Welcome everyone, we're gonna start soon in one minute in spaces, thank you already for
joining me, ready to listen. Maric, can you hear me well? Yeah, all good. Great, so let's
start then. One more session, one more episode of Powered by Remark, this time we have with
Steven from Snake Soldiers and other things that we're gonna get to know soon. My name
is Marius and I'm an outreach growth manager for Remark and we are doing these weekly episodes,
spaces about projects that use Remark tech to build and for the ones that don't know Remark,
Remark is a company that has developed different ERC standards. The idea was always to push NFTs
forward and to go beyond the board in static JPEGs. At this moment there's already seven ERC
developers, five of them already fully implemented and two on draft, but we're gonna get to know
better a little bit also by talking with Steven. So first thing that I want to say,
Steven, just present yourself, not the Snake Soldiers yet, but just yourself.
Hey everyone, I'm Steven, a stock dev zero on most social platforms. I'm the lead EVM developer
at Remark and co-author of the seven ERCs and yeah, I just love building with Remark and NFTs.
Yeah, thanks. And then of course, now we need to know a little bit about
Snake Soldiers because that is the guest of this episode. We want to know more about this
project and what it is, but I would like you to try to tell it in a way that it's very short.
So imagine that you are in an elevator and you need to pitch this project to someone that is
very best of it. What would you say? Okay, so I'd say Snake Soldiers is a play to own game
on Moonbeam. It's the first ever collection to deploy the Remark protocol on production.
We know first, our rivals are usually, they gain a lot of value eventually. And our goal is to have
fun mini games where holders own their experience while we explore and push the limits of NFTs.
We have added a lot of strategy into it through the items you equip. I think that's about it.
Yeah, very short, really nice. Appreciate it. So now let's go a little bit more deeper on it.
So what was the vision behind Snake Soldiers? What was the inspiration for you to start it
and what are you aiming to achieve? So I was a web2deaf in 2021. I didn't trust blockchains.
I was too worried about the environment and proof of work. I was not aware there was such a thing
as proof of stake back then. And I basically thought NFTs were stupid. Look at me now.
So a friend came to me with this idea. He wanted to do actually, snakes were meant to be initially
worms. So he had this idea in mind to make an NFT collection for a game, which would be like
this classic worms game. I don't know if you've seen it or you have like weapons and you fight
with other worms. Oh yeah, I played it a lot. Yeah, so he had this in mind and he was looking
for a developer and a designer. And I was like, yeah, he explained to me that there was proof of
stake. And he explained to me that NFTs actually made sense, not in most cases. In most cases,
they were just JPEGs, but I was able to see the potential they have. So I was excited and I was
like, okay, I'm a developer, I can start learning this a good opportunity. And my wife is a designer,
so maybe she can work on the designs. And we started. That's how Snake Soldiers was born,
like two and a half or two years ago already. So about the vision, well, initially this was,
gotta be honest, this was just a project to make a quick buck. It was like full bull market and
everything was selling so easily. So it was attractive because of that. But then,
we started building and since remark wasn't ready in one evening back then,
then the beer market came and we realized we wouldn't become millionaire with this.
We are not even making money, but it became our hobby. So we started, and especially me,
since I'm on remark, I started trying to see how far I could take those NFTs. So it's became one
of the core values of the project to always keep pushing to the limits of NFTs and try to make
something fun for the holders. So it has a lot of inspiration from Pokemon and board games.
We already have our battles almost ready. We went through a couple of weeks of beta testing and
really nice feedback. So we want to polish everything and release in the next days,
mostly in most weeks. We will also have a, so there's a lot of strategy into it.
So you have the different gems that your snake holder was able to claim. One for element,
one for skill and one for faction. So depending on their combinations, you will get a boost
for them. So there's a lot of things, like a lot of room for strategy. We also have landscapes.
So if the snakes, they always fight in a different territory. So if your landscape
matches the territory or your faction gem matches it, you get a boost too. And then just as in Pokemon,
if for instance, you have a water snake and you're fighting against a fire snake, then you get the
advantage. So yeah, we're trying to have a lot of room. So strategy is the main thing here,
because it's an idle battle, at least for now. We have plans to develop something more
more interactive anytime soon, but we still think we can make it fun this way.
Yeah. And I, first of all, I appreciate your honesty saying about the, it was to make some
money with the NFT collection. And I think actually that's, that's the main thing. Most
people would release NFT collection, especially during the bull market in 2021. That was the
craziness, but now it's evolving much farther than it seems. But one thing that I'm curious
also is that, how did you get to know Remark and what made you decide to use this standard?
So this is a story I love to tell because I, well, I think Canaria was probably my first NFT.
Also my friend came with the idea, told me about Canaria's. So I bought one with him. They were
pretty expensive at that time. And I was really impressed by the protocol. So I was like,
Hey, I want my collection to use this protocol, to use this standard, to have all these possibilities.
So I started looking for an EVM implementation and I found this repository, but it was like,
like just has a few, it had a few things, but it was like half done. And I was really curious.
So I just sent an email to hello at Remark.app. And I was like, Hey, I'm a Solidi developer.
