The recent bull run and increased interest in the blockchain opened up a lot of new possibilities for many of us. Only 5 months ago a new Hive-based game has been announced by @rondras and @oliverschmid: Rabona soccer manager. Since that time both authors have been working tirelessly on adding new features and fixing many bugs along they way.
Today I am happy to announce another chapter in this story: a project for the new front-end interface for the Rabona game called dGoal. Read on to learn more!
Backstory
dGoal is an initiative by @mciszczon. I've played Rabona for few seasons already and quite liked the game—it has got a lot of potential for growth, and with around 200 currently active players, I believe we're yet to see a major takeoff.
One of the major issues with Rabona that I have noticed is its very basic, text-based user interface which doesn't make it the easiest to accomplish many tasks. Current interface is not well suited for mobile phones as well, and that's pity—it's great to be able to log in from anywhere to check how that last match went or train your team.
After brainstorming for a moment and then discussing the matter with both Rabona developers and its most dedicated players I concluded that I'd be able to create a new interface for the game that would solve the mentioned issues, and I'd be able to accomplish that in a sensible time span.
For a few years now I have been working as a full stack developer focused more on front end matters, so I thought it's time to put my skills into work for the Hive community as well.
Enter: dGoal
That's how the idea for the dGoal app was born. Taking advantage of the fact that I had an off week in my day-to-day job, I sat down and got to work. After few days a proof-of-concept app for dGoal was ready.
I decided for the dGoal name, as it follows in the steps of many other games and apps, which pride themselves in being decentralized and blockchain-based. At the same time, it's very straight forward to remember and suggests right away the theme of the game.
If you happen to be a Rabona user, you can already test out the prototype:
- Head over to https://dgoal.app/
- Provide your username and authorize with Keychain, same as you'd do in Rabona
- You'll be taken to the new Dashboard view
Currently the view is read-only, so you'll not be able to prepare for upcoming matches or view details of past matches.
New features
Even though dGoal is still just a pre-alpha prototype, you can already see some of the new features that have been implemented:
A dark theme
dGoal already allows its users to toggle between light and dark theme for the app. This was one of the most requested features by Rabona community and I see why: it's pain to use it at night time and definitely not great for you health. Now you'll be able to toggle dark mode and let your eyes rest.
Notifications
Another problem that Rabona users have often is that they tend to forget to do some mundane tasks, or they miss the information that a given action can be taken. For example, some users complained that they forget to train their team once the cool down time is over. Others complained many times, that they forgot to extend contracts with their best players and lost them upon the end of the season.
Notifications are there to help players to never miss anything important in their game. Get reminded that a season is ending soon, that you have not signed an advertisement contract, or that you are not prepared for the next match.
Mobile friendly
Although you'll not be able to log in on your smartphone yet (Hive Keychain is coming to mobile soon!), you can already emulate a mobile phone on your desktop browser to see that dGoal is 100% mobile friendly. My aim is for the game to be operable in 100% using mobile phones, so you'll be able to play from anywhere—as long as you've got your phone and an Internet connection.
What's next?
This announcement is an important step for me: it brings dGoal from my drawer and out into the world. A road from here to the finished product is still a long one, but I hope you'll all join me in this journey and we will get there together!
In the coming days I'll be implementing more and more features. A rough roadmap is as follows:
- Implement all Rabona's core features, so that dGoal can be used as a 1:1 replacement for it.
- Implement new features, which Rabona does not provide. These features will be aimed at making the gameplay more fun and giving you some advantages over your opponents.
Soon I'll reveal more details about the detailed roadmap and some community incentives. One thing that I can share with you right now is that I am planning on setting up a community-feedback website where all of you will be able to propose new features and vote which of them should be implemented first.
In the meantime, here are some things that you might do if you're interested in the project:
1. Follow @dgoal
Please follow @dgoal account on Hive to stay updated with all the work that I'll be doing. I would love for this project to be heavily community-consulted, so expect many posts where I'll trying to collect community feedback on what to work on first, what new features to implement and so on.
2. Leave feedback
I'd be more than happy if you leave a feedback in the comments of this post. Whether you're a Rabona player or not (yet!), feel free to leave a comment, give some ideas or criticize what deserves to be critizied.
3. Join Rabona Discord server
If you have not already, you can also join Rabona Discord server to stay in touch with Rabona's creators, dGoal developer (@mciszczon) and other players. Apart from discussing the dGoal project, you'll be able to talk to other players, trade in-game players and so on.
You can join using this link: https://discord.gg/FQJW7zG.