Author: @0xMavWisdom

Editor: Colin Wu

Blue chip NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) recently announced the launch of the minting game Dookey Dash on 18 January via BAYC Sewer, with gameplay similar to that of Temple Run. Following the official indication of the game’s imminent release, BAYC, MAYC, BAKC and APE Token have all risen to varying degrees in the short term thanks to the demand for the game’s rules for some Yuga Labs ecosystem, with the BAKC NFT floor price hitting a near 9-month high for the ETH proper.

The Sewer Pass is a ticket for the Dookey Dash, of which 30,000 are available. Each BAYC or MAYC holder will have access to one free Sewer Pass from 18 January until 8 February, while BAKC holders will have access to a special level of passes, or players who do not have an NFT of either BAYC or MAYC can purchase one from a Sewer Pass holder. Regardless of the method of acquisition, anyone with a Sewer Pass will be able to play the game. There are four levels of Sewer Passes, depending on the NFT series held: TIER1 requires MAYC, TIER2 requires both MAYC and BAKC, TIER3 requires BAYC and TIER4 requires both BAYC and BAKC. The higher the Sewer Pass level, the more likely you are to receive better rewards in the future.

Of note is Dookey Dash’s enabling of APE Tokens. Players can spend 2 APE Token to purchase a power-up pack before the game starts. The power-up pack gives the player a secondary effect that lasts for 10 minutes and can be purchased indefinitely.

Players can play any times within three weeks, but try to get higher scores before the freezing date of points (February 8). The official will record the highest score of players. Points will be awarded based on the type of debris collected, obstacles destroyed and time spent in the Sewer, with players earning points for parkour and the highest score across the network receiving the “key”. Players with a Sewer Pass and more than 0 points by February 15 will be eligible for conversion to a new item, but no official details of the new item are available now.

As the first game in the Ape Metaverse, Dookey Dash maintains the mysterious, story-based and challenging characteristics of the BAYC community before and after its launch.

Mysterious

Yuga Labs has a knack for maintaining mysterious, using storytelling and eggs to keep the community’s imagination in suspense and to stimulate curiosity and discussion. For example, the official Twitter feed stated that APE Token would be used in the new game; before announcing the launch of the game Dookey Dash, Yuga Labs had been hinting at it since December last year with the launch of the short film ‘The Trial of Jimmy the Monkey’. The new game, Dookey Dash, was recently released, but many details, including rewards and the use of prizes, were unknown until the game was officially launched. Yuga Labs did not directly announce the roadmap for 2023, but subsequently released an official roadmap “treasure chest” plot that could be obtained for the community to speculate and explore. From NFT to metaverse, BAYC did not create a grand metaverse game overnight, but also whetted the appetite with numerous concept artworks and animations to further stabilise and enliven the community in order to build a complete metaverse picture.

Storytelling

Dookey Dash released a short video to tell Monkey Jimmy’s story to explain the game and the character’s background befeore its official release, and a more vague text and image to build momentum on social media platforms prior to the release of the clip. On its own, it looks a bit nonsensical, but once you tie it all together, you get a sense of storytelling coherence from the series of promotions.

According to @tokenbrother, a co-founder of the Cryptopunks China community, BAYC’s storytelling uses preamplification, where the ‘storytelling’ itself is set up as a story, and the story is retold over and over again. The announcement to the users is made in a front-to-back manner, with a gradual release that keeps the suspense alive. In addition to the constant emphasis on the story, which reinforces the participants’ memory of the backstory, there is also the interesting storyline of Jimmy the monkey accidentally swallowing the key to the mysterious metal box and the gamer’s goal of extracting the key stuck in the monkey’s buttocks, which also enhances the immersion of the gamer in the experience.

Challenging

Unlike the usual NFT blind box, chance minting, Dookey Dash uses game minting where players can use their ‘hard power + Top up money’ to improve their scores. With a real-time leaderboard, players have a competitive target to aim for, and it’s easy to FOMO later in the game to buy props to boost your score. But rather than relying solely on BAYC and MAYC to determine the probability of qualifying for the next NFT casting, Dookey Dash gives non-Holder or lower level players the opportunity to get ahead by improving their proficiency and understanding of the game, making NFT minting more technical.

While many current NFT projects are attempting to replicate the successful path of BAYC, they have been slow to emerge as the next BAYC. It is undeniable that only a handful of blue chip NFT projects such as BAYC have been able to support this grand narrative of progressive building. When other projects do similar things, they are often seen by the community as pie in the sky or PUA, essentially because they are simply imitating and replicating one step of BAYC without a longer-term strategic vision, or because they are not recognised by the community as being strong enough to build a huge metaverse. Apart from the huge returns for early collectors and the loyalty of a large number of users, Yuga Labs’ backing, operations, market making and other aspects of centralised hard power are also important reasons for the community to remain patient with BAYC.

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