I want to do this collection on Moon River back then. And I want to use your protocol,
but I can find it, the implementation on EVM. Is this repository the right one? Is it still
in development? If it is, I can give you a hand. Like I was offering it really for free,
just to be part of it. And I sent that email, like, I don't know, some day at noon
and the next day at 6am, because I live in Columbia, I was talking to Petusco and to Bruno.
It was crazy. And so I sent an email curious about the EVM implementation
and they were looking for more hands. So the next day I had this kind of interview with
them and then with Cicada, which was running this effort back then. And I started working
for Remark, just like that per hour. So I started writing tests and diving more into it.
And one later I got the full-time job offer and that's how I became a web tree developer
out of a cold email. That's pretty cool story. First of all, because you use email,
which we know that we have three, most people use telegram and discords. So pretty cool that
you went that way. And second, it's funny that you wanted to start an NFT collection
and as you said, also to make some money. And then suddenly you got the job offer and
it changed your life for sure, because I see how much you work and how much you develop the other
stuff also. So yeah, it's a crazy story. It's a crazy story. I always like telling it.
Yeah. And it's one of the beauties of this space, actually. I also feel that web tree
has got a lot of opportunities. We just need to know where to search and not be afraid to
ask if that's exactly what you did. You just send the email. Absolutely. This is something I don't
think it's found on any industry. I'm on telegram groups with founders of a lot of really cool
projects in web tree. I don't want to say names, but again, you can so easily get in touch
with some of the real people, like the people in the real stuff. And they're willing to answer. And
that's something we try on Remark as well. Like, especially, I think Yuri Petusco and you and me
are the ones more involved in telegram. But I mean, it's one of the founders and it's the CTO
and he's constantly trying to give answers and to be helpful. So I think it's something you only
found in web tree. Yeah, definitely. And it's quite impressive. At least I see from Remark,
of course, there's other companies doing the same, but yeah, you are very active.
Yuri Petusco is also very active with replying on telegram. And sometimes people don't realize
that actually, even the disease is really cool and it's very nice for the community. And of course,
you can talk with somebody that is one of the founders or main developers, but it also takes
time from your normal world. From coding and developing. Yeah, please don't tag the founders,
guys. They have better things to do. I also have better things to do. But if you're doing something
with smart contracts, then ping me. It's fine. Yeah, but that's why also we have this telegram
group just for implementers and developers. So if there's some more technical stuff,
it's easy. Exactly. I checked that one daily, for sure. So that's the place.
Yeah. And we just saw, for example, now that a new collection was deployed on Singler,
the Taco Tales, and the developers just used also Remark. And they didn't even contact anybody from
the team. It just learned by himself. So that's also cool. He literally joined the group. He
literally joined the implementers group yesterday, after really blowing. So it's really cool. This
he did a great job. I talked to him yesterday, and he told me he basically used one of the Remark
examples on the Remark example repo as a base, and the documentation, and that was enough for him.
So that's great. And how do you feel, because maybe people don't realize that actually you
are also one of the main persons developing these documents and the reps. How do you feel
when somebody just is able to build something just looking at what you created before?
It's huge, man, really. It's all the hard work for the last months. Like all those tutorials,
and the AVM template, and the Remark examples, I've written 100% of them also wizard. So I've been
pushing, really. That's really my priority this year, now that the main ERCs were complete,
to make it easier for builders to build with Remark. We also eventually want to,
and this will come with Mentor V2, to have ways to do a lot of dynamic and customizable contracts
with no code. But for now, I think this is a huge win for me and for Remark, of course,
that a developer didn't ask our help at all and was able to deploy in a fully
composable and equipable collection. It's amazing. Definitely. But let's go back a little bit to
Snake Soldier, because that's why you are here also. Actually, I think, if I'm not mistaken,
Snake Soldier is the first project to use the seven ERC standards.
Yeah, we're probably the only one using all of them, as far as I know. So,
I'm looking at my notes. There were the five that were already in Canary, the main five,
but now there were two others that actually you are also part of the team that developed these ERCs.
So we have the ERC20 older and we have the dynamic attributes,
which you integrated already on Snake Soldiers, right?
Yes. So actually, these last two ERCs, I think, if I remember correctly, I think they were born
from snakes, the ERC20 holder and the token attributes. So that's something very cool about
being part of both projects, because I have a lot of ideas that I want to make with Snake Soldiers.
So all these years, I've been making sure that the protocol and our implementation is flexible
enough to allow projects to easily do all this kind of crazy stuff. And then, yeah, eventually,
there was this idea for dynamic attributes and for the ERC20 holder, and they are still in
draft, so they might change, but we are already using them. So it also has the advantage of
before taking the ERCs to finals, so they can no longer be modified. The fact that there is already
at least a project, but I know there are others also using this, it is like a great because it
allows you to battle test them before you call them final. So that's something which I like
doing with Snake Soldiers. Sometimes it goes wrong, and there's been cases where the holders
have to do three or four transactions just to fix their assets, because I did something wrong.
But it's part of the soul of Snake Soldiers, to push the limits, and sometimes something will break,
but the standards are flexible enough to allow you to easily fix it.
