Some of the questions I have for the gang;

What are some of the steps I should have in mind, for starting up this dao?

What are the realities of financing a project like this, in this kind of setting? I do not mean to be rude, I just really have no concept.

How best to grow the community around this game? Should I be thinking of what the terms for the Dao are, and set that stuff up?

What are acceptable terms, in a smart contract, to allow all parties to be content?

And here are some things you can be thinking of, that come from my side.

Marketing is gunna be a huge part of this. Our best bet is Facebook ads, VR influencers, and just growing a community.

I’ll be needing some help, on the backend programming. I have done a bit of this, but I know there are some clever people’s out there that might wanna join in on the fun.

I’ve been building out this art style, in a way that makes it very light, and quick to make. So thinking of good uses of it will be something to take advantage of.

Feel free to suggest things, and let me know your thoughts!

[frnvpr]

Hey Kurtis!
A lot do deal with, han.

It is indeed a complex project, but we (and the Near community at large) can certainly help you with some of the stuff, when the time is right. Creating a DAO and playing with governance seems like a logic step, but I’m sure there are things we can do, together, in the meantime.

In this forum you find the existence of what are now being called ‘verticals’: Creatives, Marketing Education, etc. More will come in the future, and they all serve the purpose of engaging with the community and supporting whatever projects are being built.

You can see, under the Creatives umbrella, the nft-gaming-dao NEAR Gaming - NEAR Forum. I’m not sure how that DAO is working these days, but I’m sure we can find someone for you to talk to.

However, as a VR DAO council member, I can give you some information which can help you make a clear picture of what to do next and how to do it.

The VR DAO, working under the Creatives DAO, receives funding to support VR related projects. So, as we ask for our funding on a monthly basis, we require those who ask us for support to do the same. You can find the information about this process here:

• https://gov.near.org/t/guide-how-to-apply-for-funding-from-the-virtual-reality-dao

• https://gov.near.org/t/guide-how-to-write-monthly-reports-for-the-vr-dao

The normal procedure is to request funding on a monthly basis, then report on that month’s activities, rinse and repeat.

Since the max funding the VR DAO can request from the Creatives DAO is 2000N and that has to be used to support a number of projects, it is reasonable that the funding request for each project is only a % of the max total.

So, if you find a way to create a reasonable proposal, explained in a month to month to month roadmap, we can find ways to make it work.

Of course it’s not our place to fund the entirety of the project, but we can be a boost.

Plus, there are already ways of, using the work that is being done, pursue sources of revenue. You talked about selling ‘car-nfts’. That seems something we can fund easily and sell on our Mintbase store (or help you create your own store, for that matter, or just do both).

Using our social media channels, we can help you sell your cars and even maybe create a funding campaign.

These are just some thoughts, and I’m sure as time goes by others will come in and suggest cool ideas to support your project.

Let’s keep the ideas flowing, shall we?

[kurtisAikins]

you legend, thank ya for the run down I’ll be be spending a bit more time here to learn more about this community, and build out my understanding.

Is there a project that stands out as a prime example of the community?

[frnvpr]

hey @kurtisAikins! I’m sure there are plenty of incredible examples, but I have been particularly amazed with the way the Creatives DAO, council-ed by @chloe and @mecsbecs, have been supporting the creatives communities… They helped run the May Hackathon, which onboarded a lot of the currently working DAOs in the creatives section, and it has been just incredible to see the enthusiasm and proposals everyone is bringing. You can check all the DAOs under the Creatives vertical (where we have the VR DAO) and just browse around to check what people have been working on.

But maybe Chloe and Rebecca have a better answer for that question

[chloe]

I’d definitely suggest joining the NEAR Gaming community if you haven’t already <3 NEAR Games Community

NEAR Games Community

[kurtisAikins]

The more I do this kind of work, the more I realize how well animation, and programming skills really blend together. So this is still like an early draft, something like a sketch, of what I plan on doing for VR transitions. (Sorry for the rough fps, can see better on my twitter @kanimated)

[kurtisAikins]

Seems like Sept is going to be tough to get as much time as I have been, to be working on the game. That said, I snuck in some time this morning, and I finally got the car running on the new track . This needs all the tuning, all the bug fixing still. However, Finally means the track editor is good enough for the demo scene, and I can shift my focus back to making it fun, and working with the car.