The following write up is in a paraphrase.
Lydia: Nice to have you here.
Omar: Great thank you for inviting me.
Lydia: Please introduce yourself and cosmicraft.
Omar: My name is Omar Hernandez , I’m known as Bizkit. It’s my nickname. I’ve been working on cosmicraft for 6 years. It started as an idea about a fancy idea about the multiverse. It’s a complicated and long story. A combination of different ages and life beings. It has evolved into the last age of this universe. Where everything is chilling and not a lot of stars are left. This is where the video game starts. Cosmiccraft is a story, a lore, it has characters.
Lydia: You just recently（03/15th） sold out NFTson crowdfund NFT, Tell me more about that.
Omar: Yes, we are grateful to our community for selling out. It was our first sale and we didn’t know how it would go. It was a great experience. I can’t start to talk about the art. The art came from centralized asset marketplaces. We bought the spaceships, the assets. It was a better way to make the game. With the assets. We had to make them work on unity 3d and then make some art. Make some renders. It was a whole process to get to the creation of these nfts. They might not look like the best NFT but it has a lot of background. We have to get the assets, the renders, set up the scheme with lighting using photoshop and after effects. I’m after effects we use the lightings and cool stuff. It’s a long process for the art. Creating every single piece for genesis collection.
Lydia: I saw that, they look very complicated but beautiful. It’s very great. I’m very curious about what the owners of the NFTscan do in the game.
Omar: Yes that is a good questions. I hope people like them. I’m worried some won’t like their NFT. But we have thought about having perks for people who bought the nft. We haven’t come out with it exactly but we are talking about it. NFT holders will have first access to the game. They will be able to trade on entrepot. Steve has confirmed it as well. Later on we will make a smart contract and you will sign up and show proof of ownership. And you will get in game nfts. I can’t say what kind or value but I’m thinking about getting a full set of spaceships. Our next set is pirate spaceships. That’s as far as I can go with the perks but yes how it will go. So people have something useful in game.
Lydia: Wow，that is very exciting. Do you have a timeline?
Omar: Yes the timeline for game NFT is by the end of second quarter. We are still a long way to go. We are still developing the game NFT in unity 3D. We are making the game NFTsover there. Then we will translate the code to motoko or rust. The time like by end of Q2 this year. I expect to release these NFTsnby July.
Lydia: I’m more wondering about the game. How do you play the game and introduce the game itself.
Omar: When we first released the IC version of the game. I liked it better then past versions. It’s fun to play. Once you know how to play, it’s very easy. This is how you get started. You log in with wallet then create username. Press the play button and start playing right away. There are two bases and a battle ground. The game is about you sending space ships to the battle ground and they attack enemy ships. It’s not like chess , you have to make moves at the same time as enemy, real time. Proud to say we are the first game with the technology on the blockchain. This is possible because of internet computer. On etheruem and others you need to pay per transaction. So if you have to send spaceships to fight, you’d have to pay but not on internet computer. Every game is about 1 cent , that it charges us. Others charge you thousands, just for the network. Sorry if I go to far with the questions.
Lydia: How many players do you have now? It’s been a while so how many are playing currently?
Omar: Great question but we don’t know how many exactly have been playing. We don’t have a tool. In the canisters. But we will get one on the next update called yeet. It will tell us everything like who comes back.
Lydia: Tell me about your team? Has the team grown?
Omar: When we started the dfinity grant program. We started with 4 people. Moses is the main programmer for the game. The programmer in unity. And I was doing the UI, art, and much more. Only us two before the grant. We then hired another programmer, and he started learning motoko. He’s been doing good. We also invited a graphic designer, and he helps us with social media. He’s also an illustrator. We also invited people who are artists and illustrators. Mor and Ingram. Instead of me asking them how it’s going. They tell me which is great for a team. Then we hired two programmers for blockchain development. We have integrated many wallets into our back end. So it’s going well, 4 people to 12. We hired a new social media manager. We are looking to get another grant from dfinity so we can keep up with the team and keep building. The plan is to take the game as far as we can, long term. Solid and fantastic game.
Lydia: That’s amazing. I have another question. What is your biggest challenge as a game company?
Omar: The biggest challenge is to motivate people and keep them motivated. I feel that it fades and everyone has different goals. Some are just after money or career development. So it’s important to keep them motivated. I had to tell people we are going to do this and let’s keep it together. It’s hard and emotional challenge is hard to keep them motivated. You have to find the motivation for each team. Managing people is the hardest to thing to do . We are coworkers and friends and we get along. We are one big team and we like everyone.
Lydia: I agree this， ppl are very difficult.
Omar: Can I say something else?
Lydia: Yes please.
Omar: I had another full time job. And I came back home after work and I was just not much into the game development, it was hard for me. I didn’t have too much time to focus on the game, and the financial situation. All the money I was making from my job. I was putting it to into salary at cosmiccrafts. They didn’t give me all the money at once（the grants）， so I had to pay people myself. I work on the project as well, art, people, finances. A little of everything. It was very hard. But now I quit my job and full time on Cosmicrafts
Lydia: That’s great. I think people really like the NFT. People keep asking if there is more whitelist for NFT.