Yeah, that's great, because you are not only the architect behind these ERCs,
but you are also the test pilot. And using Snakes, it's really a complete cycle. You started Snakes,
and then you conducted Remark, and then you started working for Remark, and now suddenly
you are using Snakes also to develop ERCs for Remark. So it's really a full cycle that you are
integrating. Yeah, I think it's a nice synergy. For sure, for sure. Can you explain a little
bit what are these ERCs about dynamic attributes, and how you are using it already on Snake Soldiers?
Sure. So dynamic attributes, it's basically a way for NFT collections, even if they are already
deployed, even if they don't use any of the other Remark standards, because it's backwards
compatible with all 721s. So the idea is that you, as the collection owner, can define different
attributes. They can be string values, or numbers, or bytes, addresses, and you can define who gets to
update them. So if only you or you are in a collaborator, or a specific address, which might
be a game contract, for instance, or the token owner. So in any of those cases, you allow,
you define dynamically the attributes and who gets to update them, and then its own chain. So for
instance, for snakes, the first thing we use, and I think was also the first use case of dynamic
attributes repository, even in draft, it was we allowed the holders to to nickname their snakes.
So in this case, it was the token holder who gets to set the name, and it's all store and
chain. So our hope is to make this standard clear and well and flexible enough, but also
easy enough to manage so that any third party can display all the attributes for a token.
So ideally, one day, we'll see in Singular, this next, so the name, the custom names of each of the
snake soldiers. And then we started using it for stats. So we have for our battler, we have a tag
defense, stamina, inhale points, and a few other things. So all that we initially,
randomly created the attributes based on the on the traits that each snake had,
we started on chain and the battler contract, the game contract, every time tools next battle,
it will give experience points, which are also storing chain, and the user decides how to once
they level up, they get some free points to increase any of their stats. So once they do it,
it's also against on chain. So if for whatever reason, snakes all the earth dies, or I die,
and there's no one else to develop this project, anyone could take it and keep building on top of
that, because it's all on chain, which is, I think, one of the main things that Remar has been
aiming since the beginning is, and it's for holders of the NFTs to own their experience.
So they own it by having all their characters and items be NFTs and all the equipability state
be on chain. And now they also get to have the attributes on chain. It's like all it's all
complete, all that is related to your, to your main NFT isn't changed. Thanks to Remar.
That's a very clear explanation. And it makes totally sense because especially for games,
I think it's a great use case, and also prevents people from cheating, because everything is on
chain, all the attributes, right? So that's cool. One thing I wanted to ask you, you said before
that you started on Moon River, but snake storage now is on Moonbeam, right? What was the decision
for behind this situation? So I believe a lot in Polkadot. So you always wanted to launch there.
Initially Moon River was where all the fun stuff was happening. So it was like the, the
obvious choice. But we also needed a marketplace, right? And Singular had us planned the first chain
to launch in was Moonbeam. So it made perfect sense to launch on Moonbeam. And that's,
that's where we went. So yeah, that's basically it. We're happy. I mean, sadly, all but sadly for
snake soldiers, most of Remark related products are launching on base. But we have ever also,
she's using Remark on Moonbeam. So it's a huge other project, which from for which we hope to
make some, some things together one day. Yeah, exactly. That's what I was going to say, because
you have ever root. And because you also stayed on Polkadot, I saw now that snake soldiers was
also campaigning for the three mem coins that are launching on Polkadot, and people could
collect badges. And then there's going to be also the ERC20 older there, right? So you are
playing a little bit with this. Can we expect also more partnerships and collaborations
besides these ones? Yeah, so I want to say more about the badges at the end that said the alpha
I had promised for today. But basically, it's mem coin season. And we saw these three mem coins are
like taking a lot of strength in Polkadot. So we wanted to do something with there. For now,
like, it's just something fun to show your support. And it's all claimable. Like,
that's another cool thing about snake soldiers. Each holder was they bought an NFT,
there were some high ranks, which were more expensive, like a few hundred dollars.
But most of them, they were like $20, I think, at the time of the meeting. And with that NFT,
they've been able to claim three gems, landscape, a couple of items, and now this batch, and we'll
probably have some more stuff later. So this is just a way for for holders to show their support.
So we wanted to make like this kind of competition. And it's from the last time I shake,
there were 300 badges claimed. And there were like pink and canary were were on top with like,
110 and 107 something like that. So very close is fun to see. And then the others were for that.
So yeah, it's, again, we are making it fun for people, just an exploring. And I think again,
that those badges are the first contract to deploy using your C20 holder. But more on that later.
And about collaborations. Well, yeah, I mean, we were always open to it.
I think this is one of the best things that you can do in NFT space is collaborations.
And thankfully, remark makes it super easy. So so we hope to see more in the future.
Yeah, and those numbers are quite impressive. Actually, maybe some people will think 300 is
not much. But yeah, we have also to have an account that next soldiers also has got just
so much reach as it's possible, because you are not the 10k collection. And you're doing a lot.
But it's cool also that you are experimenting with all this. And I think for me, that's
important. Yeah, it's interesting, because we were launching an absolutely bare market,
and we managed to sell 500 units. That was impressive to me. I think that's like selling
ourselves also the first ever remark collection and me being part of remark had to help, of course,
but still impressive. It's hard to sell hundreds of units in a bare market.
