1 Year of Building: A Recap

Caveworld
6 min readSep 25, 2022

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A Caveman NFT during the modeling stage (Left), after being fully colored and textured (Middle), and a recent mock-up (Right)!

For many of us, it’s hard to believe over 1 year has passed since the Crypto Cavemen Club was brought to life. In just two minutes, 8,888 Cavemen were minted and became a staple for thousands of Solana NFT Collectors around the globe. Although they have now taken on a new life as the main character’s of Caveworld, we’d like to journey through the past year of progress and explore how far we have truly come!

The Crypto Cavemen Club

The original banners for TheCavemenClub’s Twitter Profile

Pre-Mint Development - Summer 2021

After the original idea for Cavemen was thought up in June of 2021, Art Director Gaarzen and his small team of helpers began testing various Cavemen models. They played around with characteristics like hairiness, nose size, shoulder width, mouth shape, eyebrow type, and ear length to find the perfect mascot for the Cavemen Club. For example, the model to the left, shown below, was one of the finalists discussed internally by the team. The decision was tough, but we’re confident we made the right one!

First draft models of potential Cavemen models!

Mint Day - September 21, 2021

During this stage of the Solana Ecosystem, there were very few NFTs in existence. In fact, we were one of the first projects to use Metaplex’s Candy Machine, which now stands as the premier way to launch a collection. With a completely unique and in-house built website, minting portal, and rarity encyclopedia, we launched the collection. As you all know, it was a smashing success, except for one problem… the Cavemen didn’t arrive! For those who were with us a year ago, you may remember the “spinning circle” phenomenon, which occurred due to a faulty piece of code in our metadata. Although swiftly solved by our Head Developer Danny, known formerly as OogaMan, it was a frightening time for 3,000+ new Cavemen owners. Looking back, it brought our community closer together, cementing friendships that remain strong even today!

Drops…and more drops! - Q3-Q4 2021

After a stressful mint process, we knew we wanted to reward all of our new holders with something Cavemen could utilize in the future. We started by dropping weapons, including axes, rocks, bones, and clubs, and followed up with a potion drop just a few weeks later! Not only was this one of the first free airdrops in Solana history, but our drops remain a valuable part of the Cavemen ecosystem over a year later! It was after these drops, and weeks of deliberation by the team, that we decided Caveworld was the future for Cavemen.

A Prehistoric Currency for our Futuristic Vision! - Q4 2021

Knowing that the Cavemen would not be able to survive without a working in-game currency and economic system, we created the CAVE Coin and dropped 211 coins to every NFT holder! This drop allocated over 2,500,000 coins to holders, which now represents 2.5% of the total supply to ever exist! As many of you know, after introducing CAVE to various trading platforms and liquidity pools, speculation ran rampant and pumped the price above $10. Although price action didn’t benefit the team or the subsequent progress of building Caveworld, we were thrilled to see that after purchasing a Caveman for 2 Solana, holders were, at one point, sitting with over $2,000 in free airdrops. It was fascinating for us all to watch!

CaveWorld

The final, redesigned, banner for Caveworld, and the current banner for TheCavemenClub Twitter!

Building Begins - Q1-Q2 2022

Released January 5, 2022. The first trailer for Caveworld.

Creating a mobile game from scratch, in and of itself, is a monumental undertaking. Add NFT integration and financial reward systems and you’ve got yourself a mere impossible task. This is, perhaps, why many other projects have taken shortcuts in various areas like asset creation, or have introduced unsustainable reward distributions. We knew we wanted to build something unique, long-lasting, and impossible to replicate. Hiring out the proper team, as we’ve discussed previously, took months. Then, once our team of (now 25+) artists, developers, and managers was complete, the race to the finish line began.

Shots of the early stage Arena build (Left, Right) and an in-progress shot of the Shark Set (Middle).

Building Continues- Q3-Q4 2022

Released May 20, 2022. The Arena Reveal trailer for Caveworld.

Over the past 8 months, we have spent everyday building Caveworld. From arena design, 2D and 3D asset creation, armor modeling, UI/UX testing, server building, and so much more, we are closer than ever to releasing our MVP (Minimum Viable Product). Think of this as a beta version! If you’d like to read a more detailed overview of Caveworld’s most recent progress, check out Progress Update #5!

Over the next few months we have some exciting things planned, including an anniversary event that will be announced and released over the following weeks. Plus, many team members will be joining in on the fun at Breakpoint Solana, the premier Solana creator conference, so stay tuned for all of the surprises associated with that! We look forward to what, and where, the next year will bring us!

Join the Caveworld Community

If you are not a part of our Discord community, we highly recommend it, as we are constantly dropping great alpha to our community. Simply visit discord.gg/caveworld to join, it’s free!

To find links to purchase Crypto Cavemen NFTs (our in-game characters) or $CAVE coin (our in-game token) visit our Linktree: http://linktr.ee/Caveworld!

OOGA BOOGA to all!

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Caveworld
Caveworld

Written by Caveworld

A Play-to-Earn project built for true gamers. Built by the Crypto Cavemen Club on Solana.

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