ZABAL GAMEZ
Three months. June is prep - ZAO teachers and builders run recorded sessions on tools, context, and the ecosystem. July is the open build-a-thon - anyone can submit a project or work in progress for the ZAO ecosystem. August is the Finals - a cohort curated from July, each builder paired with a ZAO mentor for the main event and winner reveal.
Apps, music, art, video, writing, events, repositories, prototypes, and unfinished ideas all count. Use whatever tools fit the work. ZAO mentors pick their champions from July projects. You bring the project, we bring the team and distribution.
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June Prep - July Submissions - August Finals
Three months instead of one. Born from the working session with Jordan (Empire Builder) - the original "all-in-June" plan compressed too much. The new shape gives builders a month to absorb context, a month to ship, and a month for the Finals to breathe.
ZAO Teachers + Vibe Coding Instructors
Recorded sessions, Far-Hack style. ZAO teachers cover governance, Respect, ZOLs, fractals. Vibe coding instructors walk through Claude Code, Cursor, MCP, and agent harnesses. Tool specialists drop tutorials on Empire Builder V3 (with Jordan), zlank.online, POIDH bounties, and Juke. Watch live or after. The ZABAL/ZAO/WaveWarZ context skill goes live so any agent can load full ecosystem context with one drop.
Open Build-a-Thon Ships
Anyone with the chops ships a build aligned with ZABAL, ZAO, or WaveWarZ. Live URL + open-source GitHub repo + 60-second demo + cast on /zabal. Builders can open a tokenless Empire on Empire Builder as a public build home (leaderboard + treasury surface) - encouraged, not required. Mentors watch rolling and claim champions as builds drop - first-come-first-served per mentor.
The Finals + Winner Reveal
The mentor-champion pairs lock. Same Finals prompt for the whole cohort. 24h build with mentor embedded as teammate + 24h promote + 24h ZAO governance vote + live reveal stream. Finalists who want to launch a token Ascend their Empire via Clanker + airdrop with vesting to their contribution leaderboard. Those who do not keep running the tokenless Empire indefinitely.
The application is the build (July). The Finals (August) are a real competition that crowns the season's best builder. All chosen finalists still get paid + the commemorative collectible + earn Respect in ZAO governance during the event.
The Why
ZABAL Gamez is not a generic hackathon. It is a Farcaster-creator onboarding event for the ZAO ecosystem - a structured way to bring hungry, Farcaster-active vibe-coders into ZAO by having them build something real, in public, with a ZAO mentor in their corner.
Bring talented Farcaster builders together. Give them deep context on everything ZAO is building (ZAO OS, WaveWarZ, ZAO Festivals, and the rest). Let them create something that helps the community, with a ZAO mentor as their embedded teammate. Earn governance in the community during the event itself. If they want to keep building with ZAO after - great. If not, they still walked away with a real artifact, a real relationship, and a real digital credential.
New builders who understand ZAO from the inside. Real artifacts shipped for the ecosystem. A recurring format (this is Season 1) that compounds. Getting selected through Phase 1 is the first win - every finalist gets paid and keeps the ongoing economics - and the August Finals are a real competition that crowns the season's best builder.
The builds matter, but the people matter more. This is about who you are as a builder, how you work in public, how you collaborate with a mentor - not just whether the demo is polished. That is why the application is itself a build (Phase 1): we want to see how you actually ship.
The ZAO Ecosystem
ZABAL Gamez is run by ZAO - music infrastructure for independent artists using open tools. When you build for the Games, you build for this ecosystem. Here is the map.
The full context bundle (everything above plus the rails, SDKs, brand guidelines, and research docs) drops to all Finalists as the Phase 2 prompt. Phase 1 builders get a lighter version when the build-a-thon opens.
Win-Win-Win
Most challenges are zero-sum. ZABAL Gamez is built so every party gets something real out of the weekend - the players, the ZAO ecosystem, and the viewers tuning in.
Mentor or Workshop Lead
Two ways to lend your time to ZABAL Gamez. Mentors claim a champion from July submissions and embed as their teammate during the August Finals. Workshop leads record one bootcamp session on their specialty (Empire Builder, Snaps, agents, tokens, music infra, fractal governance - your call).
The Calendar - Pick a Slot
Two things on this page: the live calendar of workshops (RSVP to attend any session), and a slot-picker for new workshop leads (book your date directly). If neither is wired yet, use the form above or DM @bettercallzaal.
How it works: Lu.ma shows what is scheduled (audience RSVPs). Cal.com lets workshop leads book a slot from open availability. Both feed the same calendar - one place, one view. If you do not have a Lu.ma or Cal.com account, the form above + a Farcaster DM works just as well.
Confirmed Workshop Leads
The Mechanic - July Build, August Finals
Most hackathons make you apply with a paragraph + a vibe. ZABAL Gamez makes the application itself the work - prove yourself by shipping, not by selling. June seasons you with context (recorded workshop sessions for learning the stack). July is when you ship. The most interesting builds advance to the August Finals, each paired with a ZAO mentor as embedded teammate. Finals voting runs through WaveWarZ-Base - market + Respect baseline, not pure 1p1v.
Anyone Can Apply By Building
Vibe-code something - anything - using the ZAO context from June. Ship it publicly with a live URL, an open-source GitHub repo, a 60-second demo, and a cast on /zabal. Use whatever harness fits you (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Aider, Bolt, v0, Lovable). Open to everyone with the chops to ship. Opening a tokenless Empire on Empire Builder as your public build home is encouraged but not required.