Actually, the max supply of the collection, it's still 5000. We don't I'm not sure we'll get there.
But we would like to eventually get to 1000. So twice as we have, because for every 250 units,
there is a commander. And we have four factions. So we I would like to have a commander per each
faction for game purposes. But we'll see how how we close. Yeah, for sure. And we let's try also
to support even further and promote a little bit. But as you are saying, many things are also being
developed. So maybe that will bring us more people will want to see that I'm actually curious,
because we're talking about numbers and the number of badges. But there was also some very
impressive numbers that I remember, if I'm not mistaken, about the number of people that
reacted with emojis on the snakes, because there was also some questions about this, right?
Yeah, that's that's where we use the modes. So that was fully inspired slash copycat from canaria.
So early, like, like the geos, you know, that initially the canary eggs, you would emote on
them. And based on that, your canaria would get trades. So in snake soldiers, we decided to do
exactly that, but only VM and using the DRC. So we had said I think it was 16 emotes were actually
18. There were 16 trades plus the snake and they had four soldiers. So people could emote on their
on their eggs, and also emote on others. So we created a channel on discord for people to
exchange emotes. And we made it seem very easy to emote on batch. So you could send like 100 emotes
directly to multiple snakes. Of course, one, one person can only send one of each type of emote on
each NFT. So it's not like you could send multiple times the same into the same NFT. But you could
send multiple emotes to multiple NFTs. So we eventually hit the 10k barrier. So it's probably
the most emotes collection using the standard with I don't know, probably 12,000 emotes right now.
And we took those trades. And with some randomness, we picked each of the trades for each of the eggs.
And that's how they became actual soldiers. That's a pretty impressive number. And I think it's nice
that you also developed this way for batch emoting. So people can really play with it and not only
emoting on their own eggs, but also on others. I think that's a very cool feature for community
building and for integration and for people to it's for me actually something that I feel that
it's needed on NFTs. Because NFTs can be can do much more. And there was this lacking before there
was just like, you just meet an NFT and someone just buys. That's it. But now with these emotes
and with the dynamic attributes and everything that you are building with snake soldiers,
it's really possible to have much more interaction. And that's awesome. So I'm also curious,
because there's so much going on and what you're doing with snake soldiers. So how many people
are part of your team for snake soldiers? So we are only three people. The friend with the original
idea of Worms, he's the community manager and he also has a lot of interesting ideas.
There's my wife who's the designer and me as a dev.
Pretty cool that just three people are able to do so much. And
also it's amazing. So congratulations to your wife also, because it's pretty cool.
I love all the backgrounds and all the snakes and the different elements of it.
Yeah. Well, actually for the backgrounds that that was a collaboration we did with Yumi.
So she's a pixel artist very well known in Dot Sama. So the backgrounds were done by her.
Awesome. Another collaboration and really nice. I think that's also the beauty of this kind
of collections. It's the ability to invite other people and to have other artists also making
different things. And then it gives an extra value for me. This NFT is because it's not only
just one artist, but more. And maybe in the future you can also even invite more than that
other kind of equipables and other stuff to it. Yeah. And that's only possible with Remark.
And for instance, if you sell an NFT, which has a landscape nested into it,
Yumi will get part of the royalties as it should be. And again, that's something you only find in Remark.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, you already talked a little bit that the idea also is to develop
games. So it's going to be a kind of battle. Can you explain a little bit more about this,
open a little bit more this Pandora box and explain. So people will need what to have a snake
and then they're going to battle with their snake. Can they lose their snake? Like if their snake dies,
they don't have NFT anymore or it's not a problem. Tell us a little bit more about the mechanics
behind it. Yeah, no, they will never die. They can, I'd say faint when they run out of stamina
or out of health. So in order to battle, you need to have enough stamina to start a battle
every turn. So the battles are by turn and every turn you lose stamina. So if you don't have
enough stamina for at least five turns, you cannot battle. You need to wait. And same for health.
Every time you battle, the opponent can take health from you and it can go down to zero,
then you faint. Or it can just be too low to start a battle. And we have a way to,
so the stamina and the health, they have some recovery per hour. So you just need to wait
enough and your stats will be full again and you're ready to fight. We also probably will
eventually drop potions after battles randomly. So you can like quickly heal yourself and jump
back to battle. But the idea is that with the stamina you have in the recovery per hour,
you should be able to do a few battles a day with no problem. But that's nice also,
because then it allows people also to get out of the screen a little bit and go outside and enjoy
life, not to be stuck in the game all the time. Yeah, I think something that what three games
have done right in general is to limit access. I think that that creates like more will to play
and it makes the games not become boring so fast. So yeah, I think it's a cool feature.
So anyway, if somebody wants to play the game, they need to own a snake, right?
Yes, and you will probably want to get one with the alpha, I'll say at the end.
But yeah, they're all available at Singular. I've noticed there are a few, there was like a super
cheap one I was about to buy, but it's listed on XU Remark and I already transferred all of mine.
