Founder’s Sale Launch Details

Neon District
Blockade Games
Published in
16 min readMar 28, 2019

What You Need to Know

What You Need to Know for the Founder’s Sale

Neon District is an upcoming cyberpunk role-playing game developed by Blockade Games and built on the Loom Network with Unity. Players control parties of characters and battle to progress through a sci-fi storyline and earn in-game NFT (non-fungible token) items. Your aim as part of the “Degens” and “Edits” is to combat a governing entity that has begun to surveil and control its citizens with implant technology. The game’s Founder’s Sale goes live on March 28th at 8 pm ET and Season 0 is launching later this spring.

The sale will be live on March 28th at 8 pm ET https://founders.neondistrict.io/.

  • If you participated in the Founder’s Key Waitlist, you’ll be able to purchase your Key beginning March 28th at 8 pm ET. You’ll receive an email from us with instructions on how to claim your key.
  • You’ll have to wait to participate in the Founder’s Sale according to when your waitlist tier gains access.
  • If you engage** your key on the Founder’s Sale page, you’ll have a countdown timer informing you when it will be your turn to access the sale.
  • You’ll need to “engage” your key on the Founder’s Sale page in order to buy loot boxes.
  • If you “engage” your key on the Founder’s Sale page, it will be locked and not tradable until sometime later during the sale, at the discretion of Blockade Games.

**engage: by clicking the “engage” button on the Founder’s Sale website, you will lock your key. Locking your key means you will be allowed to participate in the Founder’s Sale. However it also means you cannot trade your key for the duration of the lock-up period. The lock-up period will continue at the discretion of Blockade Games but will not exceed the time period of the Founder’s Sale.

This Document Includes Information On:

Game Design and Incentives FAQ

  • Gear and Gear Upgrades
  • Gear Shells
  • Shell Bonding
  • Character and Character Upgrades
  • Character Shells
  • Power
  • Season 0 Boss
  • Founder’s Key Benefits
  • Value

Founder’s Sale FAQ

  • Payment Details
  • A Video Demonstration

Technical FAQ

  • Smart Contracts
  • Randomness

Additional FAQ

OpenSea Onboarding Instructions

GAME DESIGN AND INCENTIVES FAQ

How do gear and gear upgrades work in Neon District?

  • Gear provides bonuses to character stats as well as new actions and abilities
  • Gear that drops from more difficult missions will have more powerful bonuses and abilities
  • Some of this gear will drop more infrequently than others
  • Gear can be leveled to improve bonuses or acquire rare features
  • leveling is procedural so you could have two identical rifles by type at max level where one has a stronger ATK than the other, or a different effect, etc.
  • Gear might drop with some levels already rolled
  • leveling will be available starting in Season 1
  • Gear can be destroyed to extract their nanotechnological cores
  • Cores are special components that can be used to enhance and customize other pieces of gear. The benefit they provide is based on the bonuses housed in the gear that was broken down.
  • E.g. A piece of gear might have as one of its bonuses, “+100 Health” You could potentially destroy that piece of gear to create a core with “+100 health”
  • Cores can be inserted into any piece of gear with an empty core slot in order to improve it
  • You could add that +100 Health to another piece of armor if it had an empty core slot
  • Cores will be available Season 1
  • Component crafting of special items is also planned for later Seasons

Image Rarity Lineup: Examples of Founder’s Assets and Rarities

What are Gear Shells (“skins”)?

  • Shells can be attached to any piece of gear of the same class (e.g. a Rifle shell to a rifle, a head Shell to a Head slot gear piece, etc)
  • Shells provide both alternate art as well as possibly enhanced visual effects
  • Gear without a shell is “naked” — it uses the default art and effects
  • Shell rarity determines how exclusive a shell is, as well as its visual quality
  • Shells do not affect stats or abilities directly (see Shell Bonding below)
  • Shells can acquire permanent Badges if they are used in key situations (e.g. defeating a Boss)
  • Shells can be removed from the gear they are attached to, and reattached to another piece of gear, transferring the look, the effects, and the obtained Badges
  • In Season 0, the Shells come pre-attached to the instances of the Season 0 starting gear
  • In Season 1 you will be able to detach the shell and move it to a piece of gear of the same class
  • Shells are NFTs and can be traded independently of gear once they are detached

Image: Founder’s Gear, Season 0

Image: Naked Gear, Season 0

What is Shell Bonding?