Omar: I had a meeting with the team because we are lucky to have such an amazing community. There are games who don’t have the audience like us. We are grateful, we consider ourselves lucky. For me that’s a great motivation.
Lydia: Yes that is very important. How many community members do you have in discord?
Omar: We have almost 4000. I don’t really check but what I know is our twitter is growing very well. I see people from other blockchains show up and love cosmicrafts. We have attention of people from other ecosystems.
Lydia: Yes that is great. I hope you can lead the path of internet computer and other ecosystems.
Omar: Yes we are focused on internet computer. This will be our main platform, we aren’t going anywhere. We want to bring people from ethereum, Binance, solana. Because they might not know the benefits of internet computer. This will be a great gateway to internet computer. They don’t need ICP in wallet to start playing. Which is a great introduction for other blockchains and people.
Lydia: Alright so I have one more question. Why did you use crowdfundNFTs to sell the nfts? Because mostly NFTs are list on entrepôt, why did you use crowdfundnfts?
Omar: We chose crowdfundnft because in November of last year we weren’t ready for entrepot and we were focused on video game. We didn’t have art department to deploy the NFT, we weren’t ready. We got the first artwork NFT for an airdrop but we haven’t completed it. And so that’s how we came about with crowdfund. We couldn’t join entrepot and didn’t complete airdrop. So they came to us to help sell the NFT. We had an art department that was very focused. We did crunch time to deliver NFT. We met the team and we believe in the team and their project.
Lydia: After you sold out on crowdfundnft, What do you think about their advantages features?
Omar: Honestly I think crowdfund is the next kickstarter but so much better. We are talking about blockchain, smart contracts, they are legit. They just got started but it’s working. It’s already working. From now on it will get better.
Lydia: That’s great, I have no more questions but if you have anything else to say please go ahead.
Omar: Well something I get excited to talk about is esports. This game was planned for esports since 2016, the beginning. The game is focused on competitive. It’s like Axie infinity and their tournaments. We will make world cosmicrafts champions, and play for prizes: and stream the games. We will have airdrops and big event. And a lot of cool stuff.
Lydia: Have you spoken with Dfinity foundation? Because they have a lot of support for games this time. And they have help when it comes to developing on internet computer.
Omar: Yea we are excited about Dfinity opportunities. There is an achievement where developers will compete for these prizes. But we will show how game development is being done, it’s very fun to develop a game. Especially if you’re a player yourself. We will enter that conception and I hope we do well. We will choose four members and make a special team for the event. And we will see how it goes.
Lydia: Yes, I’m looking forward to it.
Attendee: Is the game（Cosmicrafts） online now?
Omar: Yes you can play the game now, you can play the multiplayer. You can find a match and we do have gameplay. I think we will post the canister on twitter and you can join. There’s a tutorial ; it’s simple but a good start to get into the game.
Lydia: Will you be raising funds via investors?
Omar: Yes we will do several rounds of fundraising. We would like to have more investors involved. I can’t say how much we want to raise just yet but we are talking about it as we speak.
Attendee: Will you be upgrading the memory on canisters?
Omar: Yes we will be upgrading and adding more canisters to help with the data storage. When dfinity releases an upgrade, we will apply. The data of users and game are there, and it’s not that heavy. We have our own solutions for problems as well.
Lydia: Yes that is great, dfinity is getting better.
Omar: The biggest issue we have found is that we don’t have a standard for tokens or nfts. I know there is plenty of standards on internet computer. One of the big concerns we have is that to unify the ecosystem, we need to unify the standards. Originally when everything started, is that everyone can make their own standard. But what we didn’t expect is that we didn’t have any standards and it makes communication between canister be even more difficult. I hope the community and dfinity can create a solution for that.
Lydia: Yes I understand, they have called for projects to use their own standards. But if everyone can help figure it out, that will be great.
Omar: If dfinity can finally help us solve this issue, that will be a game changer.
Lydia: Developers in china have talked about creating a standard. Hey Richard, we been talking about standards in token and smart contracts. How do you feel about that?
Attendee: yeah， for now, we use tonic labs standard but we use it as native token. We haven’t interchanged with other token standards or wallets.
Omar: For the ecosystem to grow, we need that standard for internet computer.
Lydia: Any final words ，Omar?
Omar: Yes we will have a a better version by end of this month and it’s an invitation for everyone to try.
Lydia: Yea I think everyone loves the game and your NFT. But if there something else to share please go ahead,
Omar: the last crowdfund we did well. But we are planning our next collection for space pirates. With characters, spaceships and more features. And that’s coming up in 2/3 months. And we will release more because we got feedback that our last 300 NFT wasn’t enough. And we will create more variety.
Lydia: Well you have done an amazing job. Thank you for joining this meet up. Thank you for sharing all the information. And I hope it goes well. Thank you everyone.
