Next Creators

Ed Farage is creator of Crypto Hero, a 2D blockchain game focused on PvE with a P2E raid system inspired by Diablo and World of Warcraft. It features looting, trading and forging items as well as fighting dungeon bosses with friends. It quickly became one of the most active contracts on NEAR Protocol since it launched. In this episode Ed talks with Sasha about: 

• Living in Brazil and his first jobs as a kitchen chef and later a psychoanalyst

• Balancing new features and compromises when prototyping games in Web2 and Web3

• How to get valuable feedback from beta testers

• The experience of launching a game from testnet to mainnet 

• What drives him through his career as an indie game dev

• What the most exciting part of Crypto Hero is

• Advice for other indie game developers

Episode links:

Ed Farage: https://twitter.com/edfarage

Crypto Hero: https://ecosystem.pixeldapps.co/?page=cryptohero

Crytpo Hero Discord: https://discord.com/invite/xFAAa8Db6f

Pixel Party: https://ecosystem.pixeldapps.co/?page=pixelparty

We'll be back next week with new episodes. In the meantime join us and other creators and founders in our Discord at https://humanguild.io

Gabby Dizon is co-founder of Yield Guild Games, a play-to-earn gaming guild. They invest in yield producing NFTs in games and virtual worlds and organize a player community from around the world to earn an income from playing these games. Yield Guild Games recently raised 4.6 million dollar round from the highly competitive Andreessen Horowitz venture fund. In this episode Gabby talks with Sasha bout:

• How Axie Infinity has an unheard of 90% 30 day retention for players

• What drove Axie Infinity and Yield Guild Games' growth to go vertical in 2021

• Raising $4.6M from VC firm Andreessen Horowitz  

• What's unique about play-to-earn games

• Thinking about how to get to 5 or even 10 million Yield Guild Scholars

• Why having an open economy actually brings more value for players and the studio versus closed economies in Web2 games

• Advice and important resources for game developers

Episode links:

Gabby Dizon: https://twitter.com/gabusch

Yield Guild Games: https://yieldguild.io

[BLOG POST] YGG Raises $4.6M Led By a16z to Accelerate Play-to-Earn: https://medium.com/yield-guild-games/ygg-raises-4-6m-from-a16z-to-accelerate-play-to-earn-gaming-7f5cbccce657

Yield Guild Scholarships: https://medium.com/yield-guild-games/yield-guild-explains-play-to-earn-and-scholarships-bb1e097c2a61

Formula 1 Delta Game: https://www.f1deltatime.com

Sasha Hudzilin: https://twitter.com/AliaksandrH

Justin Aversano is a photographer and curator working within the New York City and Los Angeles art scene. Recently Justin had one of his NFT series selected for Sotheby's auction with total Twin Flames  exceeded $1 million in total resales. His Twin Flames NFT series currently has a floor of 125 Eth. Justin is also the co-founder and creative director of SaveArtSpace, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing community art to public spaces. In this episode he talks with Sasha about:

• Discovering NFTs 

• His Twin Flames photo series, a collection of 100 Twin Portraits

• Using new technology tools to achieve his creative goals

• Save Art Space, a nonprofit pursuit to bring more art to public spaces ‣ 

• Books he'd recommend for creators

Episode links:

Justin Aversano: https://twitter.com/justinaversano

Twin Flames NFT Series: https://opensea.io/collection/twinflames

Twin-lens reflex camera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin-lens_reflex_camera

Crypto Punks in #Miami: https://decrypt.co/64019/cryptopunks-nft-miami-pixelated

[BOOK] The Four Agreements: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Freedom/dp/1878424319

Sasha Hudzilin: https://twitter.com/AliaksandrH

New episodes every week. Listen and subscribe below:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-creators/id1518717692

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6dmrfNGdJEYSOaIL7uxyPH?si=Iq9-zmuuSAWtWzOt7Qv1kA&dl_branch=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9xRm54clo3UA

This podcast is part of the Human Guild. Learn more at: https://humanguild.io

Join the Human Guild Discord: https://discord.gg/bUu2hcdzxW

We're taking a short holiday break but will be back in the New Year with new episodes! In the meantime, join the community of other creators and founders in our discord at https://humanguild.io. Stay safe and see you soon!

