Why Arrows?

Checks is a game that never got to fully play out and I always felt disappointed in that because I think the evolution and coordination game was one of the most interesting aspects of Checks 

I wanted to take Checks Higher and I wanted to play the game 

1/↑/1

I’ve always viewed Checks as a project with untapped potential that was limited due to the collection size, mainnet ETH costs and a general lack of understanding about the game mechanics of Checks 

Checks is an art project but it’s also a game

Transparency time:

Working on the next iteration of Checks and itching to share some of the ideas/revisions/thinking.

Went back and forth on doing this — but ultimately, the process is as much a part of the art as the art itself, so will be sharing more in the thread below. https://t.co/4g84V9wYBb

jack

Stay Curious // iixii // Lazer Technologies // Prev: CoinDesk, Roc Nation // based

So much respect for @jack @jalil.eth @traf for creating Checks and being so thoughtful around the way it was presented

@zora and other platforms helped usher in the open edition meta in NFTs where artists would launch a NFT mint for a set amount of time, supply uncapped

Checks was arguably the most successful and the longest-lasting project from that era of NFT mints

It was a commentary on authentication and verification across the internet and social media in particular

If you were curious, it was a deep rabbit hole that kept giving pleasant surprises to anyone who went deeper into all of its meaning and intricacies

Checks was a project that stuck with me and I've had the urge to remix it in some fashion for a long time

Initially, my idea was to just fork the Checks contract and mint it on Base so that people could play the game and combine NFTs to create different variations that they liked and hopefully more people would get to the Single Check (In our case, the Single Arrow)

I felt that many people missed the fun around combining these NFTs and not exactly knowing what the output would be

HIGHER

Separately from Checks, I was pretty early to the /higher community on 
@farcaster 

I love the concept of a headless brand.  The initial group of people around Higher had taste which is rare and certainly very rare in crypto circles

The key symbol, the higher arrow, was iconic and resonant.  It conveyed meaning and significance even if I couldn’t fully put my finger on what that meaning and significance was exactly

The @warpcast rewards badge is what the Arrow sits on top of as a tribute to Farcaster

So that was the idea: fork checks, do it cheaper on base, and use the arrow instead of the check

It still felt like something was missing.  It wasn’t remixed enough.  It felt too much like a copy of Checks without anything more interesting to it.  I wanted to create something more differentiated from Checks.  I’ve always loved Virgil’s 3% rule but this remix needed to be more like 10%.

As I talked to various people about this idea, searching for a partner who could help bring this concept to life, I discussed this with @hurls who had been a thought partner for various onchain ideas.  

He built http://words3.xyz with @0xsmallbrain and other cool stuff with 
@seedclub 

Absolutely cracked dev and more importantly just a great guy who had always been fun to jam with about ideas

We have chatted about forking Check and I had framed it as a game. Initially thought that capping the supply at 100k would be sufficient which would give us a maximum of 1562 potential Single Arrows but David had the phenomenal idea of leaning into this concept as a “game” even further

He suggested that we leave the mint uncapped and we collectively thought about ways to incentivize people to mint and evolve into the single higher arrow.  Under this structure, Arrows is an endless game

As soon as someone gets the Single Higher Arrow, they have a decision to burn it and claim the mint fees which would reset the game and it could play out again and again

So this is inspiration behind @higherarrows 

Maybe you find it interesting, maybe not.  Regardless, we're going higher and we'd love for you to join us 

1/↑/1

I’ve always viewed Checks as a project with untapped potential that was limited due to the collection size, mainnet ETH costs and a general lack of understanding about the game mechanics of Checks 

Checks is an art project but it’s also a game

https://x.com/jackbutcher/status/1611726527590187016