  • A shell can be permanently “bonded” to a piece of gear (Season 1)
  • This would be true for any of the Season 0 shells in the Founder’s sale, from common up to legendary.
  • Once bonded, it can never be removed
  • Gear that has a bonded shell will have increased odds of better results when that gear is leveled
  • E.g A pistol that had a bonded shell would be more likely to gain something +10 ATK than +5 ATK when it leveled vs. one that was not bonded, or acquire something more rare like an additional effect. And this is true each time it levels
  • The more badges a shell has, and the fewer copies of that shell type that have been minted, the greater the improvement of odds on the leveling table
  • The specific odds improvement is still awaiting Season 1 development, but it will be significant but not huge

How do characters and character upgrades work?

  • Characters are Edits — genetically enhanced individuals. This enhancement gives them unique abilities and makes them very hard to kill.
  • Edits come in seven different types (currently)
  • These types have different strengths and specialties:
  • Heavy — A combat specialist focused on survivability
  • Demon — A combat specialist focused on tactics and offense
  • Doc — Healer with additional powers from Nano-techology
  • Jack — Focused on Hacking and manipulation of others’ skills and abilities
  • Genius — Inventor focused on Mechanical devices, think mad scientist for abilities
  • Ghost — Focused on Stealth and taking down single targets
  • Tailor — A mimic that can gain abilities from any class, and use gear from any class
  • Characters level by injecting Editing juice, which drop from missions (Season 1)
  • When a character levels, you get a choice between three different possible upgrades (they also get a small amount of Health)
  • Upgrades include bonuses to stats or passive or active abilities
  • Upgrades are determined procedurally from a large list of possible upgrades so that each character will become more and more unique as it levels
  • At some level (TBD), characters have a chance of capping (no longer being able to level)
  • This chance of capping goes up for each level after that
  • When a character caps, it gets a special set of upgrades, but can no longer level

What are Character Shells?

  • Like Gear Shells, Character shells can be attached to any character of the matching class
  • They provide an alternate look to that characters visible physical features
  • They otherwise function identically to gear shells, collecting badges and being transferable
  • Character shells may not be bonded

Character/Gear Power in Neon District

  • The goal of Neon District’s design is to present a very broad diversity of types of challenges to the player
  • One way to think of the Missions is as a set of different tactical puzzles. No single strategy will work well across the board. (Although there will never be a single path to success either)
  • Different individual pieces of gear, and different characters, since they are upgraded procedurally, will function way better in some situations than others. No one will do it all.
  • Overall, the power of any individual asset is strong but narrow
  • The main path to success and power in Neon District is:
  • Assembling a broad team of characters and equipment that can be combined creatively to meet any challenge
  • Devising clever teams and strategies using these assets in order to solve the hardest missions and get access to the best drops

Owning the Season 0 Boss

  • Owning the Season 0 Boss confers the following advantages:
  • You can customize his dialogue (Season 0)
  • You get a report of who he has defeated (Season 0)
  • You can use him as a character in a limited number of missions a day (Season 1)
  • You can Upgrade him (Season 1+)
  • You can use him in Co-op Missions and PVP (Season 2+)
  • You can sell him
  • The Boss is a very strong unit, and will remain strong via upgrades as the challenges of the game increase
  • However, like everything else in Neon District, the Boss will be way better in some situations than others. Given that he has a limited number of uses per day, you need to pick its battles wisely if you are lucky enough to own him.

Founder’s Key Benefits

  • Early Access to Season 0 and all subsequent Seasons
  • Access to Season 0 Founder’s Sale, and all subsequent special sales
  • Publicly displayed Founder Status on all Neon District chats and Forums, as well as in- game for PVP, Co-op in later Seasons
  • Exclusive visual effects and animations
  • Access to special in-game content including exclusive events, missions, secrets, and puzzles, as well as any surprises we roll out with them

What is the value of Season 0 shells?