So I need to wait for the seller to either release it or if someone still has XU Remark,
then there is one real chip. But still, there are a few things, like I don't know what the
chip is, maybe 50, 60 USD right now. Okay, that's a good price.
And you get well, you get like six or seven NFTs and you get a mini game and
and the promise that this is this is my hobby. I will continue building this for years to come.
Even not becoming a millionaire yet. We did. Yeah, no, I already know. I already realized
snake soldiers won't make me rich. It's a fact. I put hundreds of hours on it.
So yeah, I've put hundreds of hours on it and I didn't get much back in terms of money,
but I have gotten a lot back in terms of like realization. It's just really fun. And also,
it's been a huge input for me as a Remark dev. Yeah, and I can feel that it's a passion,
that it's something that you are also, I can see the development slowly. I saw also when the
backgrounds came out and I think this is really cool. So to see different elements that come
together at a certain point, and maybe you didn't even think about it in the beginning, but
because it's a passion and there's a fire moving it, then things just start to flow eventually.
But absolutely, and the standards allow for this flexibility. So there's always something I always
mentioned when I am talking about Remark. For me, the most powerful feature is the forward
compatibility. I had no idea I would do a collaboration with an artist for backgrounds.
I had no idea that there would be meme coins and I would do badges for them. I had no idea
that I could make attributes on shame, that didn't even exist back then. But it's a reality
now and all is implemented into Snakes. Yeah, well, either you are aware of it or not,
you are a pioneer and you're living your marketing history of blockchain. So even if you don't
become a millionaire, Snakes soldiers is going to be forever the first project on production,
as you said, the first using the 70 RC standards. It's a pilot's test, as you were saying also
before. So there's a lot of good stuff around there that maybe one day you're going to
be recognized for all that. But I already appreciate it. And for sure, many people that
use already Remark and that are into Snakes soldiers recognize that. So just keep going,
because I feel that passion. And yeah, it's something that for sure to develop further.
But one thing that actually I know that you are not only working on Snakes soldiers,
you actually had another project called Pranks, if I'm not mistaken. And there was also I remember
to see some website also with some robots that you can sweep and play with it. Can you tell us
a little bit more about this? Yeah, so I'm actually behind a lot of projects more than I should be.
So it's just really hard for me to say no to someone wanting to do stuff for Remark. And
since in a few months back, there were not that many tools for developers or not developers to
build with us. People eventually ended up coming to me with really nice ideas. And I was like,
yeah, I want to do this. So Punks too, it's so amazing. You've probably seen Yudals,
and they have this dynamic wardrobe where you can pick all the parts. And actually,
they're the Remarkables recently created a version for each of the Remark team members.
So Punks too, we did that a year ago. And you could, I'm not saying at all that Yudals copied,
just they had the same idea. It's just that we built that same thing a year ago,
just not that pretty, because I'm not a great friend and death. But you could pick all the
fixed parts for the Punk and also the items. So initially, we sold some Punk surprise boxes
on Singular and if you got one and you went to the site, you could reveal it and it will define
the skin of your Punk and how many items it was able to have. And then you can absolutely
customize the rest. And once you hit Mint, the contracts would dynamically create the right
asset with all the fixed parts and the slot parts and also Mint all the items and nest into them.
So it was really, really advanced for time. But we launched in full beer and we didn't push
too hard on marketing, so it never really took off. There were like, I don't know, 15 Minted.
It's incredible because it was really a thing, like really advanced. So this was an idea from a
partner. So he's rethinking it and we will be migrating the site once we have a better plan.
But we don't plan to let it die. About bots, it actually never launched, but I got a third place
in a hackathon thanks to that. So it was really cool. The website is still available, although I
think you cannot actually Mint. It wasn't Moonbase, but for some reason, you can no longer Mint. I
don't remember why. So this was actually before Punk's and the idea is that you could pick
each part. So the bots, they had a head, a body, legs and two arms, and you could pick the asset
for each of those. And once you Minted, each would become an NFT. And they will just be equipped
into a doodle sheet, sorry, into a sheet that was behind. So it was the first attempt to dynamically
create like equipable NFTs that were you as the owner, as the buyer could pick what you wanted
instead of getting some random, maybe not beautiful combination. So I have more plans for it. I hope
to retake it one day because I want this to be the proof of concept for cross-chain remark NFTs.
Now, if you ask Bruno, he will tell you that's not possible, but I will prove him wrong one day
once I have enough time. It's actually pretty tough because there are already cross-chain NFTs,
but those NFTs are an image. So there's not much information to pass through the cross-chain
bridge, right? They're just not much science. It's just like almost as bridging near C20.
For remark, it's not like that. First, you have multiple assets and then you may have children,
which are other collections, which in turn, they may have their own multiple assets. And those
might be equipped and you may have ERC20 tokens attached to them and they may have attributes.
So we'll probably have to limit it somehow, but I think it's still possible. So my plan for bots,
if I ever have the time again, is to have different collections in different chains. So for
instance, launch the bots on Moonbeam and cats on bays and aliens on polygon. And then you pick
each of the parts for them and then you can transfer them. So you can send, I don't know,
a cat tail and put it into the robot and an alien head also into the robot. So that's
kind of my long-term idea. So that would be like a proof of concept.
