Zima Red ep 126: Charles & Zunk - Nifty Island: Game World Empowering Creators & Gamers
Primer: Charles and Zunk of Nifty Island are back on the Zima Red Podcast. Find out what they have been up to for the past 1 year and the lessons they have learned as founders and builders in the space.
Updates Since Their Previous Podcast Appearance
💡 Charles was on the Zima Red podcast a year ago.
Was a very busy year
Have a team of ~60 people
Pushing out game features
In closed alpha right now. Preparing for their open beta launch event
Nifty Island
A platform that’s something like Facebook meets Roblox
It’s a fun game/social network
In their game, everyone has an island for free
Players can customize their island
What Can People Do Today?
Players can place furniture and build structures
It uses a smooth voxel-based terrain similar to No Man’s Sky
Voice chat and text chat are available
World map that shows you what’s happening on other islands
Have a quest system that they are fleshing out
Working on a gaming layer — make games and deploy them on your island
Currently rolling their game out to different NFT projects (e.g. Chain Runners, Forgotten Runes)
Why Are They Focused On The Gamification Aspect?
There are many social platforms out there
The ability to create games vibes with their philosophy on user-generated content-first platform
“People want to be surprised and delighted by content they encounter. They want it to feel authentic, they want it to feel like it was made by someone who cares.”
- Charles Smith
What Tools Do They Provide For People To Create Content?
For terraforming, players get a Microsoft Paint-like toolbar with different tools
In terms of building, players have a big menu. Working on a hotbar tool right now. It will be drag-and-drop, similar to Valheim’s system
For games, they are providing game installers to deploy games on your island. Provides Visual Scripting hookups for more technical individuals requiring more customization
Expecting people to remix and repackage 3D assets and games to come up with something new
Is There A Core Game Loop?
The core game loop is very weak right now
What they have right now is building your own island and hanging out with people
Have a basic quest system to drive engagement
Looking at a progression system and introducing NPCs
The Nifty Island Economy
NFT collection called Legendary Palms
They are earned by active community members
Holders are given exclusive avatars, aesthetic benefits, access to special areas, etc.
Might have a hypothetical scarce commodity in the future
This scarce commodity could be earned by driving engagement, completing quests, and creating content
Their focus is for people to bring in NFTs from other projects into Nifty Island
Defensibility Of Their Platform
Many similar platforms
Think that it will be a winner takes all market
Their moat is to become the best platform that caters to user-generated content
Making Nifty Island the place to go to connect with people
Creation of endless fun
How Will Nifty Island Expand?
Helping people build 3D assets and create great games
Similar to Amazon, they want to create a vertical and horizontal stack and push into it over time
Set standards to improve interoperability between NFT projects
Other Updates On Nifty Island
They are hiring
Launched a DAO a few weeks ago. Welcoming contributors to join them
Community is making decisions on what NFTs to acquire and commissioning the creation of game-ready assets
Tweet That Zunk Made
💡 Zunk tweeted about art and lore having no impact on a NFT project’s success. What matters is novel mechanics and who made it. Andrew got him to expand on his thoughts.
People like to say that NFT is about the art
What people missed is that the art is just the face for a token
Everything is price-driven and no one wants to hold something without future upside or utility
Tweeted in frustration that some projects are going to do nothing and let the community do everything
Lessons Learned As Founders
Zunk
Charles and him have been experiencing a brain meld
Still do gut checks with each other on things
If you are choosing a partner, you need to have full trust, responsibility, and respect for them. They need to be able to get things done
Charles
Crypto is a challenging place to navigate because it is emergent and has many distracting trends
“There's this mix of needing to respect the vital energy of the space and where it wants to go, while also remaining sane enough to say certain things don't make sense.”
- Charles Smith
Founders need to decide whether they are going to chase trends or go in their own direction
Need to have boldness and speed in decision making
Some projects are building on the backs of other startups. They could fail if the startup they are building on fails
Pain Points Experienced As A Company
Hiring Unity devs
Needing to stay loud and relevant through all stages of a project’s lifecycle
Struggling to resist the temptation of doing dumb things to attract attention
How Can Projects Stay Relevant?
Projects need to have something that people can participate, anticipate, or speculate around to generate that vital energy
Look for the centre of gravity for attention/vitality in the space and add value to those projects
Looking several steps ahead of the space and whether it makes sense
Most Controversial Thought
Zunk
Current state of crypto is stupid
The successful projects listed on OpenSea do not make sense
What Would He Be Working On If He’s Not Allowed To Work On Nifty Island?
Charles
Will work on DAO tooling
If He Could Change One Thing In The Space
Zunk
People to focus on the future
Who Does He Look Up To And Why
Within crypto, he looks up to Brian Armstrong, CZ, and SBF
Outside of crypto, Tolstoy is one of his favourite writers
Dee Hock, the founder of Visa
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