Inspiration
Back when I started learning BLockchain development, I dove into Alchemy University. It was then that I stumbled upon their faucet, and their Mainnet tokens requierment. I couldn't claim Testnet tokens (Goerli ETH back then, if I remember correctly) unless I had Mainnet ETH. I wasn't able to acquire any as I didn't have any methods available, and I had to look for another faucet. 2 years later when I had finished an Ethereum development course by Blokkat, I sat down and started brainstorming for a unique idea, preferably one that incorporated gaming (I had learned game development using RPG Maker MZ a few months before that, mainly horror or comedy games https://aak581.itch.io/ ) And then it hit me, being stuck in front of faucets that demanded Mainnet tokens in order to allow you to use them. I knew that this was to prevent bots or malicious users from abusing their services (which is fair) so I thought to myself: "What if I turned this human detection requirement into a game?"
And that was exactly what I did!
What it does
You find yourself in a field filled with spinning cats, a rabid dog, floating question marks, and coffee cups. After watching the intro (I'm a story guy, even wrote some short ones myself, also horror) you receive the task of collecting kittens for the humanoid feline... Mr. Neko. After receiving some items from him including a teleporter that syncs the kittens with the contract, a watch that shows how many you have in-game and on-chain, and others, you set out to collect those kittens while avoiding the dog with an eerily familiar barking sound running around. Pick up the coffee cups to increase your speed for a short time, and pick up the question marks to learn more about Polkadot! After collecting at least 15 kittens, sync them with the contract and then go to the dApp using the teleporter item to claim your Moonbase Alpha DEV tokens! The contract tracks several things including the total kittens you've collected, and when those reach 300 you receive an NFT which you can access from the dApp!
How we built it
The game was made using RPG Maker MZ with some assets from previous games of mine along with others from the internet, the contracts were written in Solidity and tested using Foundry, and the dApp was made using React, Reown, and Wagmi. The site's UI/UX was done by my brother and teammate.
Challenges we ran into
The most major one was adding Web3 integration into an RPG Maker MZ game which runs on a simple HTML/CSS/JavaScript environment. This was solved using a CDN instead of npm.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
The project was featured on Blokkat's bootcamp closing day, gaining a lot of approval from the teachers. It also gained approval from more experienced individuals in the Web3 space including the founder of Arabs x Blockchain which has over 800 members.
What we learned
We learned how to build a full project from scratch using different tools, and incorporating RPG Maker MZ which has only been done before a few times (I was able to find only one instance).
What's next for Polkadot Cats
This depends on how big it can get! It, of course, needs funding so that DEV tokens can be claimed by other users, and marketing would put it out into the world.
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