We have already developed and tested our first physical card game called Captivate: Cardano Edition. 1 year was spent on game testing & card design development time. Final artwork for the game is currently in production.
Captivate: Cardano Edition will connect gamers and collectors to Cardano through:
- The theme and pop culture of the game (Cardano).
- Rare physical assets only collectable by redeeming digital FTs on the Cardano blockchain.
- Providing more information about the Cardano blockchain (Veritree, SPOs, & Cardano itself).
This proposal is to get funding for physical production of the game. If we get funded, ideally our game will ship Q1 of 2023 (largely dependent on manufacturing & shipping timelines).
If you'd like a more visual presentation, please check out our website:
<https://frostloregames.com/games>
*With our product, we are also working to implement and develop more sustainable manufacturing within the tabletop game industry. This is a result of our stake pool's mission to help heal the earth with GAIA Stake Pool:
<https://www.gaiastakepool.com>
Game Overview:
Captivate: Cardano Edition is a fast-paced tabletop card game of strategy, skill, and memory for 2-4 players. Flip over cards and capture them to score points, but watch out – your opponents have plans of their own! Featuring iconic characters from Cardano pop culture, like the "King of the Rats" himself. Combine themes or multiple decks for exciting battles, and to increase the number of players to 5+
Game Features:
Captivate is quick to learn even for a large group, but difficult to master. There are many features to keep you and your friends playing over and over again – who will come out on top?
<u>Strategy:</u>
Planning when to play your cards is important. Playing as many cards as possible could score you more points, and will allow you to draw more cards faster. However, this will leave your high value cards open to capture by opponents.
You can also strategically place your cards in the corners or edges of the grid so that they're more difficult to capture. Setting up your card placement strategically is also a tactic that can be used to capture your own cards on future turns.
Saving your high value cards to the end of the game is another viable strategy, but if the game ends and you still have cards in your hand, those points will count against you!
<u>Skill:</u>
In Captivate, the highest value card doesn't always win. The power dots on each side of a card allow for an alternate way to flip cards.
There are 4 "elements" or "suits" which determine the placement of the power dots. Each element has a different pattern of dot placement, and using your cards most efficiently is a huge advantage.
When flipping cards by comparing card value, only a played card that is higher in value will flip adjacent cards.
When flipping cards by comparing power dots, a played card that has more power dots than the cards around it will flip those cards. Also, any adjacent cards that match the played card's element will be flipped if they have the same number of power dots.
Even the lowest value card can flip the highest value card when played the right way.
<u>Memory:</u>
You'll need to remember which cards were flipped over to make sure you're capturing cards with the highest point value.
When cards are flipped over, they aren't always captured. If you don't have enough cards left in your hand to capture with, you'll need to leave any remaining flipped cards for future turns.
This also gives your opponents a chance to capture any remaining flipped cards, so choose carefully!
Watching which cards your opponents play can also give you an idea of what cards may be left unplayed. There are 13 cards for each of the 4 elements, so by counting cards you can use your memory to your advantage.
<u>Pop Culture:</u>
Each edition of Captivate is themed, and showcases many favorite characters from the popular culture of each theme. This is a great way from people of different communities to connect over pop culture they love. Captivate can be a great conversation starter or ice breaker for parties or new gaming groups!
For example, Captivate: Crytpid Edition will feature the elusive Sasquatch. When Sasquatch appears and starts flipping over cards, how will you and your friends react?
Currently we have 3 themes planned for Captivate, with Captivate: Cardano Edition being the first, but could add more themes in the future. This proposal only focuses on Captivate: Cardano Edition.
<u>Multiplayer:</u>
With a single deck of Captivate, you play a game with 2-4 players. Game time ranges from 10-30 minutes based on player skill and group size.
If you have a larger gaming group, or want longer and more challenging games, just add in another deck of Captivate to support a group from 5-8 players.
If you want to make the game even more exciting, you can combine 2 different Captivate editions and split into teams to see which theme will come out on top!
Packaging Details:
- Each deck of Captivate: Cardano Edition will include 52 cards inside a sealed paper tuck box.
- Decks will be packaged in display bricks for retail, and size will depend on price point, shelf space, dimensions, and weight for shipping.
Print Runs:
*We are currently exploring what options are available to us for print runs based on manufacturer pricing. These numbers are estimates only, and could be adjusted based on final price quotes.
Each print run will include marking on the packaging and the cards to indicate what print run the cards are from.
