When my group embarked on the journey of building a decentralized application for a stake/play to earn game, we knew that by this point we would have little actual run-able code. I was not even sure if we would have any code by this point. But, I knew in the end we would have something nice, and some really good acquired knowledge as well.

So, in fact we do have some testable code and a basic web application with operational routing and good bones for the home and NFT minting pages. This really was no small feat considering we had to learn the Solidity programming language, and the quirks of over a half dozen dependencies to allow the front-end web application to ‘talk’ to the backend nodes/blockchain. This is in addition to brushing up on a web development framework, stying and test/development applications, all of which were new to us.

At this point I feel really good about where we are in the process. My Solidity study is complete and I have started drafting the NFT minting contract. My teammates are all getting there too and have begun writing contracts to handle different game aspects such as the marketplace and battling. So, this is the point in the project where we are beginning to build the basic blockchain/backend functionality. The smart route is to get this operational and then add to it as time allows, and this is what we will do. I tend to be ambitious when it comes to what I want to deliver in a given timeframe. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does require frequent reassessments to gauge progress and adjust plans if necessary. I rarely reduce, however, and usually make a mad dash to finish what was started.

I think the biggest mistake we could make here would be to spend too much time on aesthetics. In my mind, a polished version of our project includes respectable art and animations. The art for the NFTs and animations for different interactions with the game contracts which would include minting, battling and character upgrading. Art is necessary to demonstrate the game in any reasonable manner. But I think some form of animation for battle outcomes is almost necessary. My failing here is that it is against my nature to make something that is just good enough to save time. My thought process is always the same, and is essentially that if I have to spend time to learn a new process or technology, then why not finish it up. Depending on the task there can be a wide gap between functional and ‘wow! that looks good.’

Taking all of this into account, I plan to pull off both functional/good enough and wow!, only I plan to complete them in that order. This is the smart plan and one I plan to stick to.