Introducing LoreCast

We are thrilled to announce our latest creation, LoreCast.

LoreCast is an RPG adventure on Farcaster that combines interactive gameplay with meaningful decision-making. This initial experience is intended to test out mechanics for frame gaming and provide a fun, interactive journey in the world we’re building. It's also a unique opportunity for players to co-create a world together, forging throughlines and hooks that make the experience collaborative.

Link: See top of LoreCaster

The story of LoreCast is inspired by the Loot Lore Development Kit from Timshel, LootHero, and others, positioning Loot as a story of cycles where individuals discover rare artifacts (Loot) that give them godlike abilities and then tragically lose them (and the cycle repeats). These cycles are left open for writers, creators, and developers to build their own lore.

Specifically, in the world we’re building, magic has been lost and forgotten, and most people live as they might have in feudal society.

You start as an adventurer and former soldier in the city of Parathus, recently conquered by the ruthless King Valen. When your friend Marik disappears, leaving a note to meet at an abandoned temple, curiosity compels you to investigate, plunging you into the midst of a civil war and a race for survival.

LoreCast draws inspiration from several sources:

• Loot: The original concept of Loot and the expansive unwalled worlds it inspired was a major influence.

• Realms: This started out as an expansion of Loot with many of the developers who were inspired by what Loot represented banding together in a DAO to build on-chain experiences. Today, Realms has evolved into a full-fledged decentralized gaming studio alliance with more than 20 games in the works. Some of the lore created here comes from their flagship Eternum game that'll launch sometime this quarter (think on-chain Civilization).

• FarCastles: We love the idea behind FarCastles as an open-source playground for creatives and coders on Farcaster. Though FarCastles is not built explicitly with Loot in mind, we are using the FarCastle minimal foundational lore to merge our interactive adventure with Loot. We draw on the north vs south design to build out real characters, scenarios, and backstories. We hope others will be inspired to use this for their own stories or games in the future.

• Hyperloot’s Dungeon War: Not only is Hyperloot one of the OG Loot-inspired gaming studios, their Dungeon War Season 1 game inspired us to consider what was possible using Frames.

• Farcaster Frame Games: Innovative frames being built on Farcaster, such as Deployer’s Nethria, Starcaster by Diskyx, and The Boregon Trail by Bored, have all contributed to our vision.

In LoreCast, you are the main character in an RPG experience using Farcaster Frames. You'll need to fight, strategize, and outwit NPCs (and later other players) to escape a dungeon-like labyrinth while being pursued by mercenaries, enemy soldiers, and foul creatures. Your decisions will impact your specific playthrough and future chapters.

Key features include:

• Combat System: Straightforward and simple:

  • Swift Attacks: Higher chance of landing a hit but lower damage

  • Power Attacks: Lower chance of hitting but higher damage

  • Special Attack: High chance of hit and high damage but only only three uses total

  • Dodge: Lowers enemy hit chance

  • Counter: High enemy hit chance but chance to strike

• Trap System: Multiple pathways to success though some have better odds.

• Decision Points: Multiple decision points, combat experiences, and surprises along the way allow for unique experiences. Dialogue options will have real repercussions tracked using tokens from a player’s wallet.

• Long-term Storytelling: The adventure is integrated into a cohesive world that supports long-term storytelling and play experiences. The storyline, while structured, is open and built alongside player input and outcomes.

  

We believe LoreCast offers a unique and fun experience with novel mechanics not yet seen on Farcaster. Here are a few reasons to play through the campaign and become involved:

1. Immersive Storytelling: The LoreCast story provides a rich, immersive storytelling experience, with a deeply crafted narrative that draws players into the world and makes each decision impactful.

2. Interactive Gameplay: This adventure features interactive gameplay that combines strategic combat, meaningful decision points, and unique surprises that ensure playthroughs are unique.

3. Free NFT Claims: With this first iteration, NFT claims are completely free (minus gas fees). We plan to issue airdrops based on player choices that will be significant for future chapters or other experiences.

4. Exclusive Rewards: Ten players will receive free copies of Shattered Realms, an upcoming graphic novel based on the world introduced in LoreCast. Additionally, pending agreements with publishers, we’ll offer NFT tokens that will reduce the cost of the graphic novel for all players.

5. Interoperable Assets: Alongside LoreCast, we’re also starting to build out a game using Farcaster Frames that’ll share assets with the interactive adventure. Players who collect items in LoreCast will be able to use some of these items in other games.

As a small team, we currently rely on AI resources for many of our images and animations. Any funds received from LoreCast will go toward expanding the experience and bringing on new creative members. While we are not opposed to using AI, we aspire to incorporate original hand-crafted art as we grow.

LoreCast is token-optional, which means that you don't have to collect or use any tokens to play along. However, we are using tokens for several key reasons:

1. Storyline Tracking: Tokens help track player storylines, ensuring that specific tokens lead to unique experiences in upcoming experiences. While centralized databases can store some decisions, we aim for the adventure to be playable elsewhere or to transition experiences to new accounts.

2. Interoperable Assets: Items, weapons, and other tokens collected within the adventure will be usable in subsequent chapters or in new games. 

3. Collectability: Humans are collectors at heart so we’re ensuring items and moments can be collected, owned, traded or used however players wish.

We decided to launch through Arbitrum for several reasons. First, Arbitrum has been incredibly supportive of our project from the very beginning and are currently trying to find new ways to be part of what the Farcaster team is building. While we support and use other Layer 2 solutions like Base and Zora, we believe that the Farcaster network becomes more robust when more chains and the communities using those chains share a social network. By launching on Arbitrum, we hope we contribute to a more interconnected and vibrant ecosystem.

Finally, as active contributors to Starknet via the Realms project, we would have considered also launching there but the L2 doesn't yet offer the necessary Farcaster tools we needed to develop the game.

Lessons learned from this playthrough will directly impact Chapter 2. In addition to building on the storytelling and world building elements within LoreCast, we’ll be creating new game experiences that are more social in nature. While we can't share many details yet, we promise it will be competitive, social, and fun.

Some potential key features for Chapter 2

• Character creation

• Find and use loot on your quest

• Competitive gameplay

• Social interaction with Clans

Oexcess is a writer and creative who was inspired by the original Loot project. They are currently working on a Loot-inspired graphic novel and contribute regularly to Realms/BiblioDAO, a decentralized gaming studio building fully onchain games. 

KingBlack is an avid gamer and game developer with over 7 years of experience in the indie game space. He is highly proficient with the Corona SDK (now known as Solar2D) and the Lua programming language. In 2019, he ventured into experimental augmented reality apps, utilizing Vuforia, the Unity engine, and C#. Currently, he is working on Loot Gambit and LoreCast alongside Oexcess.

*Special Thanks to Caygeon, Rauonastool, Nicabar, and Tandavas for looking over early iterations of LoreCast.