<u>Captivate: Cardano Edition (Premium) - 1000 Decks</u>
- This is a limited print run only available by redeeming a full set of Captivate: Cardano Edition Early Access FTs.
- These decks will feature a premium foiling option unobtainable in Captivate: Cardano Edition 1st Printing or Unlimited printings. Ideally, each premium deck will consist entirely of foiled cards.
- Through early access FTs, this is one of the ways we can on-chain gamers and collectors from the physical world and connect them to the excellent FT & NFT experience of Cardano.
*The only way to get early access FTs is by delegating to GAIA, in giveaways from our remaining supply, or on the secondary market*
FT / NFT Policy ID: 21da3b1d6db55ef771667653755af5f8c03aa9db82c2588e6da07eb7
Captivate is listed on: CNFT.io , Tokenref.com , jpg.store , ecosystem.cardanofeed.com , and cardanocube.io .
<u>Captivate: Cardano Edition (1st Printing) - 10,000 to 40,000 Decks</u>
- The size of the print run will depend on final price quotes from our manufacturer, but we believe there will be enough demand for this unique product to reach a 40,000 deck print run.
- We are exploring the option for a randomly inserted standard foil card inserted in these decks.
- This will be a limited print run, so whichever final print number is chosen, that will be all the decks printed in this manner.
<u>Captivate: Cardano Edition (Unlimited Printing) ~ Decks *For plan purposes only, not part of funding request</u>
- This will be the printing that sustains the game long term. Once the supply of Captivate: Cardano Edition (1st Printing) dries up, we will use this printing to continue the game for the foreseeable future. These decks will not include any foil cards, printing will depend on demand, and may go out of print in the future.
Prize Support:
- We are exploring the option of including promotional prize cards in the 1st Printing as a way to support official Captivate organized play for retail stores. Ideally this will be the case, but depending on cost and scheduling, this may be pushed to a later date to line up with the Unlimited Printing instead.
Distribution (Based on a 40,000 deck 1st Printing scenario):
- 1,000 Captivate: Cardano Edition (Premium) decks redeemable directly from us by holders of our early access FTs.
- 10,000 Captivate: Cardano Edition (1st Printing) decks for sale in our online store (will need to be created). Ideally we would use the Mercury plugin developed by Adam Dean so that we can also accept payment in ADA.
<https://github.com/cardano-mercury/cardano-mercury-woocommerce>
- 30,000 Captivate: Cardano Edition (1st Printing) decks to be sold to retailers across the world. This would also be open to any Cardano product retailers that wish to carry the game. Retailers will be able to purchase product at a discounted rate.
*10,000 - 20,000 Captivate: Cardano Edition (1st Printing) decks will be reserved for brick and mortar retailers.
*We will work with traditional distributors of tabletop and card game products for fulfillment to retailers globally.
Metrics:
Our proposal addresses the challenge of on-chaining gamers, but we are doing it in a different way. We are targeting a different sector of gamers (physical rather than digital). The demand for games is quite high in the physical games market, not just in the digital games market. Here are some stats on the tabletop game industry:
"The majority of survey respondents, 57%, own between 1 and 25 board and card games, while 22% have between 26 and 50. "
"Despite already having many games in their possession, collectors aren't showing any signs of stopping. In the past year, the majority of gamers (41%) purchased five to ten new games or expansions."
<https://printninja.com/board-game-industry-statistics>
During our initial talks with manufacturers, the demand for new card game and tabletop game products is so high, that 3 out of 5 of our shortlisted manufacturers are not accepting new orders at this time.
Here are the core metrics we would be measuring:
- Number of game copies sold to retailers.
- Number of game copies bought by consumers.
- Number of wallets on Cardano holding Captivate Early Access FTs.
- Number of Captivate Early Access FT sets redeemed (after release).
- Number of retailers onboarded (brick & mortar and online stores).
- Number of followers or subscribers to our social media accounts.
- Captivate organic community growth (community created content, community event participation, partnerships).
- Website traffic generated by QR code information links (after release).
Sustainability Metrics:
Long term, we are looking to create our game products in a manner that is more sustainable than what has been available in the tabletop game industry in the past.
We will work with our manufacturer to be able to achieve as many of these options over the short term as possible, and to ideally implement all of them eventually.
The goal is to maintain a superb product for collectors and players without adding additional waste. Some of these sustainable alternatives are:
- Use of as much paper as possible instead of foil or plastic.
- Paper packaging made from semi-recycled or fully recycled paper sourced from responsible forests.
- Alternative ways of offsetting environmental cost of products, like donating a portion of product sales to tree planting & plastic cleanup.
