precisely zero mfers have asked “what is mfers arcade”, but here’s the backstory anyway…

I’ve never been a hardcore gamer, but like many NFT nerds - spent many hours in my youth playing PC games (doom, wolfenstein 3d), console games (smash brothers, goldeneye), pokemon, and magic the gathering.

A few month ago, I got a mind virus - can we clone classic games and reskin them with NFT themes.  Using mfers was obvious as 1) its my favorite collection and 2) its cc0.  I also saw others release fun games such as mfer blaster (by OuterLumen and Divide).

My “IRL” background is as a backend programmer in web2 - with zero experience in game dev, web dev, design etc. However the urge to FAFO was strong - and in the brave new era of AI-assisted programming, I had help.  Two months ago, I bit the bullet and spent the weekend coding up mfers beheaded - a candy crush clone.

It was a modest hit (for the bear market). Over the next month, 100 players played 10K+ games.  Together with bloodisher - we built out different levels and were able to use dope artwork, voice acting from across the mfer (and tiny dino and nakamigo) community including (pinedegen, animatedmfers, bee, lobesy, shaya, metab, discipline, netspawn etc..).  We added X sign-in, a leaderboard, squashed bugs, improved performance with the help of the community.

Based on the experience with mfers beheaded - I have decided to expand the project to create mfers arcade.

what is mfers arcade?

• mfers arcade is a website with a collection of free-to-play mfer-themed games.

  • As of today, we have shipped mfers beheaded, a mfer connect 4 game “hoodies vs top hat” and mfer chess.

  • We are also working on a trading card game and a platformer.

• mfers arcade will also be a collection of open source code to enable mfers (or other NFT collections) to bootstrap building their own games.

  • mfers arcade will open source code components to enable faster dev

  • Many games follow a template (e.g. two player turn based) and share common components - sign in with X, lobby system for pairing, leaderboard etc..

    • Somebody who wants to build a checkers game should be able to start with mfers chess and modify, cutting 80% of dev time.

  • mfers could choose to fork the code entirely and run the game separately, or build it and host it in the mfer arcade

• Last but not least, mfers arcade is a community of builders, artists, and players.

how is mfers arcade?

how will mfers arcade operate? What will be the governance structure? DAO voting rights? mOnETIzaTION? dIsCORD?!  On the spectrum of options, a few choices.

• Loose structure over high coordination - in the spirit of “mfers do what they want”, mfers arcade will have the bare minimum process / structure necessary.

  • I will control some central resources that can be shared with the community (e.g. domain names, github repo, heroku account, AWS account) but all of these can be forked / cloned and easily replaced.

  • mfers can come together and form teams to build dope games, choose to work on a game, abandon a game, etc..  We will avoid NDA’s, non-competes, complex IP licensing agreements.

• Light Monetization over Financialization - gaming is a huge business. Many games tap into our dark side of gambling / addiction. Other games encourage repetitive “grinding” or “farming”. As paco the intern put it… we are so caught up in “play to earn” … we forgot about “play to play”.

  • mfers arcade games will be bias towards light or no monetization.  Money creates expectations - which are often unmet.  Examples of light monetization could include voluntary donations (like old shareware) or releasing a commemorative game NFT.

  • Direct costs (outside labor) are low in today’s world of cloud computing.  Almost all cloud services have free or cheap tiers, and the smartphone is a powerful device.

  • Ultimately at the end of the day “mfers do what they want” and mfers are free to fork a popular game and try to go a different route.

• Hobbyist over “AAA” -  mfers arcade is not going to compete with a “AAA” gaming studio (or even “AA” or “B”)… yet 😏.

  • Focus will be on simple / fun games that can be run across a variety of devices - not high end gaming rigs.

  • Prefer web-based over thick client / native iOS / Android apps.  Web apps allow the fastest iteration speed and accessibility across devices. 

  • At the end of day - mfers arcade will be built by hobbyists - so these games will often crash, have bugs, etc.. That’s okay.

• … yes we will have a discord.

why is mfers arcade?

Ultimately, the goal of this project is to have fun - for builders, artists, and players.

mfer buildooors can FAFO in a low-risk environment, building games for their fellow mfers. They can develop skill applicable in “IRL” or to other web3 projects.

mfer artists can use mfers arcade as another platform with which to share existing work, or create cool new art.

mfer players can have fun with their friends!

In the words of one infamous mfer “you can state a roadmap that says where you will go, but you can also plant seeds and see where they grow -- the seeds are all around now, and we will see where they grow.”

happy gaming - mfers jus getting started.