Dogeparty Runner | The Early Concepts

3 min readOct 21, 2022

One of the emerging trends during 2011–2015 was the gamification of user experiences online. Apple was releasing new iPhones yearly, and startups like Foursquare were leveraging those devices to bring out the gamer in all of us. Businesses and customers began interacting with each other in ways never experienced before. This trend has and will only continue to grow with faster, better technology.

At the same time, crypto platforms like Counterparty, Dogeparty, and Ethereum introduced early tokenization concepts. Early pioneers tested the promises these platforms were promoting, dreaming up new solutions to legacy problems.

Most of these early experiments turned into nothing more than name squatting, reminiscent of the early days of the internet. Others were projects with clear use cases for digital tokens and trustless transactions. Digital asset experimentation by these early adopters can arguably be considered the grassroots of Web3.

Digital Game Tokens

Dogeparty Runner, and the underlying game assets, were conceived as an internet cyber hunt-type game. Scavenger hunts and treasure hunts were logical game types first to adopt digital assets for gameplay. Game assets have always been part of the modern video game. Grounding them to a decentralized ledger versus a siloed mainframe in a company’s warehouse was an innovation not possible before Bitcoin.

Our contemporaries building on Counterparty also explored treasure hunt-style games using game tokens. The developers behind Skullcoin (SKULLCOIN, SKUL) also held games in August and September of 2014.

*Placeholder for LowCapGatsby article on early digital gaming assets*

Early Concepts

I thought it would be fun to share some pages from my sketchbook. The following eight pages are filled with game flow charts, various strategies, token economics, and logistics revolving around awarding and delivering actual products to Dogeparty Runner token game winners. Please enjoy!

storyboarding / game flow / strategies

Game Tweaks

The first and only XDPR game mimicked the game flow sketched out on the pages above.

Following our inaugural game, we received some feedback from the game runners, and we reworked the game flow with the help of their suggestions. The intent was to roll these into game #2.