#180 - The Glimmering ✨ a blockchain based adventure game

GM and welcome to Decentra Daily.

We're the newsletter that's talking to the founders who are committed to building web3 – no matter what the market is doing.

Today,

1. Founder talk 🗣️ The Glimmering

2. On the wire 📰 Yuga’s Legends of the Mara

Plus, all the web3 headlines, memes, and Tweets of the day.

What's this? 🤔
Our new floor price index tracks the biggest, most influential pfp projects, art collections, and gaming assets. It's a one-blink snapshot of the market today.

Interview with a founder: Brent on The Glimmering

The Glimmering is a game we are excited about here at Decentra Daily, and we had the pleasure of connecting with Brent - CEO and co-founder, he gave us the inside scoop!

The Glimmering is launching on the 30th of March (tomorrow!!!), not only their NFT mint, but the actual game too! I told Brent that you aren’t meant to ship products that quickly in the NFT world 😉, clearly he didn’t get the memo.

So, if you love tabletop role-playing games (TTRPG) like Dungeons and Dragons you’ll be able to play the world’s first blockchain 5E TTRPG starting tomorrow!

The success of any project relies on the competency and track record of the team in place, which is why we prioritize introducing our readers to the teams behind projects we cover.

For our readers GRIPNR is the collective team that is producing The Glimmering! We’ll get started there and then move onto the game!

Here are some questions we asked Brent!

Who is Brent? And how did you get into Web3 gaming?

I’m a serial entrepreneur that’s been building media tech companies since 2009, starting with my first venture-backed music licensing technology company, Audiosocket. In 2019 I became Managing Director of Revelry StartUp Studio, where my job is to identify problems worth solving, ideate and validate solutions and spin up new companies.

I’ve played tabletop roleplaying games off and on throughout most of my life. I got into building Web3 games in the summer of 2021 when my co-founder, Patrick Comer, called me to see if our StartUp Studio would explore bringing TTRPG to the blockchain. As we ran the idea through our market research and validation process, we gained a strong conviction for the concept and agreed to back it. That’s when I was asked to lead GRIPNR as co-founder and CEO. Here we are!

What is GRIPNR?

GRIPNR is a web3 media company leading the charge on establishing an industry-standard protocol for all tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) looking to build on the blockchain.

GRIPNR is launching their on-chain play platform at play.gripnr.com and The Glimmering, a next-generation TTRPG adventure designed to be played with NFT heroes that let players’ character progress live on the blockchain, on March 30th, 2023.

Who makes up the GRIPNR team?

The GRIPNR team is a collective of successful entrepreneurs, artists, engineers, and game designers. Our founders have led large venture-backed tech companies, and our tech team has deep experience in blockchain technology.

Notable leadership 

• Stephen Radney-McFarland - Lead game designer

  • Experienced D&D and RPG enthusiast

  • Led Living Greyhawk campaign

  • Aided in the development of D&D 3.5 Edition rules

  • Was a developer for D&D 4th Edition

  • Contributed to Pathfinder First Edition core books and Starfinder while at Paizo

• Justin Kamerer (Angryblue) - Lead artist:

  • Has designed album artwork and posters for rock artists including Metallica and the Foo Fighters + many more bands

  • Has work in the rock and roll hall of fame

  • Crafted a unique world for the game

  • Blends familiar design motifs with a punk rock-inspired aesthetic

• Patrick Comer - President and Co-Founder:

  • New Orleans-based entrepreneur and lifelong Dungeons & Dragons fan

  • Tenured game master

  • Sold his market data company, Lucid, for $1.1 Billion

  • Serves on the board of Cint, an automated digital survey platform

• Luke Ledet - CTO:

  • 20 years of experience building scalable technology platforms

  • Led development for blockchain native partners at Revelry Labs

  • CTO of GRIPNR.

You can learn more about the people behind this project by checking out the team page.

What is the problem the GRIPNR is attempting to solve?

There are a few core challenges that GRIPNR is solving.

First, since its inception 50 years ago, the TTRPG community has sought the ability to track character development, loot, campaign progress, and outcomes. The problem is that no large-scale distributed system enables it for organized play systems.