I see myself in you in many things, because I'm also a very creative person and I have
a lot of projects that start, but then usually I don't finish or they are instant by to be
calculated. So I completely understand you because it's more about this idea of just
creating something, right? Just trying and just see what it goes. I know that a lot of people
have this vision of long-term, but sometimes for me, and it seems that it's similar to you,
that it's really just the pleasure of creating, the pleasure of trying something new
and to see what comes up. And then eventually if we can pick up again,
great. If not, it's fine. It's also something that made us learn and evolve.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's just like for the sake of being able to do it, it's enough.
Exactly that. But I'm curious also that with so many things like working for Remark,
with snake soldiers, with banks, with these bots and other things that you are invited
that you are just saying, how do you manage to deal with all this and also having a personal life?
Well, I don't sleep much.
Actually, I have a nine year old daughter now, so it had to change a lot. So most of these projects,
they are not active at the same time. So I tried to have this, besides Remark and snakes,
just a couple of projects going on and tried to only take real small stuff.
But I think one of the answers my brain has given me was to create the EVM template in the wizard.
I think they came from this necessity that I have, because I'm probably the person who has created
the most amount of Remark NFT collections. So every time I did a Remark collection,
like for Remark or for a size project, I had to start from zero. And I felt I was wasting a lot of
time with the setup. So I created the Remark EVN template repository on GitHub, which has all the
setup and dependencies you might need. So that saves a ton of time. And then I remember one night,
I always wanted to do Remark as the open settling wizard, where you can more or less customize
what kind of VRC 721 you want to have. But it was too hard a few months ago, because everything
was changing so much. But once the standards became final, and then we did some big refactors and
launched version two of the package, I started to notice that it was not that crazy anymore,
to be able to have a tool which would dynamically generate the code for you, depending on
if you wanted all the equipable or only nestable, and if you wanted pre-mint or lazy mint.
So I started with these things. And I remember one night I had this idea, and I just couldn't
sleep. So I think I got up like at 4am and started coding it. I think there was no,
on Remark, there was no availability for that. So I did the front myself. It's not super
pretty, but it's useful. So I started with those things, I think, only what level do you want to
use and how do you want the mint to be. And then every time I had a new project, which had
some more, some other little variant, I would add it to the wizard first. So for instance,
if you want the token URI to be fixed, then that's one way. But then if you want the token URI to be
pointing to the top priority asset, then that's a common use case. So I also added to the wizard,
and it started growing and growing. And it's not some base now, which can generate probably
hundreds of different combinations of Remark contracts. So the most recently I added from
instance, ERC20 holder. So you just click a switch, and now you get the code for a
Remark contract, which can hold ERC20s. You get for instance, auto accepting children is
something very common for nestable collections. So it's also there. And yeah, it kept growing.
I find myself using it a lot. Like every time I download the AVM template, I go to wizard and
generate the, like pick the things I want, the models I want, and I download it and start from it.
And if there's something else, then I add it. So it's there for all the other devs.
Yeah, it seems you're really building stuff for yourself first, and then they are just useful
for other people. And I also know that wizard is a great tool. You have to create custom contracts
without even knowing what to call them. You need a little bit of knowledge, but yeah,
it's pretty easy. And actually, I think we can reveal now also that we are working together in
a new LFT collection called Roadmaps. And I remember that when I shared this idea that I had,
you immediately jumped on it. But then you also told me that actually also we use wizard to develop
this. So first question is, why immediately you jumped on it? What did you saw on it? And
how do you think that you want to explain a little bit about this LFT collection or you want me to
explain it? Also, let's start with the first question. Why did I jump in? So as usual,
I think it's my inability to say no to projects using remark. That's a good part of it. But then
mostly it's because it was you asking and because it seemed really fun. I thought it was a fun idea.
So it's clearly meme season and people promise heaven's stars and 99% or more of them do not
deliver. So I thought it would be fun to have some meme collection out there that literally promises
not to deliver, like not to deliver literally, but maybe we will. Who knows? So yeah,
if you want to tell more about it, please go ahead.
Yeah, the idea came not only from this cycle of that we are now passing, but already in 2021,
I remember there was a lot of roadmaps and everybody needed a roadmap. And actually,
there was also a lot of people asking artists for roadmap, which for me was very weird because
artists don't have a roadmap. They just create hard. Okay, they can think maybe short term,
like preparing a specific collection, but we don't think about what we're going to do
in five years or 10 years or so on. It's mostly projects. But as you were saying before,
I mean, it was interesting to see that most roadmaps, they don't deliver.
It's but even so, people still ask them. So it was just to try to pick up certain things
that I noticed that were happening in this space and try to frame them inside a roadmap
divided by four quarters as usually it is like quarters in the year. And then try to combine them
and of course use remote technology because that's for me what makes sense that these quarters can
be also equipable so people can play with them and equip different ways and create their own roadmap.
But as you said, yeah, no promises, nothing that is really to just have a laugh and
kind of a meme style and just joke about it.
