Fantom Ecosystem Spotlight – Slothtopia

Who doesn’t love sloths? They’re super-cute, furry, and chill. The creators behind Slothtopia have brought these lovable creatures to the Fantom blockchain with a range of NFT collections that includes Sloth PFP NFTs, SlothArt, and of course, the Sloth NFT avatars usable in the gorgeously detailed spaces of Slothtopia Metaverse.

1. What is Slothtopia?

Slothtopia is a 3D metaverse game.

Instead of creating a P2E dApp, we decided to build a game focusing on social interaction in Web3. We want creators, artists, collectors, and their communities to use Slothtopia as a place to interact and call home.

Whether you are hanging in your Slothtopia condo, on your private land, or in your favorite project’s space, we want you to feel welcome and inspired.

2. What inspired Slothtopia, and how did the project evolve?

Slothtopia started as a generative pixel PFP project.

I am a horrible artist but discovered that pixel art was reasonably simple to learn, so I put together an NFT collection as my first step into Web3 creation. I had no idea Slothtopia would become what it is today.

As I engaged in the industry and the community, I saw so many metaverses that were missing the mark on fundamental levels of functionality. I knew I could do it better.

I started asking myself: “What are the needs of the industry? Where can I innovate?” That is where the roadmap began…in my head…inspired to create. I wanted to build something nobody has seen and also have it fill a need. A very long six months later, and here we are.

We have completed the first in-game mint in all of crypto, built a 3D world, implemented beautiful architecture, released a fully functional and interoperable avatar collection, and now, released a fully customizable metaverse space in our “luxury living” collection.

So much of this was done on the cutting edge that I wasn’t sure it was possible. I was fortunate to find team members who shared the desire to innovate and were ready to build with me.

3. What are the team members’ backgrounds?

My background as a project creator is varied. I am a serial entrepreneur, mental health counselor, and a commercial fisherman. I have two beautiful daughters and feel like I am living my best life as a family man here in Southern California!

My lead game developer is Liam. You can see some of his work on Feeple and Fantom Survivor. Liam told me, “we can literally do anything with programming” when I first met him to ask him how we could realize my vision. I knew he was the right man for the job! He took over for my previous lead game Rafael who did a great job getting this project off the ground.

I have a lead Solidity developer, Ramy. He is mad talented and comes with his own team that can accomplish absolutely anything.

Then there is Lexicon Devils. A team of 3D modelers/architects/designers. So much talent there. Xtine is my lead 3D designer from that team. She is insane. The best artist I know…it’s just different art than what you might be used to seeing.

I also have a full-stack developer, Vipul. I go to him when I don’t know what I need to make something work. He can put thoughts into words and then into code.

We also have a lead avatar designer, Evie. You can see Evie’s work on the World of Umans AUmans avatars that are about to be released. Evie is the reason our avatars are as high quality as they are

4. How did you get into NFTs and the Metaverse?

I have been into crypto since 2017. NFTs were a natural progression.

I started on Solana with NFTs and got lucky with Solana Monkey Business over there. Getting into that project early on gave me most of the funding I have used for the Slothtopia build.

The metaverse called to me because of the ability to innovate with it. You are dead weight if you are in this domain as a creator and not blazing trails.

So much space needs to be filled in the transition to Web3, and I saw the metaverse as the logical step to find and fill these needs.

5. What can you share about the design and tech behind beautiful landscapes and detailed skins you’ve shown online?

I hired the right people!

In tech, there is always somebody better than you. There are so many different areas in a metaverse design that you need specialists everywhere.

Avatar designers, architects, game devs, solidity devs…and you need to have the best of the best to compete in a market that will mature unbelievably quickly.

The designs in-game are done mainly by Xtine with Lexicon Devils. She custom creates every single part of the design from scratch. Imagine the most detailed NFT 1/1 art you have ever seen and multiply that and then add functionality to it. This is what she does! I wish I could tell you exactly how she does it, but that is beyond my expertise.

