365 days in the Rumble Kong League
365 days in the Rumble Kong League
A look back at a KONGSTRONG year in the RKL
RKL Turns 1 Year Old
From its humble beginnings to the latest game developments and recent major brand partnerships, the RKL continues to execute on bringing its vision to life.
This week we celebrate our first birthday, so there’s no better time to take a walk down memory lane to see just how much has happened in this first of many years to come!
July 2021
In the heat of the NFT summer of 2021, the Rumble Kong League burst onto the scene when it minted on July 28th.
The incredible community of Kong holders were passionate from day 1 and we still have a large percentage of Kongs holding their NFTs since the very beginning.
After a crazy first month, it was time to start thinking of ways to give back to this already #KONGSTRONG following!
August 2021
The vision for the RKL was made clear by the release of our whitepaper in August. The plan for a Web3 native fun and engaging basketball game had everyone fired up for the ride.
No time was wasted in providing value to holders, the release of the official RKL sneakers set the tone for the development of the project.
These are now rendered in 3D & can be seen here in our most recent game update!
September 2021
As the noise RKL was making in the market grew louder, some big names began to take notice and organically get involved.
As The Sandbox, Ja Rule, Kris London & more bought Kongs, it became clear that the RKL culture was growing its reach outside of the Web3 native audience.
Nothing fired the community up more than when the legendary Steph Curry purchased multiple Kongs!
October 2021
In October of 2021, the hits just kept coming. The first ever RKL merch drop set the tone for RKL style with quality threads that remain highly sought after today.
We also hosted the first community Art Kongtest that revealed incredible creative talent within the RKL.
The month was capped off with the major announcement that we had partnered with AAA gaming studio, ILogos, to build the game with!
November 2021
As the fall weather set in during November, everyone’s jaws dropped when they saw Steph Curry on Sportscenter being interviewed in his RKL beanie.
The first tease of the design for the RKL stadium provided plenty of discussion and feedback, we also saw the first RKL Clubs start to form their brands. Make sure you go and check out what the RKL Clubs are doing across their various social media pages.
December 2021
December was a season to be merry and celebrate another round of major developments as the RKL announced that we had raised $4.5 million in funding from strategic investors spanning across sport, gaming, entertainment, and web3 such as JDS Crypto, CAA Sports, Animoca Brands, IDEO Co-Lab, Victory Creative, and other industry leaders who shared the vision for the project.
Along with the funding, the announcement of the partnership with Under Armour and Curry brands was like a gift that would keep on giving.
On top of all that, NBA star Paul George not only loved the project enough to sport his RKL hoodie, but he also became an investor in the project!
January 2022
The new year kicked off with our first look at the initial 3D Kong and Arena models which provided a great opportunity for community feedback to iterate together until we were all happy with the designs.
As the RKL Twitter account became verified, the release of the Curry Flow (Under Armour x Steph Curry x RKL) sneakers set the community buzzing with the potential for superstar wearables in the game.
Fast forward to July 2022, the Curry Flow sneakers have been rendered in 3D and will be a wearable in the full RKL game.
You can also see a preview of the Curry Flow wearables in the screenshot below!
February 2022
In February, the NBA had its all-star weekend break and the RKL Clubs had their own community-driven competition (dubbed the “Dunk Kongtest”) to decide the best all-star dunk of all time.
We also saw an epic SLAM Magazine article on RKL founding artist, Sickpencil, that included an airdrop of a poster, to all Kong holders, that was created for the SLAM write-up.
The RKL welcomed a collab with the Snoop Avatar project and released several previews of updated Arena designs.
We also saw what animated kongs would look like on the court. This was the first time anyone was able to see how their NFT would look like in the full game. We showcased this via a tweet on February 9th.
March 2022
March Madness brought with it a season of gaming updates and previews that showed development progress. We saw several designs of the game UX with menu screens and team matchups.
As well as seeing progress in a number of in-game areas, we also saw the Kong furs rendered in 3D for the first time. The community was super pumped by the designs, but we weren't finished with big updates just yet!
March was also a big month for new internal team members at Rumble Kong League. Apeantics joined the team on the social media side, whilst the 100 club veteran Vapour took charge of the community management.
April 2022
The month of April brought with it one of the most anticipated moments in our history, launching the next core piece of The RKL ecosystem: The first Club auction.
Prior to the auction, the RKL raffled off 4 NFTs to the OG Clubs, then 45 Club tokens were sold out through a dutch auction that ran very smoothly thanks to careful development and planning from the team.
The first ever Club auction stats blew everyone away with:
48h auction
45 winning clubs
12.13 ETH sale price per club
1,050 ETH total volume in 48h
On the game development side, we saw some of the first full animations from the game itself. Dunks, shots & even dribbling were all shown to the community for feedback & discussion.
We also took a look at some 3D head traits for Kongs. These were all created by our team for use in the full RKL game. As well as game updates, we also increased our team size.
Connor was added to the partnerships division, whilst Yulia & Dmitry were added to the development team. With an increase in numbers, RKL now had a headcount of around 35 total people, all working on bringing the vision to life!
May 2022
May provided an opportunity to take a look back on the project with a very cool video called “The History of the RKL”.
If you’re new to the project, this is a great place to start.
Check out the full video below!
3D sneakers were created in the game environment, we also saw how a ranked stadium would look and began to build out our partnership network full force with brands such as NFTBA & The TICK3T.
Below is just a sample of updates from our May game progress. We improved the overall build of the game, showcased a variety of art updates, and received the first internal client of the RKL game!
June 2022
June proved to be a huge month for the RKL. The month started off with the creation of the ‘RKL Buyers Guide’. A helpful tool for anyone looking to join the league!
The vision of ATHLOS was unveiled along with the explanation that it represented the metaverse city that the RKL calls home.
Kongs descended onto New York City for NFT.NYC, their presence was felt throughout the conference.
We hosted the first-ever in-person Rumble Kong League event RKL.IRL!
The event provided a special opportunity to connect with each other, with some very special guests making an appearance.
At RKL IRL, the team also revealed the full cinematic trailer for the game which made digital waves throughout the web3 space. Make sure to check out our #KONGSTRONG trailer by clicking the video below!
July 2022
July brought with it a special announcement, the Kongcubator in partnership with Penny Jar Capital which seeks to provide funding and support to community-developed projects.
Gaming updates brought us new animations and the RKL Clubs Arena which were showcased to the community. Clubs will be able to customize their own home court with their team colors, branding, hoop designs and more.
We also conducted our second community Art Kongtest with over $30,000 in prizes given to the community. The contest saw submissions in multiple categories and mind-blowing creative work by our talented community.
It’s something we are super proud of here at RKL, the community continues to support us and we cannot thank them enough for all that they do.
What a difference a year makes!
With so many key milestones achieved in just these last 12 months, it might seem hard to top it in year 2 but with our team, community, and partners we are up to the challenge. Oh.. and also an initial game release might help ;)
The RKL ecosystem continues to grow to new heights, and we are humbled to have such an incredibly strong community alongside us!
Stay tuned for what we accomplish next together!