What's the ask?
This proposal is asking for the following amount from Decentralised Hive Fund (DHF) :
And also,
from Hive Dev Fund (HDF) by 
What's Dungeon Cities?
Dungeon Cities is the first dungeon crawler game on Hive.
- It has both PvP and PvE elements.
- Its totally Free-2-Play and quite addictive.
- It runs on a Play-&-Pay-2-Earn tokenomics model
- Its live and can be played on any device and on any browser - https://dungeoncities.com/
Dungeon Cities came into existence back in November 2024, as a project submission in one of the hackathons hosted by Hive. Over the course of 12 months the submission matured into a full fledged game.
I was awarded 1500 HBD by 
Why are the funds and the subscription needed?
Being a solo dev has its limitations which weren't evident in the beginning. I was able to engage with the community, add more features, work on reported bugs, implement QOL changes, all the while working on the bigger picture to make the game fun, feature packed, easily accessible and playable by web2 and web3 users alike.
But this changed as the code base kept growing. Whenever a major feature was pushed to production a few bugs always popped up. And since there were so many interdependencies between features, debugging started consuming a lot of my time. Interaction with the community went down as I tried to catch up with the release timeline.
To avoid critical bugs I even created a staging server to allow players to test before a new feature was released to production. AI helped in all these implementations. But it was not enough. Free subscription to these agents meant 100% usage without the work for that day getting completed. I had started burning out.
Development slowed down and there were delays in delivering promised features. I was getting frequent pings on Discord for updates, small bugs kept coming in and real world commitments were piling up. I burnt out.
But the core issues still remain. The code base keeps growing and I alone am handling the frontend and backend. The free AI subscription is not proving enough and hiring a frontend developer who can also handle UI/UX fixes is out of my budget.
The game is generating revenue but not enough to get a new developer and if things are left as it is, I feel like I might burn out again if I don't slow down and I don't want to slow down when LAND release is almost there.
So to answer the question of why I need the funds, it is to hire a new developer and get Claude code subscription. From the quotes I received from developers on Fiverr and Upwork, it will approximately take 600 hours at the rate of $35 per hour. Of course I am not going to ask for the full amount and I will cover over half of it from what the game is generating.
What's in it for Hive Chain and the KPIs?
We need more users on Hive and we need to get them to buy HIVE token. Keeping this straight forward goal in mind, I have made a 3 step plan
First and foremost, the game needs to accessible by web2 users. We can't force them to create a Hive account from the get-go. For that I have implemented Google Login and I will be adding a Guest Login as well.
Once in, retention becomes important. For this I have added Campaign mode which first guides the player and not leave them to their own to explore the game features. And then there is a daily login streak bonus which rewards them for logging in daily.
Finally, nudging the players to buy HIVE and create their Hive wallet using that bought HIVE. This is a work in progress. I don't want to bombard the players with too much information on Hive chain, so I am making a step by step campaign that rewards them with in-game items as they progress with their learning of our ecosystem. I have taken inspiration from Splinterlands and their one click account creation. I plan to do something similar but with a few add ons.
Hopefully through these three steps we will see an influx of new users to our chain. The KPI is also quite easy to measure. The accounts created using our account creation tokens will tell us how many new users joined Hive by buying HIVE token and using it to purchase the Hunter License of Dungeon Cities that also creates a new Hive account for non-Hivers.
What about the expenditure so far?
For the better part of last year no major expenses were incurred as I am a solo dev working on a project that I am passionate about. This meant no dev pay. Only amount that spent was on domain, server and paying for AI to generate art for the game.
My day to day expenses were covered by my college scholarship which ended in December after which I started taking a small amount every month for myself. And only recently did I start sharing a part of the revenue generated with
That's all there is under expenditure. The remaining amount goes back to the community in the form of HIVE tips on posts (since our vote value is not much) and in-game events.
Who is the team behind Dungeon Cities?