  • Shells have value based on a number of factors:
  • Aesthetic — an enhanced visual experience for character look and effects
  • Rarity — This is the only time these shells will ever be offered. New players that want these shells will have to acquire them from a Founder. As the player pool changes, these assets should become more and more exclusive, even the common ones.
  • Bonding — Bonded shells (see above) increase the odds of getting better improvements from gear leveling. The more rare the shell, the more badges it has, the better the increase.
  • Showing Off — Once Co-op and PVP are introduced, other players will be able to see that you are truly a Neon District OG

FOUNDER’S SALE FAQ

What is the Founder’s Sale?

The Opportunity to be a Neon District Founder. The Founder’s Sale is an exclusive event, only available to those who signed up for the waitlist. Broken up into four tiers, your waitlist position determines when you gain access to the sale.

Why should I buy these assets?

The Sale is the first opportunity to collect unique weapons and gear to customize your experience in Season 0.

How does owning these assets impact gameplay? Are these just aesthetic “skins?”

Founder’s Sale assets distinguish you as a Neon District founder because they look way cooler than the items without. See Game Design section for more information.

Am I too late to participate in the founder sale now? Is there any way to get on the list late?

The waiting list is now closed, but all Founder’s Keys are NFTs and after the sale opens, you can offer to bid on or buy other players’ keys and released assets on the OpenSea market.

When can Founder’s Key holders participate in the sale?

Holders of each Founder’s Key within a given tier will be allowed to participate in the sale on a certain date and time. Your key number, which is the same as your position in line, represents when you may access the sale. The schedule is as follows:

  • Top 20, March 28th, 8 pm ET
  • Tier 1 (Top 333) March 29th noon 12 pm ET
  • Tier 2 (Top 666) March 30th 12 pm ET
  • Tier 3 (Top 999) March 31st 12 pm ET
  • Tier 4 (1000+) April 1st 12 pm ET

What incentive does someone in tier 4 have to participate in the sale?

Even the lowest key has a real chance at obtaining upper-tier rarities. All assets, regardless of rarity, can only be obtained through the sale or secondary markets and without a key, you will miss out on founder gameplay perks. See: Founder’s Key Benefits under Game Design section.

If someone buys a key via a friend, are they still considered a founder?

Whoever owns a founder’s key is a founder. However, after you engage your key on the Founder’s Sale page, the key becomes locked, the lock will persist at Blockade Games discretion or until the end of the Founder’s Sale. Having a Founder’s Key means you will have access to special in-game experiences. If you do not have a key, you will not have these experiences even if you were at one time a Founder.

Can I buy a better key on OpenSea?

Yes, if there is a better key available for sale on OpenSea’s secondary market, you will I get all the benefits that come with having its associated position and tier.

Is the Founder’s Sale and waitlist structured to only benefit whales?

The waitlist and Founder’s Key distribution was designed in a way to reward individuals who wanted to support the game both financially and through community engagement. Rising in tiers could be achieved by either purchasing tiers or referring the waitlist to friends and others. Amongst the top 20, 7 people earned their position mostly in referrals, 8 paid for their spots, and 5 are balanced between paying and earning. Regardless of waiting list tier, each key has the chance of unlocking loot of all rarities.

Will Founder’s Skins bought by founders ever be minted again? Can they be earned during gameplay for free?

The Founder’s Sale assets will never be minted again and will not be available through gameplay.

Will you launch new assets ahead every season?

Each season will have different shells, badges, loot, characters, and weapons, and gear.

Why are you charging $5 for a key?

The fee is required to prevent farming of keys.

How many assets drop in the loot chest?

We decided that 4 assets would drop with every loot chest purchase.

How quickly will we receive our items in our wallet? Can trading begin right away?