Yeah, there was one of them, I think in Q3 or something that was like,
create an ERC, which is not an ERC, something like that. That's right. That was my favorite one
because then I hate it when this 404 guys came out of nowhere and saying there were an ERC,
but they didn't exist at all. And it just went crazy. People don't, didn't care about
technology or about cross-checking and the prices went really high. It's a crazy space,
but I think escalation is nice, a nice way to make fun of that.
Yeah, and many of the things I inspired out actually because of the work of Remark and
seeing some stuff, the ERC 404 was one of them. It's not even an ERC, so it's ridiculous.
Or I remember there's also one quarter that it's to launch something new that in fact already
exists for three years. Yeah, exactly. Like inscriptions that Remark did three years ago,
but now it's the IPE and because then suddenly it's on Bitcoin. And many others, I think this
space is still a lot influenced and depending on a small number of people that just IPE stuff and
all the rest goes behind it. While others are building and doing a rate of great stuff,
but don't have the recreation and visibility. Of course, it's not. Being a stoic, I've learned that
you just have to do the right thing. That's not a question. Even if other ways of doing stuff
promise you more returns, you just keep doing the right thing. That's it. That's why we're here for.
Yeah, completely. And I feel that it's very similar values that all the team of Remark has
regarding this. I think that's why it's such a pleasure also for me to work with Remark and
to meet people like you and all the other persons from the team, because it's a very
shared common value on that. But let's move again a little bit maybe to NFTs.
We were talking a little bit about this space and how is it influenced it.
Personally, when I came, I was in the late 2020 that I came to this space, mainly because I wanted
to create art and NFTs for me was a great way also to sell art and buy art. But since the beginning,
for me, it was a bit like I grasped this technology. I understand it, but I believe it
can be done so much more than this. Since the beginning, I was trying even to look for
developers because I already had ideas. I feel if in that moment I would met you, then it would be
much easier because we could do so much together. But just to say, because I'm really passionate
about NFTs. For me, it was really this tech that made me passionate. And I'm still here on this
space because exactly of that, because I believe it's the future. I believe that NFTs are going
to be everywhere. But I want to know also from your side, what makes you passionate about NFTs?
Why are you working on NFTs? What do you envision for NFTs?
When I was doing my master on computer science, I remember this teacher explaining to us that
when you are on, I don't know how to call it in English, pre-grad, when you're doing your
regular degree, the thesis, he made us imagine a circle of knowledge. So when you're a pre-grad
student, I think it's the name or the regular degree on computer science, you do your thesis
like around the middle of the body of knowledge. When you're doing your master, you must do your
thesis in the borders of this body of knowledge. And when you're doing a PhD, you must expand
the barriers of knowledge. So with NFTs and with Remark, we're doing a PhD basically. So it's
so rewarding personally to be part of this change, to be expanding the limits of technology and of
knowledge and of what you can do with NFTs. So I don't know, I think I find my passion from there.
NFTs are too powerful. We've seen them, they're used mostly in gaming so far, but I think you
can easily extrapolate. So I expect, well, there are already songs to be, which are NFTs,
but I expect them to be Remark NFTs, where a song has multiple layers by different artists
and all the artists and holders get royalties respectively. I expect most reputational related
stuff to be also with Remark NFTs. I expect my card in house to one day be represented as an NFT,
so I can use them as a collateral if I need to. In general, I expect adoption across many real world
things. And we are still early. It sounds cliche, but we really are. But I think this is inevitable.
When there's this interesting book called the Internet of Things about blockchain,
so it tells us how initially, for instance, when the cars arrived, they had to use the infrastructure
for the previous standard, which were the things with the horses. I don't know the name in English.
So initially it was like, nah, but look at those cars. They get stuck in the mud.
They don't make sense. But then the infrastructure had to evolve to support cars because they were just
much better. And then the horses, they could also use the same infrastructure. The same happened
with internet. If you're at least 30 years old, you probably had to connect to internet
through the telephone line. So it was a terrible infrastructure. It was for internet.
It was an infrastructure created for fun. So if you use it for internet, which was the next thing,
then it was not good. And people was like, nah, it's so slow. It's so shitty. It won't do it. It
won't work. And eventually the infrastructure evolved. And now the phone uses the infrastructure
for internet. And it's similar with blockchain and with NFTs. So we were still in the phase where
we complained that the current infrastructure is not good. Sorry, that the current product,
which is blockchain or NFTs, are not good enough because they don't fit well in the
infrastructure that we have. But eventually the infrastructure evolves. And that's the new
standard. So I'm pretty sure we will get there. Yeah, that story about the horses reminds me
also, I heard once, it's quite similar that in New York, it was a big problem with horses because
not only they poop everywhere. So that was a problem. But also because horses die and
people leave them on the street, you know. And I know that at a certain moment, New York City was
trying to fight that. So they started imposing fees and they started imposing some laws to change,
but nothing changed until cars appeared. Then when the cars appeared, then yeah, the infrastructure
was rebuilt, as you said, that people stopped doing that. So yeah, I agree that something needs
to be created first and then all the rest will follow that. But it takes time for these things
to happen. There was a moment that cars and horses were together. It was not that suddenly
all the horses disappeared. We are at that time. Exactly. There's still a lot to do with NFTs and
things will come forward. And I see more and more projects talking about NFTs 2.0 or dynamic NFTs.
