artwork commentary
Maybe's dive bar is the 6529 Brain wave of the same name, built as a bar you can walk into. It stays open as long as the Brain is talking.
Everyone on the stools is real. The last five people to speak in the wave sit at the bar wearing their own pfp's and say what they really wrote, in the order they wrote it. Nothing is made up and nothing is replayed: a balloon only ever holds a real message. maybe, who runs the wave, works behind the bar, polishing glasses and answering from there, with the brass pin of the Minister of Validation on the vest.
What you can do:
- Change the TV's five channels: MAIN STAGE (the live leaderboard), MINT TV, TDH TERMINAL, BAR CAM (the whole chat) and THE ART HOUR.
- Click a regular, or maybe, to print their BAR TAB: level, TDH, REP, NIC and their last words.
- The DRINK OF THE DAY in the showcase is the newest Meme card. The cocktail book behind the bar has a recipe for every Meme card, mixed from the card's own traits. Any page can be downloaded.
- Play darts in the corner and beer pong under the TV. Sign in with your wallet and your best game goes up on the chalkboard.
- Read the Gazette on the back wall. Leave a napkin with your request for the bar.
- Watch your language. Some words make maybe very angry.
How it works:
The bar reads the public 6529 API for the chat, Main Stage, the newest card and the TDH table. It asks less when the chat is quiet and stops asking while nobody is watching. If 6529 cannot be reached, the bar doesn't fake a crowd: the sign in the window turns to CLOSED and the bar opens after hours with the last crowd it saw.
Scores and napkins go to a small score keeper on Cloudflare. It trusts no number: a game is a seed plus the throws, and the server replays it with the same rules the card plays by. Signing in only asks your wallet to sign a short message. It never asks for a transaction or an approval. If the score keeper is ever gone, the games still play and every visitor keeps their best in their own browser.
The bar keeps changing after mint. When the wave makes a new meme, it can come to the bar: every new version goes up to Arweave, signed by my wallet, and the card checks that signature itself before it plays anything. Every version stays on Arweave. If the update server is ever gone, the card plays the newest version it has seen, or the one it was minted with.
Built from scratch in three.js. Textures from Poly Haven (CC0), the music "Martini Sunset" from FreePD (CC0), fonts under open licences. The neon and the bar's name belong to maybe, thank you.
Best with sound. On a phone, the camera follows whoever is talking.
The bar belongs to its regulars. This time it found its home in Brain, cheers!
- gruff