Mentors Claim Their Champions
As July builds ship, ZAO mentors watch rolling. Each mentor claims one champion - the builder whose work + style fits their search. First-come-first-served by mentor, so build early + build well. The mentor-champion pairs lock the August Finals roster. The mentor roster is open - we are recruiting mentors now.
The Main 72h Event + Winner Reveal
Same Finals prompt for the whole cohort. 24h to build with your mentor embedded as teammate (Discord/Meet, live with you). 24h to promote. ZAO members with earned Respect vote via governance. Live reveal stream. Finalists who want to launch a token Ascend their Empire through Clanker with an airdrop + vesting to their leaderboard. All selected finalists win - cash + collectible + Respect earned during the event.
Getting selected (the July ship) is the first win. The August Finals are a real competition that crowns the season's best builder. All chosen finalists still get paid + receive the commemorative collectible + earn Respect in the ZAO governance during the event itself.
August Finals - 72-Hour Timeline
Six Finalists. One Pool, Split Evenly.
The 500 USDC pool, sponsored by the ZAO festivals team, is split between the six finalists - two per track, the same share each.
Zaal Picks the Six
Season 1 finalists are picked by Zaal, not settled by a market and not decided by a vote. The board at /leaderboard is one of the inputs he reads - showing up, taking on the weekly challenge, shipping updates - but it is not the decision.
Six finalists get picked, two from each track. They present in the last week of August across three finals nights, and three win, one from each track.
Soulbound. Illiquid. Non-transferable. You cannot sell or trade it. Respect is The ZAO's governance signal earned by participating in the ecosystem. During ZABAL Gamez: up to 1000 Respect points earnable per active participant, with current ZAO holders determining who counts as active (workshop attendance, July submissions, Finals participation, real contribution).
Respect remains The ZAO's governance signal, earned by participating. It does not decide the ZABAL Gamez finals.
Use Any Harness - Show Your Work
We don't care if you use Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Aider, Cline, Bolt, v0, Lovable, or hand-roll your own pipeline. What we care about is that you build in public. Pick at least one primary visibility mode below. Mix and match welcome.
The Bigger Picture
ZABAL Gamez is Season 1. It is designed to be recurring infrastructure for ZAO, not a one-off event. Here is the longer arc.
What's Locked + What's Still TBD
This is Season 1 and it is being designed in the open. Here is exactly where things stand - what is decided, and what is still being figured out. If you are reading this to decide whether to get involved, you should know both.
Locked
- Two-phase model - open build-a-thon, then a curated Finals event
- Open mentor roster - mentors recruited openly, each picks one champion, embedded as teammate
- Tool-agnostic - any vibe-coding harness
- Show your work - 4 visibility modes, pick at least one
- $500 USDC pool - split evenly between the six finalists, two per track
- ZAO governance vote - Respect-earning members, 1-person-1-vote, not token-weighted
- Applications public - by default, on the board at /submissions
- Submission bar - live URL + open-source repo + 60s demo + /zabal cast
- Mentor picks - first-come-first-served, rolling, as Phase 1 builds ship
- Season 1 framing - recurring format, not one-off
Still TBD
- Dates - lock once the cohort + mentor availability are known
- Phase 1 prompt content - Zaal is writing the full ZAO context bundle
- Phase 1 duration - how long the open build-a-thon window runs
- Mentor roster - open and recruiting; per-mentor search styles defined as mentors join
- Finals size - the finalist count locks after July submissions land
- Finisher collectible spec - the commemorative collectible for everyone who ships
- Governance earned during event - exact Respect amount + when
- Start time - balancing US-centric with global participation
- Tokenization layer - opt-in Clanker tokens, design space open, not a Season 1 requirement
Full working spec lives in the ZAO research library (Doc 630 + the canonical-state Doc 701). This page is the shareable summary - the docs are the source of truth + the running log of every decision.
One URL. Any Harness.
The July build prompt is a single machine-readable file at zabalgamez.com/llms.txt. Point your AI tool at it and load the full ZAO ecosystem context in one fetch - what every brand is, the tech stack and rails, the two build paths, the brand guidelines (no emojis, no em dashes, naming glossary), the submission bar, and where the deeper docs live.
Two build paths. Adopt a started ZAO project from the list in the context file, or build from scratch. Either way you tie it to real ZAO rails (Empire Builder, Farcaster mini apps, Hats, Bonfire, EAS, Hypersub, Coinflow) and ship within 24h with your AI tool of choice.
The August Finals get an additional sealed prompt drop at T+0 - identical for every finalist so the build window starts on equal footing. The July base context (this file) stays public the whole way through.
Started ZAO Projects Up for Grabs
You do not have to build from scratch. Two flavors: 01-09 are feature builds inside the ZAO stack (research doc has the spec). 10-16 are starter repos you adopt + own (you write the spec). Pick either - or build from scratch with the context file. All paths count.
Want one of these? DM @bettercallzaal with the number. List is curated; status updates as builders claim slots. Full curated list also at /projects and in llms.txt.
Join by Shipping
Anyone can send a project or work in progress. A clear description, a link, or an email attachment is enough to begin. The ZAO reviews every entry and requests more information only when it is needed.
No account, wallet, Farcaster profile, GitHub repository, or prior registration is required. Contact details stay private; approved project details can be published in the gallery.