As mentioned above, I am the sole dev behind Dungeon Cities. My name is Ansh but I go by the name HUNTER on Discord (elixir_hunter609). I am a CSE graduate and currently working solely on this project and planning to make it big through it.
I was introduced to Hive chain when siNUsoid hackathon was announced and
Team Name: Team Hacksmith
Team Lead: Ansh Doshi
Project Post Link on HIVE: @dcities.test1/dungeon-cities
GitHub Repo Link: https://github.com/codeslayer16/Dungeon-Cities
Deployed Project Link: https://dungeoncities.com
Demo Video Link:
The latest addition to the team -
He was my mentor during the hackathon and now he is an integral part of the game. He is the community moderator, advisor to the game and together we expand the Dungeon Cities' gameplay.
What has been developed so far?
This is quite difficult to answer as there's so much to list. I'd say you should try the game once and see for yourself but for those who want me to list it all out, well here it goes -
Player and Monster stats - Health Points, Stamina, Appetite Gauge, Attack, Defense, Attack Time, Health Point Regeneration, Stamina Regeneration, Player Level and Experience.
Tutorial and Campaign Mode.
Hive Keychain and Google Login.
Dungeon Exploration - Over 2000+ items to explore, 200+ monsters to fight, 6 different cities, 100+ Dungeon Floors, Picking or Dropping items.
PvE active combat.
Arena - PvP auto battler.
Death mechanics.
Item Crafting.
Chest Openings.
Quests - Accept or Cancel quests,
Inter-city Travelling.
Inventory Management.
13 unique Gear slots.
Enhancement of Gears.
Active and Passive Skills.
Gear Customisation using Skills that introduces multiple build possibilities.
VIP tiers and its perks.
P2P marketplace with listing fee and listing limits.
Daily Login and Login Streak Bonuses.
HP delegation rewards
Referral Program.
In-game shop which is different from P2P marketplace.
Exclusive Section for promoting partnerships, organising events and introducing exclusive items.
Notification Section.
Level up mechanics.
The list only grows longer but I do hope this gives an idea on how much has been done so far.
What are the future plans?
Currently I am working on the LAND update after which I'll work on one click account creation to onboard new players to Hive through Dungeon Cities just like how Splinterlands does it. Basically, I want to make the onboarding process to Hive seamless through Dungeon Cities.
The long term goal is to do paid marketing of the game on various outlets like Fandom, Instagram, Facebook and X to bring in web2 users. In addition to this, I'd like to do cross-chain promotions to bring web3 users from other chains to Hive, again through Dungeon Cities.
What if the proposal doesn't pass?
In the unfortunate event of this proposal not passing, 3 things would happen -
- I won't be able to get a new developer.
- I'll be forced to slow down to avoid burning myself mentally and repeating the same stop and start cycle.
- Updates and major releases will be delayed. I won't be able to deliver the promised features on time and the vision I have for Hive and this game will be fully realised a lot later.
But under no circumstance will the development stop.
What are some other ways to support Dungeon Cities?
If you feel your stake is not enough to matter by voting for this proposal there are some other ways you can support this project -
Come and play the game for free! I'll be more than willing to giveaway Hunter Licenses worth $6.9 to first 100 players who reach Level 3 in the game.
Delegate HP to
dungeon.cities. This helps us and we give DRUBBLE to the delegators. You can read more on this HERE.Engage with us by joining our DUNGEON CITIES DISCORD SERVER and becoming a part of our community. All constructive feedbacks are welcome!
Final Thoughts
I was told that what I write in this proposal doesn't really matter as major stakeholders usually vote based on connections and not what the proposal says. I was also told that this proposal won't pass even if I do my best for Hive because of reasons I'll get to know through the comments after this proposal gets published. But I would still like to sincerely appeal to the Hive community to help me develop this game faster. And I welcome you all to get in touch with me on Discord and get to know me as I get to know you all better.
