Today we embark on an adventure to another quadrant of space, the Cosmic Horizon. We have the pleasure to meet Dan & Will, respectively CEO and COO of Cosmic Horizon. In this interview, we covered what Cosmos Horizon is about, the background of the founders, how they came up with the idea of the project, and many more. Have a good read!
[SurferInvestor] Could you please share a brief summary of what Cosmic Horizon is?
[Cosmic Horizon Management Team] A wormhole was discovered in the Milky Way that leads to another quadrant of space where unique resources can only be found, but humans were not the only ones to discover it. Three other races (Kalin, Vedic, and Tar’ri) also inhabit this sector of space. Due to cultural differences between the Kalin and Humans, all wormholes in and out of the sector are destroyed. This strands all inhabitants of the sector, humans and aliens alike. Traveling home is no option, it is simply too far away.
Far from home and stranded, humans and aliens alike, continue on as they must. Trading between ports to earn funds and using those funds to buy stronger ships, and equip those ships with better weapons, defenses, and storage to increase their chances of survival. Some individuals form guilds and collaborate together, building and fortifying planets, defending strategic sectors, destroying their enemies, and increasing the number of sectors under their direct control.
[SurferInvestor] Could you introduce yourself as a founding team? What is your background?
[Cosmic Horizon Management Team] Dan (CEO – Co-founder): I started my journey in blockchain back in 2011 during the Occupy Wall Street movement. During this time I was searching for a way to use money without a bank and found that bitcoin was still a thing! After learning the philosophy of peer-to-peer cryptocurrencies and studying bitcoin whitepaper I began my journey in mining and trading. After doing this for some years I learned about Ethereum and the EVM.
I immediately knew that this was the next step in the evolution of blockchain technology and started to learn how to write Solidity smart contracts. I proceeded to work on a couple of gaming projects until 2019 when I switched my focus to working on the STEEM, now HIVE, blockchain. This experience was my first introduction to delegated proof of stake and faster chains. I continued one of my projects called Hashkings on that chain where I eventually sold my part in during the summer of 2020. In September/October William and I started exploring the possibility of building a game for the cosmos ecosystem. Cosmic Horizon was born!
Will (COO – Co-founder): I have a somewhat self-taught tech background, and worked for a telecom/ERP startup for a number of years, until moving on to different areas of eCommerce. Dan actually put bitcoin on my radar, but I (unfortunately) wasn’t particularly active in the glory days. Since we were friends, Dan kept me apprised of his progress with some of his projects, like Hashkings (on Hive), I was living in Berlin Germany at the time, but came back to visit periodically or we’d chat on the phone. There I was managing the online sales department for a luxury watchmaker (NOMOS). Eventually, I decided it was time to return home and began collaborating on another project with Dan, unrelated to Cosmic Horizon. Around the time Osmosis launched, Dan started working for Regen and I started looking at other Cosmos projects, eventually ending up as a Community Manager for Althea and Gravity Bridge about a year ago. At some point, Dan decided it would be great to make a game using Cosmos SDK.
Within a few minutes of starting the discussion, we could pretty much imagine what it could look like. Though there were (and will continue to be) some puzzles to unravel.
[SurferInvestor] How did you come up with the idea of Cosmic Horizon?
[Cosmic Horizon Management Team] After spending some time in the Cosmos ecosystem, and after selling HashKings, Dan felt the time was right to come up with a new game, using Cosmos SDK. At the time I think that would have been the first in the ecosystem. We were sitting around having a beer if memory serves. We bounced a few ideas around, and I (Will) started pitching game concepts inspired by some 1990s-era games that seemed like they might be a good fit. They happened to be space-based, which fit well with the Cosmos ecosystem. That was a good start.
Once we had a direction, we pitched things back and forth, compared notes, and went from there. It didn’t take too long before we had a pretty solid roadmap.
[SurferInvestor] Why should I own a Cosmic Horizon NFT?
[Cosmic Horizon Management Team] Hopefully, because you’d like to play Cosmic Horizon.
When someone starts a new game, there’s a little bit of a process of leveling up and finding the right ships to help you accomplish what you’re setting out to do. What you want to do will depend a bit on how you decide to play the game. If you’re more into trading, you’ll get a ship that’s built for cargo. If you’re of another demeanor you might find it’s more fun attacking others to get ahead.
The Genesis NFT ships each have their own specialization as well (exploration, battle, or trading) but are more balanced than the typical ships in the game. This isn’t a game-shifting advantage, but I think it will boost the playing experience. A bit like in a racing game, you can get the car with the best top speed or the one that handles well, but these Genesis NFT ships do a little bit of everything relatively well. You can get some trading done and get in a fight at the same time without too much of a hit on trading efficiency or attacking/defending, for example.
We will also be doing an air-drop to NFT holders, so that’s a win-win.
[SurferInvestor] What future features get you the most excited?
[Cosmic Horizon Management Team] The gameplay and universe itself, the whole dynamic of lots of people from a community participating in the game, but also breaking up into collaborative groups, forming alliances, and planning strategy against their opposition: that’s really exciting. It’s also exciting to one day see what new strategies or techniques we’ve never thought of before that people will invent along the way.
In terms of actual features, I think we’ve come up with some really creative solutions to overcome what initially seemed like obstacles stemming from building a game like this using Cosmos SDK. In the end, the roadblocks weren’t really blocked. They just pointed us in a different direction, to better solutions, enhanced by some of the features the blockchain provides—essentially the nuts and bolts of making the economy work while keeping the game fun and fair for the players.
[SurferInvestor] How many people are in the team?
Currently an expanding team with 7 members.
[SurferInvestor] In an ideal world, what would Cosmic Horizon look like in five years?
Hopefully, it will have a very active and engaged community that participates in ongoing development. It should be a growing universe of competing and aligned factions, with a space for new players to enter the game and get engaged. By that point as well we would hope to have an SDK for other entities to customize the game world and build new games on the chain.
Along the way, we aim to steer development in a way that’s transparent and aligned with the community and hopefully set an example for other upcoming projects to point to.
[SurferInvestor] For people who want to jump in, how do they get involved?
Check out the whitepaper, join the Discord server, meet the community, and say hello. We are an open-source project so we also have opportunities for independent open-source developers to join in the fun by checking out our Github.
If you have time, join our bi-weekly community calls (and ask questions!), check us out on Twitter, and help spread the word.