Storytelling is the heart of tabletop roleplaying games, and the outcomes, including building a character and game actions, happen through dice rolling. Dice rolling is data; putting that data on-chain can demonstrate transparent play activity and outcomes at the player character level.

In addition, the creators in this space haven’t received fair value for their contributions. Game masters spend hours preparing sessions and then additional hours running the actual games. And game designers create game content, often with little to no remuneration.

TL:DR for GRIPNRs protocol;

• Game masters receive compensation for running game sessions, including their fair share of game rewards (treasure and loot)

• Game designers can publish game content on the GRIPNR protocol

• Every time players and game masters enjoy those adventures, the protocol tracks creator attribution and distributes a royalty back to them

The GRIPNR ecosystem is running on Polygon, what led to this decision? Do you also have your own currency for the economy?

The Glimmering is not a “mint once” project. All adventure quests and gameplay outcomes return data on your hero NFT and cost gas. Doing this on an L1, like Ethereum, would be too costly and prevent people from actually playing the game. Imagine paying $100-300 to log gameplay outcomes or collecting the treasure you earned after slaying the dragon. That wouldn’t be fair.

Building on the Polygon blockchain enables game and player character outcomes to be logged transparently and for all loot and treasure to be distributed to players, game masters, and game designers without high gas fees.

In addition, using the Polygon layer 2 blockchain, we use the high-security standards of Ethereum, the most popular and secure programmable blockchain, while using multitudes less energy and reducing our carbon footprint. All things considered, we will use minimal energy to deliver a high amount of value to our community, a process that is only getting more sustainable as the vision of this incredible technology becomes fully realized.

GRIPNR does have plans to issue its token in the future. However, given the current regulatory uncertainty in the US, it’s temporarily on hold.

The Glimmering is the first game you’ll be releasing. Can you tell us more?

The Glimmering is a Fifth Edition (5e)-based, roleplaying and storytelling world designed for on-chain play with NFT Heroes. At launch, we are releasing 10,000 genesis Heroes. There are 43,000 unique art layers that make up the collection, all of which were hand drawn.

Every hero has unique rarities and attributes, including ancestry, classes, ability scores, and backgrounds.

The Glimmering takes place in a tiny corner in the far north of a world called Asuwa in the Moonstone Empire. It’s a world that thrums with magic. Danger lurks everywhere in Asuwa, but fame, glory, and riches wait for those willing to take the risk.

As player characters level up through gameplay, each character’s artwork will morph visually over time based on in-game outcomes, allowing NFT holders to influence their rarities. Digital collectibles enable players to resell characters, weapons, armor, treasure, and other items acquired through play or purchase.

Who is The Glimmering appealing to?

We appeal to both collectors and tabletop game enthusiasts.

Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced player, The Glimmering has an adventure! Rooted in a modified version of the 5th Edition ruleset, players familiar with D&D can easily transition to The Glimmering without learning a new system. But we also have certified Game Masters who specialize in taking beginners on their first adventure.

For collectors, GRIPNR, as a company, and The Glimmering collectibles themselves, stand apart. It’s led by experienced executives that know how to execute and build products and communities designed to transcend a typical hype cycle. The technical design is elegant, and the artwork is stunning. More than 43,000 individual hand-drawn art layers make up the collection.

Will you need to own NFTs to play? If so, how and when can you get them?

We’re doing something rarely, if ever, done in Web3 before - launching an NFT collection and the game platform on the same day.

To use our play platform, you must own an NFT player character. On Thursday, March 30th, 2023, at 12 PM CST, you can mint our Genesis collection at theglimmering.com, head to straight play.gripnr.com, and start playing.

The Mint price is expected to be 250 MATIC, but if that token spikes in price close to the mint date, we may lower it to keep it in the $275-300 USD range.

Later in the summer, after the genesis launch, we’ll enable anyone to mint a player character for a very low price and possibly for free. The art will not have the same style as the collectibles or level of rarity. But, this will enable anyone to play on-chain without concern of cost of entry. Combining this with deployment of custodial wallets systems will onboard the masses of tabletop players to Web3.