Your assets will appear immediately in your OpenSea collections and can be traded right away. If you engage your key on the Founder’s Sale website, it will be locked until after the roll out is complete or possibly until the end of the sale.

Are there community rewards if sales milestones are hit? I.e. X chests sold/$X raised, everyone gets free X item?

If the community raises $50,000 in sales, then the Boss Auction will be unlocked.

When will the presale end?

The Founder’s Sale will end on April 14th, 10 pm ET.

Why does the tier above me get both better loot drops AND earlier access than me?

The Founder’s Sale tier system rewards our community members that worked really hard to support and promote us in preparation for the sale. We’re taking the opportunity to reward our best contributors, people that have stepped up and want to be our founders.

How is the loot drop determined?

We’re using industry standards for randomization techniques. For security purposes, we’re not going to reveal how our randomness works, but there are many layers in place to prevent and frustrate any bad actors.

Will we be able to see live drop rates for our specific key before opening that accounts for all items that already had rates halved?

There will be a live calculator on the site during the sale.

Will live stats be available to show how close an asset is to having a full set found and its drop halving?

Yes, we will be communicating the halving of sets and drop rates on the site.

Does my key get me early access to buy loot boxes with better loot drop rates before each season like you are doing with season 0, or are keys only useful for this presale?

Founders keys will give you access to every season exclusive sale and early access to every season.

Are there any personal bonuses if I buy more than X chests?

There’s a discount if you buy in bulk. You can purchase 1 for $10, 3 for $25, and 5 for $35

PAYMENT FAQ

Any idea if we will need to have a verified wyre account to buy with credit cards?

A verified Wyre account is only required for ACH. You can buy Ethereum on OpenSea using a credit / debit card through Wyre, and you can also buy loot boxes directly with credit card through Nifty Gateway.

Claiming Your Key on OpenSea part one — You’ll receive an email with your link to your key
Claiming Your Key on OpenSea part two
Engaging Your Key — locking it to buy loot!
Buying loot boxes with Ethereum using MetaMask
Buying loot boxes with USD using Nifty Gateway

OPENSEA ONBOARDING INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. opensea.io/assets/0x66c2e323590E7c00744B4880343d91cbe6F93C0F/your_place_in_line

2. See the buy button for the key. Try to buy.

  • If you have a web3 wallet: skip to step 3
  • If you do not have a web3 wallet: We’ll make you get one.

3. Now you have a web3 wallet. See the buy button. Try to buy.

  • Before you can buy, you need to verify your email first!

NOTE: YOU MUST VERIFY WITH THE SAME EMAIL YOU USED FOR THE FOUNDERS WAITLIST

4. Now you have a wallet and an email. Try to buy. Yay, you’ll get the loading screen if you have enough money to buy a key!

  • If you do not have enough money in your wallet, you will be sent to opensea.io/account so you can add more $ using their debit card, via Wyre

5. On the OpenSea loading screen, when it finishes, you’ll see a link to the ND Founder’s Sale page, where you can engage your key to buy your Founder’s Loot!

6. Once on the Neon District Founder’s Sale Page, Engage Your Key. Once engaged, your key will be locked for the duration of the Founder’s Sale, or until we decide to release the keys for trading. If you would prefer to trade your key, do not engage it.

7. Buy 1, 3, or 5 loot box’s with your web3 wallet or buy with your credit card through Nifty Gateway.

8. Wait thirty seconds while your transaction confirms. Open your loot box to view your assets or skip the opening and view directly in your collection on OpenSea.

TECHNICAL FAQ

How did you use contracts for the Founder’s Sale?

  • The Item contract, stores the ownership and metadata of each item.
  • The Sale factory contract, handles purchasing and unboxing, creates and transfers items using the Item contract.
  • The Key contract, stores keys and their gems.
  • The key Factory contract, which OpenSea interfaces to in order to mint keys.

What token information distinguishes these assets as Founder’s Assets?

A lot of things — these are the first tokens in the earliest contract we’ve ever deployed for Neon District items. These tokens are also all identified with a “Generation” tag set to 0 to indicate that these are the first generation of items ever minted for Neon District.

