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Build with Dapper Sports Studio
Introduction
Do you aspire to build the next big NFT collectible application, but don’t know where to begin? That was Dapper prior to CryptoKitties. Fast forward to today and numerous successful sports products later - we want to help you realize your goals of building alongside Dapper Sports Studio!
Dapper Sports Studio is behind some of the biggest digital collectibles products out there - including NBA TopShot, NFL All Day, UFC Strike and Laliga Golazos.
This document highlights the overall architecture and best practices when creating a Dapper Sports product. The audience is product managers and developers who want to build on the excitement and magic of Dapper Sports products themselves, reaching new fans. No technical experience is required, although understanding concepts related to Digital Collectibles (NFTs) and Blockchains (specifically FLOW) is beneficial.
Core Concepts of a DSS Project
Digital Collectibles
Digital Collectibles, also known as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), are what ultimately a user will own in their wallet. In the DSS world, these collectibles are known as “Moments” since they capture a moment from a sports game. Collectibles are derived from Editions. Editions, described below, are like a template from which each Collectible is instantiated (or “minted”).
Each Digital Collectible has a unique serial number (represented by the Edition number and a sequence of 1 - N as an example). This unique serial number guarantees the uniqueness of the collectible and the only one that will ever exist.
Editions
Editions are templates from which Digital Collectibles are created (ie minted). That is, you will have one Edition, but may have many Moments created from that Edition. The number of moments created define the rarity of that Edition. Editions are created from the following parameters:
- Set: A category for the Edition (e.g. Greatest Touchdowns).
- Series: A period for the edition that has a defined beginning and end (e.g. 2023 Season, Series 1). Series have a defined end and are closed such that they can no longer be used in Editions once completed.
- Play: A specific play from a sports game with associated metadata. Metadata will capture any important information about the play on-chain. Other data, such as the actual media clip, will be stored off-chain.
Each Edition will reference a SetId, SeriesId and PlayId to the corresponding information.
Packs
Several Digital Collectibles bundled together for sale. Packs have an opening experience before revealing the collectibles in the Pack and correspond to the idea of a “pack of cards” in the traditional trading cards sense. Once the Pack is opened, the collectibles are stored in the user’s Wallet.
Distributions
A Distribution is a collection of Packs. Similar to Editions, a Distribution contains all of the required metadata to create the Packs. Each Pack created from a Distribution can be purchased by users. There can be different types of distributions:
- Live Queue Drops that happen on a certain date for a certain period of time where users are assigned a random spot in the queue for purchasing their packs.
- RSVP Drops where users commit their payment and receive a pack preventing the need to wait in a queue.
- Air Drops refers to a promotional strategy of sending out Digital Collectibles for free to user Wallets.
DSS Information Architecture
Now that we understand the basics of what makes up a Digital Collectible in DSS, we can look at the overall architecture of a typical DSS App.
There are 4 basic parts to the architecture:
- Front-End Client Application: The FE can interact with back-end APIs that provide off-chain services, execute user approved transactions via the Dapper Wallet, or interact directly with the Flow Blockchain.
- Back-End Services: The back-end will provide a set of APIs that can be used by the Front-end to interact with both on-chain data, and off-chain data. This can include Databases, Media buckets, logging, caching, analytics, etc. Integrating both on-chain and off-chain data through the back-end is what creates the rich user experience of the app.
- Flow Blockchain: All required contracts, transaction and scripts are handled by the Flow Blockchain. This can be accessed directly from the front-end client or the back-end services. The Flow Blockchain is what provides the ownership of the collectibles and their uniqueness.
- Dapper Wallet and Platform: The Dapper Wallet and Platform provides payment, custody and identity services making it easy for users to purchase and sell their Digital Collectibles in a trusted, safe and secure way.
Best Practices
NFT Metadata Standard
One of the main issues of interoperability amongst different NFTs, is a lack of standards in how the NFT metadata is represented. This makes it difficult to add value to different NFT Collections if each of the collections implement metadata differently.
To resolve this, Flow has created an NFT Metadata Standard which all NFT Projects on flow are encouraged to use. The standard specifies that important data should live on-chain, the metadata needs to be flexible and can be extended by creating new metadata views.
For more information see:
Flow NFT Catalog
The Flow NFT Catalog is a tool designed to unlock the interoperability of NFTs across the Flow Ecosystem. In order for an NFT Collection to exist in the NFT Catalog, it must adhere to Flow NFT standards by implementing the required interfaces. Once submitted, the NFT Collection can be more easily discovered and integrated into other Flow Applications.
Example Contracts and Transactions
The NFL All Day Collections have been implemented using the latest standards for NFTs on flow and are good examples to follow for your own contracts. View the contracts here:
For examples of the transactions that are generated by the NFTCatalog and use the recommended interfaces see the NFL All Day Pack Transactions on NFTCatalog.