Sammy Flores (Samtoshi F Baby) is a digital artist and creator of the Henry the Elf Comic as well as colorist & letterer for Bob Boom! the first monthly mini digital comic series on the NEAR Protocol blockchain. In this episode he talks with Sasha about:

• How the comic book industry works

• The shift in the creator economy empowering more digital artists

• Getting to know the Web3 and NEAR Protocol community 

• Being a first-generation immigrant 

• How to balance work while having a family

Episode links:

Sammy Flores (Samtoshi F Baby): https://twitter.com/Samtoshi_F_Baby

[Comic Book] Henry the Elf: https://twitter.com/HenryTheElfCom1

[Comic Book] Bob Boom!: https://comic.paras.id/comics/bob-boom/chapter

[Comic Book]Freedom Filled Flavorful Faithfully Fierce Fantastic Fear Facing Food Fighters Comic: https://www.indyplanet.com/?s=sammy+flores

Humans of the Open Web Sandbox: https://ows-team.medium.com/?p=9110130b6790

Jordan Gray is founder and managing director at CODAME, an organization building art & tech projects and events. Jordan also runs Astro DAO, a DAO launcher on the NEAR protocol platform. In this episode Jordan talks with Sasha about: 

• Why someone would want to launch a DAO

• His own path to web3 from the Midwest to the Bay Area

• How Astro DAO can help groups and organizations 

• Having the police called on a CODAME event

• Making space for play in life

Episode links: 

Jordan Gray: https://twitter.com/starpause

Astro DAO: https://astrodao.com

CODAME: https://codame.com

KinDAO: https://twitter.com/thekindao

Open Web Sandbox: https://twitter.com/OpenWebSandbox

Createbase: https://createbase.community

NEAR Community Choice Awards: https://community.astrodao.com

[Book] The Tao of Pooh: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48757.The_Tao_of_Pooh

Neil Haran is CEO of Rawbots, an online sandbox game where players can build and enhance their own robots as they explore the online universe. More than that, the game will enable players to learn concepts as they create and figure how to venture out into different planets and environments as a new category of "play-to-learn". In this episode Neil talks with Sasha about: 

• Originally wanting to be a pilot

• Building a game with educational value

• The most important thing to focus on when building compelling gaming experiences

• Can you build a sandbox game together with a community?

• Making education more personalized with web3 gaming

• The Unreal engine and the features and capabilities it enables

• Words of wisdom he'd give someone who's thinking of joining web3

Episode links:

Rawbots: https://www.rawbots.org/

Neil Haran: https://twitter.com/realneilharan

Rawbots Discord: https://discord.gg/KZXqDAfDbv

[Textbook] Game Programming Gems by Mark DeLoura: https://www.amazon.ca/Game-Programming-Gems-Mark-DeLoura/dp/1584500492

[Textbook] Multiplayer Game Programming by Todd Barron: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/multiplayer-game-programming-wcd-prima-techs-game-development_todd-barron/772443/

[Textbook] Black Belt C++ by Bruce Eckel: https://www.amazon.ca/Black-Belt-C-Masters-Collection/dp/1558513345

Will Robinson is the Head of Accelerator at DeFi Alliance, a Web3 accelerator working to grow Web3 to 1 billion users. He is also leading their new gaming accelerator. In this episode he talks with Sasha about:

• Getting a Ph.D in Game Studies and then working in Web3

• Why you should be building in public - no matter your role or background

• How to think about good gameplay versus good incentives in a game

• Balancing economics in your game

• Creating a flywheel in web3 gaming

Episode links: 

DeFi Alliance Gaming Accelerator: https://www.defialliance.co/games

Will Robinson: https://twitter.com/DangerWillRobin

[Book] How to Do Things With Video Games by Ian Bogost: http://bogost.com/books/how_to_do_things_with_videogam_1/

Game Design Workshop Series by Tracy Fullerton: https://www.gamedesignworkshop.com

Dark Forest: https://zkga.me/

CryptoZombies: https://cryptozombies.io

Trevor Clarke is founder of Croncat, a decentralized solution for scheduling blockchain transactions. Essentially allowing you to schedule tasks for any contract. In this episode Trevor talks with Sasha about his inspiration and the vision he sees possible for future applications that are fully automated. They also talk about: 

• How crypto doesn't have good viral loops and how Croncat can help

• Enabling more growth and retention by automating tasks

• Building the "Layer Y" of Web3

• His background in e-commerce and realizing it should be redone fundamentally

• Why he chose to build on NEAR Protocol

• Advice for crypto curious people

Episode links:

Croncat: https://cron.cat

Trevor Clarke: https://github.com/TrevorJTClarke

Croncat docs: https://docs.cron.cat/docs/

Berry Club: https://berryclub.io

Louis Liu is co-founder of Octopus Network, a brand new multichain network that provides leased security and interoperability to Substrate appchains. In this episode he talks with Sasha about: 

• How developers can benefit from their new approach

• New app use-cases for Octopus Network

• Early inspiration on multi-chain versus multi-sharding

• How Cosmos, Polkadot, and NEAR Protocol differ

• What is the Octopus Relay and how does it work on NEAR Protocol

• State of Web3 development in China

Episode links:

Louis Liu: https://twitter.com/louisliubj

Octopus Network: https://oct.network

Unique One: https://www.unique.one