Do the founder’s assets carry any information that reference the key they were purchased with?

Yes, they will all have a reference to the original key that was used to first purchase them.

Why ERC721 Ethereum mainnet assets instead of ERC20 or ERC1155?

ERC721 is the current standard for unique in-game items. ERC20 tokens are fungible, so we cannot differentiate individual items using them. In the future, we can retranslate game assets into ERC1155 when they transfer from our sidechain game to another dapp or mainnet. An example of this would occur so that the tokens are compatible with Age of Rust. ERC1155 does support multiple token types but we only needed non-fungible in-game items on the mainnet at this time.

Why can’t we have larger than 5 chests at a time?

Opening a chest costs much more Ethereum “gas” than a simple transaction and we don’t want to cause congestion on the Ethereum blockchain by producing even larger transactions that would be more difficult to fit into blocks at the current block gas limit.

How and why did we design for randomness and how will this work on the ethereum blockchain.

We use on-chain entropy supplemented by periodic off-chain entropy updates.

ADDITIONAL FAQ

Will there be loot drops in Season 0?

There will be no special loot drops during Season 0. You receive armor NFTs during the equipment tutorial, the equipment received is in order to complete the missions. There’s nothing special about them and they do not have badge and shell features. More information on this

How will I bring these assets into the game?

We haven’t decided with certainty yet, but we will either use the Ethereum-Loom Network transfer gateway similar to the one built for Plasma Bears, or we will just allow users to link their Ethereum accounts with their player accounts.

When can we play the game?

The Season 0 tutorial campaign will be available this May and Season 1, the first full game campaign, will be released in Q3 this year.

What does the Neon District roadmap look like?

Season 0: Spring 2019, Tutorial and Campaign Introduction

Season 1: Fall 2019, Full Game, Procedural Gameplay

Season 2: Spring 2020, Co-Op Multiplayer, Raids, Campaign Expansion

Season 3: Fall 2020, Factions, PvP, Campaign Expansion

And then so much more…

How will crafting work?

You’ll be able to upgrade and transfer between gear as a feature. See Game Design section.

What platform will the game initially launch on?

Neon District will first be released on PC. The game was made with Unity.

How many items do I need to start playing the game? Can I still play the game without buying any chests?

Everyone who plays is given starter equipment. The Founder’s Sale is an opportunity to swap those baseline assets with unique ones that are limited and not available outside of this sale.

Will players be able to farm assets in Neon District like they have in Plasma Bears?

There will be no farming of unique skins in Season 0, only starter items in a “naked state” are available.

Why would I move founder’s assets and play with them in the game?

Your gameplay with assets is recorded, milestones completed with an asset can earn badges, and so on. Otherwise you’ll be using starter gear and not earning the benefits of reputation and legacy.

Does the sale include gear, equipment, and customizations?

As you play you can compose these original assets with more powerful ones that are earned through gameplay. Which will carry on their cool look and special effects, distinguishing your gear as unique and special with a legacy. You can use them right away as they are standalone equipment, but they are also composable.

Is Neon District like Plasma Bears (legendary having highest stats) or is it to illustrate the fanciness of the skins? Or both?

Stats are not the important piece for these assets as they will mostly only be used in season 0, they will have stats but not anything different than the starter gear. These assets will give players a cooler gaming experience. As we release future seasons, you can shell or bond these with the more powerful gear to continue the look, effects, as well as onchain legacy and badges earned.

These assets will mostly only be used in season 0? Why?

You’ll want to shell or bond them into higher level for more specialized gear as the game difficulty raises and becomes more complex. You’ll feel like they’re the same assets as you compose/upgrade them overtime. See Game Design FAQ for more information.

For any inquiries, please contact info@neondistrict.io or visit our discord.

The sale will be live on March 28th at 8 pm ET https://founders.neondistrict.io/.

All sales will be final. Details will be provided on the website at launch.

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Neon District
Blockade Games

Neon District is a cyberpunk RPG with assets that evolve through play, crafting, and achievement on the blockchain