The avatars are another fine piece of functional art. The goal there was interoperability.

You can see in the metadata that I have them in different file formats ‒ so you can take them across the internet and games. You can also use them as VTube avatars, which is a trend I see picking up more as time goes on.

We looked into the future and prepared these avatars for what we believe comes next, not for what is currently here.

6. How did you learn about Fantom?

My close friend is a Giga crypto whale. He has been working in the industry for a while and shares lots of intel on different projects. He told me Fantom was an L1 to look into, and so I did.

7. Why did you decide to launch on Fantom?

World of Umans.

I participated in her AUman mint and fell in love with that project. The community was so different from what I saw on Solana, and so I gravitated to Fantom as the network I wanted to create on.

I then found Tombheads Auction House and realized that the Fantom NFT community was special. Tinfoil took the time to do an AMA with me around that time, and following the AMA, I immediately had community members reach out to me with support.

These events all happened closely together, and they locked me into the Fantom community.

8. How is your experience working on Fantom?

The network itself is great. I’m looking forward to the new grants/incentives program in hopes of seeing projects like Slothtopia get some funding.

There’s so much that can happen on Fantom, like better tooling for NFTs. I’d love to see someone build an NFT aggregator tool showing total volumes, floor prices, price movements, holders, etc., that pulls from all our marketplaces. There is massive, pent up demand for something like this.

9. What has the community response to Slothtopia been like?

The community response is what keeps the team and me working!

Not only people in the Slothtopia community but also the other creators on Fantom. I love the support people/projects like Tombheads, Uman, Potluck Protocol, Tinfoil, Voodoo, PocketPals, Tweak, and others have given me. We work just as hard to lift each other as we do to lift ourselves up. WAGMI is not a meme in the Fantom NFT community…it is a war cry

10. What’s coming up for Slothtopia? Free alpha!

Our “luxury living” condos just went live. The tech that went into that deployment gives us an incredible base layer to build on top of. Land sales will be coming, VR integration is coming, and additional in-game tools for developers are coming.

We have a partnership of epic proportions coming as well. We have been working closely with someone I consider the best NFT creator across the board to build an experience for both our communities.

But what has me most excited is music. We now have W3Studio under the Slothtopia banner. W3Studio is a music NFT-focused metaverse where musicians can collaborate and make music together.

The instruments are interactive, the vibe is real, and there is an in-game dApp, music-only NFT marketplace. Listen to playlists, stream music, make beats, and invite people over.

Just more of that white space in Web3 that we are trying to fill.

11. Are you collaborating with any other Fantom projects?

Yes. We are currently collaborating with Potluck Protocol, Jukebox Collective, Tombheads, Uman, and Paintswap.

We would love to work with Spookyswap (and the Foundation) and build them their customizable land and dApp.

12. How do you see the Metaverse evolving?

The metaverse is not a single thing. It is simply a place that is interactive and multiplayer. Its limit knows no bounds.

I think Web3 is going to be where everything becomes a metaverse. Our time on the internet will become increasingly gamified and allow people to interact on a more personal level.

For that to happen, there need to be projects building functionalities that are a catalyst for adoption.

Nobody wants a “chat room” 2D static metaverse. You need to use it in VR, customize every single element of it, connect your wallet to it and transact, and interact with the objects you see.

It needs to be interoperable, meaning you can take an object from one metaverse and carry it into another.

You don’t need a new browser for every internet site you visit. You don’t need to buy a Google NFT to access its service. The metaverse will soon focus on users instead of profits. Only then can we see real-world adoption

13. Is there anything you would like to add that we didn’t ask?

I appreciate the time the Fantom Foundation is giving to Slothtopia. Even more so, I appreciate the time it has given to my fellow NFT artists and project creators recently.

The Fantom NFT ecosystem needs all the support the Foundation is willing to offer.

I can promise you that every minute and every FTM that is spent supporting this part of the Fantom ecosystem will give the Foundation and all the protocols built on it the best chance for immediate and long-term success