For tree planting, we would like to make donations to the Cardano Forest through Veritree from every product sold. This would add another way for gamers to connect with Cardano:
<https://www.veritree.com>
GAIA Stake Pool is already working with Veritree as part of the Climate Neutral Cardano Group (CNCG): <https://www.climateneutralcardano.org>
For plastic cleanup, we will donate to The Ocean Cleanup:
<https://theoceancleanup.com>
Here are the core metrics we would be measuring for sustainability:
- ADA donated to Veritree.
- Number of trees planted with Veritee.
- ADA & dollars donated to The Ocean Cleanup.
- Amount of new material used in game production.
- Amount of plastic reduced from game production (when compared to a similar product).
- Amount of recycled material used and quality of recycled material used in game production (% of pre-consumer waste, % of post-consumer waste, FSC certified).
Educating about Cardano:
We will add 3-4 information card inserts to each deck that would have further details about Veritree and the Cardano Forest, GAIA Stake Pool, and Cardano in general. These cards will also have QR codes on them to give gamers a quick way to get further information from websites.
Cardano Pop Culture:
Card artwork features many SPOs, characters, and projects from Cardano pop culture. Digital FT assets have links to the social media accounts and websites of those featured on cards.
Connecting New Audiences to Cardano:
Future Captivate editions with different themes to reach and connect different audiences together. After Captivate: Cardano Edition is complete, we have Captivate: Cryptid Edition scheduled next to tie in with our podcast "Rocky Mountain Cryptids":
<https://www.rockymountaincryptids.com>
We'll be able to use the podcast to advertise all our Captivate products, and connect the cryptid audience to the Cardano audience.
Our last Captivate product currently scheduled is Captivate: Fantasy Edition, which will connect the fantasy audience to the Cardano audience.
We currently also have 2 other tabletop games in our schedule to be developed and produced in the future. Ideally we can follow the same theming model as Captivate to attract players to Cardano.
These two games are an Untitled Dungeon Crawler, and an Untitled RPG Card Game. Initial theme would be focused on Cardano, and later themes would target audiences from different groups, with a way to connect all audiences together.
Further Digital Integration:
At a later stage, we could develop a Captivate Dapp for mobile, but that is beyond the scope of our current project.
We understand that gamers who'd like to play Captivate may not be able to do so in person, or would like a way to try out the game.
A solution to this would be to create a digital version of Captivate in Tabletop Simulator, available on Steam. Tabletopia is another great place to digitize Captivate, as it is available for free. These options would be something we'd likely explore after the physical version of Captivate has already been released.
<https://www.tabletopsimulator.com>
<https://tabletopia.com/>
Providing we meet all our own goals and submissions on our part, there are still some risks we could still encounter:
ILLNESS OR EMERGENCIES:
If our team suffers an illness or emergency, this could delay our productivity and overall timeline.
MANUFACTURER DELAYS
Covid has impacted production timelines already with manufacturers, so their schedule for production could be longer than we'd like. We are ultimately picking our manufacturer based on quality, reputation, and ability to fulfill our goals.
SHIPPING DELAYS
Covid has also impacted shipping timelines, and we could see delays in shipping that are out of our control.
SHIPPING DAMAGE
Some product could be damaged in shipping. Usually print runs of product are actually a bit more than the total amount, about 5-10%. This is to cover any misprinting or damage in shipping. Ideally we don't run into much of this, but we'll have a buffer to cover this, and we'll get insurance on our shipment.
DIFFFICULTY IN ONBOARDING SUPPLIERS AND RETAILERS
This is a possibility as well. Retailers may not wish to take on the product. We'll do our best to pitch our product with both the promotional videos and gameplay videos we'll have made. We'll also incentivize retailers with some kind of prize support, bulk deals, and promotional materials for their stores to help advertise the game.
Worst case, we have to pivot to online sales and working with existing Cardano supporters to get our game into the hands of gamers. We'd prefer to onboard brick and mortar stores & traditional distributors to build a relationship, but as we've seen with successful Kickstarter projects, this isn't a necessity.
Thankfully right now there is a big demand for new tabletop games and card games, and there is currently more interest in trying new things in this market. There are also many features to help Captivate sell from a practical standpoint:
– It is a small box game, so doesn't take up much retail shelf space.
– It will have a very reasonable retail price point, as it is a basic poker style tuck box product.
– It is portable, so easy for players to take with them.
– Product is easily shippable due to low weight of an individual deck, so very low shipping costs for online retail.