The first gif.games NFTs were minted in August 2019 on Rarible as Ethereum mini-games; there was some traction, but never enough to warrant any further exploration into the community and market of Ethereum. The high gas fees, toxic community, and lack of cooperation from the Ethereum blockchain led gif.games to explore other networks, and in the process discovered a strong community, an infrastructure ripe for development, and a group of individuals supportive of their growing ecosystem.
The choice was simple: gif.games was moving to Tezos and was going to start making awesome games as opposed to gif NFT collectibles.
On May 04, 2021 the Genesis block was minted on Kalamint and the rest of what we now know as Tezotopia followed. The year has been amazing for gif.games; our team has grown to 12 individuals that take on roles of designers, developers, and community managers; we’ve hired out our marketing to 1minus1, a firm specializing in marketing games; and we’ve partnered with Quicksave Interactive, which is well-experienced in the development of games and has guided us through the process of making our battles fun and engaging.
Before hopping into the breakdown of the road ahead for us in 2022, let me first touch on things we couldn’t get to in 2021…
I. Battles
As much as we wish we could have launched the battles in December as promised, we had to push it to this first quarter of 2022 (that’s not to say it won’t be this month). We had a few roadblocks in our way, first the CTO of Quicksave got Covid and was basically out of commission for a third of the month of December; second, we wanted to make sure we pushed out more than an MVP of the battles, making sure animations, effects, and gameplay was optimal at release; we don’t want the first impression of battles to be a bad one, we’d rather tidy it up and release it with confidence.
II. Building Manager
The development of the GIF staking platform took a lot longer than anticipated and even then we still had a snafu at launch. This development time cut into the creation and deployment of the building manager, which coupled with the end of year holidays, shifted all production and testing timelines a little further than we would have hoped.
III. Matterlight
We’re very ambitious in our timelines and our abilities to a fault at times. We had all the components and designs available for Matterlight, but something felt rushed/off about the game. We will see a revival of it next year.
IV. CEX Listing for GIF Token
In Q3-Q4 2021 we saw a lot of Tezos tokens make a mad dash onto third tier exchanges simple to get their token on CMC or CoinGecko; we explored a few options and were inches away from signing a contract with Bitmart, when we pulled out of negotiations and decided we’d wait for a Tier-2 or Tier-1 exchange to fall into place. The cost of listing on these exchanges is stupid expensive and after seeing other Tezos tokens list with no real significant marketing splashes, we decided it wasn’t worth the $50,000 USD to nestle into a Tier-3 exchange. We used that money instead for the revamp of our website and marketing. Listing will come eventually, and it won’t be an exchange you’ve never heard of either. When? We won’t put a date on it. But we do want it to happen this year.
Now then, let’s talk about 2022.
The Year Ahead…
Q1 2022
Launch Battle Arena
Obviously this is a major one on our list, launching battles will bring new eyes to the game, new elements, and a shitload of fun to the ecosystem. We want to do this right, so we’re launching a V1 first, then based on your feedback will work to get a more perfect V2 in the same Quarter.Website / dApp Redesign
We know the website is a little outdated and the dapp is getting cluttered with sub-navs and tabs; we’re working on cleaning everything up and making it 10x more presentable.
Building Manager
Yay! Let’s build some Unobtanium Reactors!!!Diplomats PFP Sale
Diplomats are more than just PFPs, you can read all about their functions and user cases here; and you can enjoy the preview of them at the start of this section. :-) More details on how to claim yours is coming soon…GIF DAO Governance + Marketplace Discounts unlocked
Spies & Diplomat features unlocked
These new features will unlock randomized events, notifications, and more p2p interaction outside of the battles.Tezotopia Metaverse expansion
This one will be a little different/tricky. We’ve been approached by several companies wanting to advertise and have permanent presence in Tezotopia, but we want to avoid mixing advertisements and user-designed blocks within the game; we’re exploring a new option, an expansion of sorts where Tezotopians can go to vacation, play slots, drag race, and just “live” in that’ll be a Las Vegas or Dubai of the Metaverse. More on this later.
Q2 2022
Bonkees Revealing
Bonkees is our next epic title; on the same grand scale as Tezotopia, we hope to start revealing pieces of Bonkees, the storyline and universe by Q2 2022. And in celebration of the anniversary of the launch of Tezotopia, wish to launch an event where you can claim your Bonkees on May 04, 2022. More details as the planning and coordination of Bonkees continues.P2P Trading Option
A secure, P2P trading platform for GIF holders is in the works, and we hope to release either late Q1 or early Q2.
Three games, one for each resource
Our greatest concern is running into a bottleneck of volume, where the resources we’ve established in Tezotopia don’t get the utility and the NFTs within the game reach a point of exhaustion, leading to an overall climax and subsequent volume freefall of the game resources and NFTs. How might we be addressing this? By growing the ecosystem of Unobtanium, Minerals, Energy, and Machinery. We have planned three games, at smaller scales, that utilize the three resources of Minerals, Energy, and Machinery. One of those games being Matterlight, the other being Royal Gems (an iOS and Android app candidate), and lastly, an untitled racing game. These will be developed independently, on shorter timelines, and have a smaller link to the blockchain other than claiming the resources earned from playing those games and using them to create other things (i.e. items within the Tezotopia Expansion Metaverse). Again, more details on this ambitious undertaking will follow as we unfold more details in our own planning.
Q3-Q4 2022
I feel like the honest thing to do for Q3 and Q4 is leave these blank, return in Q2 and fill them in as production progresses and we have a more complex view of everything ahead for us.
Once battles are launched, our priority is to improve them based on your feedback, and market the hell out of Tezotopia in different target regions we haven’t reached yet. We are very excited for the future of our growing company, and immensely grateful for the support and enthusiasm you share for what we are creating.
We could not have gotten to this point without any of you, and we hope to continually listen to and be shaped by your feedback to make products YOU want.
We’re inspired daily by the support, the tweets, the sharing of our recent developments and the cheerleading of our products. We’re creating something new, and we’re all in it together.
2022 has all the ingredients to create magical things, we won’t let you down.
To Gifinity and Beyond!