Interview with IC Bird NFT: An Absolute Tweet of a Project

We interviewed ICBirds, a team of three French engineers who have received a grant in the race to bring P2E to the IC after the initial success of  Josh Visions' ICMojis.

1. How would you describe your artistic style?

We designed Birds in a pixel art fashion; all our NFTs are The 8-bits games from our childhood inspired us.

2. What drew you to NFT creation rather than traditional canvas-based art?

IC Birds is not just an art project; the birds are also used as the texture of our game. Being an IC Birds owner will give you some exclusive access to our games that will later be tokenized.

3. What made you create NFTs?

We are a team of three french engineers passionate about tech, particularly disruptive blockchain technology. When we understood the potential of the Internet Computer, we hopped in to develop one of the first GameFi projects and bring utility to NFTs as we were bored of avatar projects.

4. Can you tell us about your project?

This project is an NFT based game. The game's mechanics are simple and inspired by the viral Flappy Bird game. To be able to play the game, you will need to own at least one bird. All the owners will be able to play the beta version. We want to create other games based on the birds. In the future, we want to create an ecosystem where you can use your birds in other games.

5. How many NFTs will be minted? Can you talk us through the process of how you create the art?

There will be a total of 4,444 NFTs that will be minted. To create our NFTs, we had to design layers for every accessory; the challenge was to generate GIF images as it requires more work because you have to generate each image that composes the GIF. Each NFT is unique and randomly generated. A few super-rare 1:1 designs will be won during giveaways in the collection. All super-rare will be available for the community on the mint date.

6. Will people be able to breed, stake, rent your NFT or will it ever be in a game?

As said, there will be a first version of a Flappy Bird-like game. We are currently working on another more ambitious game that leverages more ICP power. We also want to introduce a token that will be airdropped to the owners that will be used in our ecosystem. Some birds will have some superpower in the game …

7. What benefits do you think the Internet Computer has over other L1 blockchains when it comes to creating NFTs?

The issue with other L1 blockchains is that their NFTs are just links to IPFS images stored in the metadata. While on the IC, NFTs are stored directly on-chain in the canister. Also, L1 blockchains can be expensive and inefficient, whereas the IC is scalable and cheap with the reverse gas model.

8. What other art have you seen that excites you in the Internet Computer NFT ecosystem?

Recently, we loved the BTC Flower project, and it's really inspiring. Also, we enjoy the Motoko Day Drop and the Poked Studios projects.

9. What excites you most about your launch and which date is your launch?

The IC Birds launch is scheduled for April 18th, 2022. We are excited to show the users our new web app and all the new designs.

10. What advice would you give to anyone trying to enter into the world of NFTs?

As we say DYOR, it is essential to do some research before hopping into a project. But the world of NFTs is a lovely place with many great projects!

11. Do you have further plans to work with ICP Squad in the future after this initial sale?

We love the ICP squad community. We have a strong connection with ICP Squad, and we are looking forward to developing this.

12. Can you envisage a future where the most valuable NFT space is on the Internet Computer?

Of course, and that's why we are here! We think that having the NFT stored on-chain directly is a tremendous advantage compared to the other L1s. With the integration that is coming this year between ICP/BTC and ICP/ETH, we hope that more people will be able to understand the real potential of the IC.

13. Why do you think NFTs have become so valuable in such a short space of time?

I think that it's because of the possibility of owning a piece of digital art and being part of a community.

14. Tell us about your team?

We are a team of three french engineers with complementary skills. CMBB has a background in the image processing field, 0rions is a blockchain engineer, and Histone has an Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning background.

15. What advantages do you believe you have over other competitors?

The issue we have with a lot of NFTs based games, not just on the IC, is that they are just promises. We wanted to make a simple game but make it available directly. Our most significant advantage is our honesty; it seems to be rare in this space.

16. Do you have partners? Tell us about them

We develop some partnerships with really great projects. Each partner will design a NFT set that will be available in twitter giveaways. For now we have some collaboration with the following projects: Poked Studio, IC Snakes and ICP Squad, of course.

17. Tell us about the challenges you face while building your project?

The first challenge we faced was to make the art as good as possible, as we all love good-looking NFTs. Then, to make NFTs compatible with a game, we had to innovate as there are not that many examples of projects on the IC. 0rions had to learn Motoko and all the specificities of developing on the IC blockchain.

18. What are your short and long-term achievements and targets?

We want to release our first version of the game and launch the collection in the short term.

We want to develop other games and tokenize our games for the long term. The vision is to build an ecosystem around the birds.

19. Give us some details about your roadmap?

As part of the DFINITY Foundation grant program, we received a 25k$ grant for this project; we first followed the roadmap that we defined with them. So the first milestone is on April 18th, when we release our collection on entrepot. Then we want to release the second game and start working on a token integration during Q2.

20. Did your project receive a grant from the DFINITY Foundation?

Yes, this project was made possible thanks to the DFINITY foundation. IC Birds is part of a 25k$ grant. We want to create simple and accessible games on the ICP to bring more crypto enthusiasts to the IC blockchain.

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions 😊

Disclaimer
Sponsored Content : Dfinity Community does not necessarily endorse any content or product on this page. While we aim to provide you with information regarding important projects and developments in the Internet Computer ecosystem, readers should do their own research and carry full responsibility for their decisions, and this article should not be considered as investment advice. Please note that every effort is made by DC to vet projects we promote