Even that we already did that and talked about that much time ago and did a lot of stuff with it.
Some people are just starting to see it now, but it will happen for sure.
Yeah, so anyway, we are almost over and it has been delicious conversation. I would stay with you
hours and hours talking. But the main reason you are here is about Snake Soldiers. So
what can we expect? You said there will be some alpha in the end, so let's listen to it.
Yeah, so as Snake Soldiers, we'll continue slowly building. Since it's a site, a hobby project,
we can't go as fast as others, but we are steadily building stuff. So after we release the battles,
we plan to start dropping resources on battles depending on the land you fought on. And those
resources, you'll be able to use them later to craft items to equip to your snakes and make
them more powerful. So it's a really fun thing we plan to do. Now with the alpha, well,
we had these badges for pink, canary, and dead, and they are ERC-20 holders for a reason.
We already have a promise allocation from both pink and canary teams. So once we launch the battles,
every time you battle with your snake, depending on the badge you have equipped,
you will start accumulating min points. So either pink, canary, or dead min points.
Just a clarification, these are not the same as pink points, but some internal points to
snake soldiers. And after some time, we haven't defined yet, we will take all the points and
distribute the allocation we get from pink and canary to the snake holders which accumulated
those points. For dead, we don't have a connection yet. If anyone has one, please
ping me. But if we don't get that collection, we will take part of the phones from Remark to
buy some dead token and distribute them on the holders. So that's the alpha. You should get your
snake soon so you can battle and get for basically free this min points. So can people still
enable the badges? Yeah, absolutely. We just finished the beta testing, so battles are
suspended for now. But in a few days, or most couple of weeks, we will launch again,
and then we will start counting points. So battles will launch for real. We will reset
the attributes for all the snakes. So it's fair for the non-beta testers. But you still have
at least a week to get your snake and be ready for battle.
Okay, I have to look for that cheap one that you said that it's still available.
Even that I don't have the old Remark tokens also, so I need to look for something else to
snipe it. But yeah, sounds exciting and I'm eager to see also that game.
Anything else you want to share before we finish?
Well, yeah, just follow me. I plan to continue educating people on Remark and NFTs. So I have
this YouTube channel, also Stoic Dev0. I'm not spending much time on it because making videos
is so time-consuming. But either there or in my account, I'd like to continue posting things
about the ERCs, about NFTs, about Solidity. So if you're interested in learning, please give
me a call. And also, if you want to be on top of the innovative projects, follow Snakesolders,
Pongs, and Doodles. They're all in my profile description. So yeah, I hope to see you
in the Discord channel of Snakesolders and challenge me.
Yeah, thank you, Steven. Really appreciate everything. And yes, give a follow to Steven,
give a follow to Snakesolders. Keep an eye on all the projects that he's launching and everything
that he's working with because it's really interesting and he's also a very kind and
supportive person. So anything that you need from him, you can ask him. But also,
pay attention that the man has got so many projects and working full-time on Remark.
Please don't take all his time and let him also be available to doing other stuff. But
thank you so much, Steven, for your dedication, for your passion, for making NFT space also better,
for also all your video, for the wizard, for developing the RC standards, for Snakesolders.
There's so much that you already contributed to this space that it's really impressive.
So I'm really grateful to have you today. And also, for everybody that is listening,
don't miss the next one. Every Wednesday, we have this kind of spaces. We're still going to announce
who is going to be the next guest. And you also can listen already. This episode is on
Spotify. If you search for Remark or Powered by Remark, you're going to find that already
the first two episodes. And then we're going to also add more as we are recording.
So once again, thank you, Steven, so much. Thanks a lot, Magus. There's one last thing
I have to say. I think we have less than a minute. But you mentioned all these things
I've built. And yeah, I built a lot of stuff. But for instance, the wizard and
Vivian template, I didn't build it in my free time. Remark paid me for it. And Remark has paid
me for all of this. So I want to make clear that I've been building on the shoulders of giants,
as the saying goes. Bruno came out with these amazing ideas originally. Then Yuriz and Ilya
made it a reality on Kusama. And when I joined the team, there was Cicada from Neon Crisis there.
And he had already sorted some very important aspects of multi-asseted nestable. And then I
started diving into it and eventually took the lead. But also later received help from Jan's Devon.
And well, of course, all of the team is all responsible for this as you are. So just
want to make that clear. This is not a one-mer effort. This is a team.
Definitely. And thank you so much for saying that, because it's very important to acknowledge that
I feel the same. I'm not a developer, so I'm always trying to sometimes translate
your language when you're talking between yourselves about this technical language.
What you're doing is huge, right?
And I appreciate everybody. I always felt very supported. I always felt that my voice is
heard also. I always felt that I was respected since the start. And it's amazing when a team
can work like that. I never felt like the newcomer and just try to do something and be
shut down. So I also appreciate all your support from the team. And that's why it's so great
to work as a foreman. But yeah, thank you again, everybody that was listening. Thank you, Stephen.
And have a great day, everybody. See you again next Wednesday.