That said, we want all TTRPG players to have access to the world we’re creating. The Glimmering is releasing game modules you can play off-chain anytime, no NFTs required. Physical books and game models will be available online and in-game stores later this year. Our game is 5e compatible, so everyone can play it where and how they like.

*10K collection launching in phases. Phase one consists of 1974 NFTs on offer (year DnD was created). Mention that Decentra Daily sent you in their discord to get on the allowlist!

When will we be able to play?

On day one! The day our Genesis Collection launches on March 30, 2023, so will our Play Platform. Holders can take their hero(s) on adventures and play on-chain at play.gripnr.com anytime, anywhere.

The first six adventures of The Glimmering will be available for character levels 1-3, and more adventures and games will be released each month.

On the Play Platform, players can search for a game to play, select and equip their character, and connect with certified game masters and players to enjoy the game. The best part is, all progress will be right where players leave it when they return and completing an adventure produces rewards of loot and treasure NFTs, which can be used for crafting, future adventures or for sale and trading.

What would be your elevator pitch for the GRIPNR and The Glimmering?

GRIPNR is a Web3 media company that’s bringing tabletop roleplaying games to the blockchain, starting with our first game world, The Glimmering. Our highest purpose is to add value to the players, game masters and game designers that have made TTRPG all it’s become over the last 50 years. Our greatest ambition as a company is to become an industry standard protocol for all TTRPG that want to structure organized play on the blockchain. DnD and TTRPGs have had a huge revitalization in the past few years. Blockchain technology has emerged and is the perfect use case to solve problems that the TTRPG community has faced for decades. By bringing the two together, GRIPNR is redefining the sector.

Notable partnership - J1mmy.eth

GRIPNR has partnered with NFT collector Jimmy McNeils, a.k.a. j1mmy.eth, to bring several of his Mutant Apes to The Glimmering game as villains. The Apes will be reimagined by GRIPNR Lead Artist Justin Kamerer and included in future adventures of The Glimmering.

Wiggles’ take

• The GRIPNR team is solid, they are doxxed, and have a strong and experienced team in multiple areas.

• They are targeting TTRPG players, as of 2019 there was an estimated 13.7 million playing Dungeons and Dragons, so there is a strong market of users to attract.

• The fact that the team is launching the game on the same day as their NFT drop is amazing! Unlike many teams that sell NFTs then build out their games months/years later.

• Polygon is a strong L2, which will limit gas fees and lay the foundations for a sustainable infrastructure.

• The Glimmering looks to be just the start for the GRIPNR team and their gaming protocol….many times if you get in early there can be benefits (Not Financial Advice).

If you are interested in finding out more about The Glimmering and GRIPNR here is where you need to go:

• Discord - Let the team know Decentra Daily sent you to get allowlisted!

• Minting website

• Game platform

On the web3 wire 📰

Yuga teases Legends of the Mara gamified collection 👽
The 2D minting game based around Otherside’s cute Koda creatures is due in May. It will include Yuga’s first airdrop outside the BAYC ecosystem, purely for Otherdeed holders.

Sotheby’s rethinks its latest all-male NFT art show 🙋‍♀️
After Crypto Twitter pointed out that all 21 artists in the “Natively Digital” auction identify as male, Sotheby’s is stopping the show and considering a new lineup of artists.

MicroStrategy buys another $150 million bitcoin 🤑
The maxi-est maxi around now holds more than 4 billion dollars worth of BTC.

Notable Tweets ✅

Decentra Daily is brought to you by Xpand

If you want your web3 project to succeed, you'll need a strong community – and with Xpand, it just got way easier to harness yours.

Xpand is a community-engagement platform that helps builders organize their communities and reward members.

You can use Xpand's customizable dashboards & smart contract to:

• Hand out incentives for engaging with Tweets or being part of your Discord

• Rank community members on leaderboards

• Set missions/bounties and reward completion with your native token

• Create custom community pages with your own domain

• Airdrop NFTs to your followers' wallets

An engaged community makes it 100X easier to scale a web3 project. Start growing your community with Xpand today.

Meme of the day

The search is over 😮‍💨

Have a good one! 👋

What we're reading this week