Three months. June is prep - ZAO teachers + Vibe Coding instructors run recorded sessions on tools, context, and the ecosystem. July is the open build-a-thon - anyone with a vibe-coding harness ships a build for the ZAO ecosystem publicly. August is the Finals - 8 builders curated from July, each paired with a ZAO mentor for the main event + winner reveal.
Use whatever harness you want (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Aider, Bolt, v0, Lovable). The 8 ZAO mentors below pick their champions from July ships. All 8 chosen win. You bring the build, we bring the team + distribution.
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.
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, Juke, and Songjam. Watch live or after. The ZABAL/ZAO/WaveWarZ context skill goes live so any agent can load full ecosystem context with one drop.
Anyone with the chops ships a build aligned with ZABAL, ZAO, or WaveWarZ. Live URL + open-source GitHub repo + 60-second demo + cast on /zabalgames. Every submission opens a tokenless Empire on Empire Builder as its public build home (leaderboard + treasury surface from day 1). Mentors watch rolling and claim champions as builds drop - first-come-first-served per mentor.
The 8 mentor-champion pairs lock. Same Finals prompt for all 8. 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 collaboration among the 8. All chosen finalists get paid + the participation collectible + earn Respect in ZAO governance during the event.
ZABAL Games 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 onchain credential.
8 new builders who understand ZAO from the inside. 8+ real artifacts shipped for the ecosystem. A recurring format (this is Season 1) that compounds. The competition is in getting selected through Phase 1 - once you are a Finalist, the Finals are a collaboration, and all 8 win.
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.
ZABAL Games is run by ZAO - music infrastructure for independent artists using decentralized 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.
Most challenges are zero-sum. ZABAL Games is built so every party gets something real out of the weekend - the players, the ZAO ecosystem, and the viewers tuning in.
Two ways to lend your time to ZABAL Games. Mentors claim a champion from July submissions and embed as their teammate during the August Finals. Workshop speakers drop into June bootcamp with a recorded session on their specialty (Empire Builder, Snaps, agents, tokens, music infra, fractal governance - your call).
Most hackathons make you apply with a paragraph + a vibe. ZABAL Games makes the application itself the work - prove yourself by shipping, not by selling. June seasons you with context; July is when you ship; the 8 most interesting builds advance to the August Finals, paired with a ZAO mentor as embedded teammate.
Vibe-code something - anything - using the ZAO context skill from June. Ship it publicly with a live URL, an open-source GitHub repo, a 60-second demo, and a cast on /zabalgames. Use whatever harness fits you (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Aider, Bolt, v0, Lovable). Open to everyone with the chops to ship. Every submission opens a tokenless Empire on Empire Builder as its public build home.
As July builds ship, the 8 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. 8 mentor-player pairs lock the August Finals roster.
Same Finals prompt for all 8. 24h to build with your mentor embedded as teammate (Discord/Meet, live with you). 24h to promote. ZAO members with earned Respect vote onchain. Live reveal stream. Finalists who want to launch a token Ascend their Empire through Clanker with an airdrop + vesting to their leaderboard. All 8 selected win - cash + collectible + Respect earned during the event.
The competition is the July ship (getting selected). The August Finals are a collaboration among the 8. All chosen finalists get paid + receive the participation collectible + earn Respect in the ZAO governance during the event itself.
The competition is in getting selected (Phase 1). Once you're in the Finals, you're already a winner - the cohort collaborates, not competes. The $500 USDC pool is tiered to recognize standout work, but every finalist walks home paid + with the participation collectible + Respect earned during the event. The DAO vote orders the recognition, doesn't pick winners-vs-losers.
ZAO members who have earned Respect by contributing through fractals are the judging body. Not whoever holds the most tokens. Not a closed panel. The community that's been showing up + earning peer-validated reputation gets to pick which builds serve the ecosystem best.
Eligible voters = ZAO members with Respect above a threshold. Respect is ZAO's soulbound peer-validated reputation - it's earned in weekly fractals over time. So the voter set naturally skews toward long-tenure contributors without needing a separate tenure rule. Voter eligibility is snapshotted at T+0 so the set is locked before the Games start. 1-person-1-vote mechanism for v0. Placement by total votes. Reveal stream at T+72h announces placements + distributes USDC + mints collectibles live onchain.
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.
ZABAL Games v0 is Season 1. It is designed to be recurring infrastructure for ZAO, not a one-off event. Here is the longer arc.
This is v0 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.
Full working spec lives in the ZAO research library (Doc 630). This page is the shareable summary - the doc is the source of truth + the running log of every decision.
The exact prompt - including the build options you'll pick from - drops to all 8 selected players simultaneously at T+0 (date locks when cohort is chosen). Everything before that stays sealed so every player starts on the same footing.
What we can tell you now: it will be 3-5 idea options + a wildcard slot. Every option ties to existing ZAO ecosystem rails (Empire Builder, Farcaster mini apps, Hats, Bonfire, EAS, Hypersub, Coinflow). All options are achievable in 24h with a vibe-coding harness. You don't need to be a senior engineer.
Phase 1 is open to anyone. Build something with the ZAO context prompt (released when applications open) using your vibe-coding harness of choice. Ship publicly. The 8 ZAO mentors above watch rolling - each claims one champion to bring to the Finals. Build early + build well.
Note: applications are public by default. Your submission is a Farcaster cast - shareable, visible, indexable. If you'd prefer to apply privately, this isn't the right Games for you.
Don't want to start from a blank repo? These are seeded starting points - fork one, make it yours, ship it as your Phase 1 build. Building on a starter is just as valid as building from scratch. Note which one you extended on your submission.
Every Phase 1 build, public. This is what the 8 ZAO mentors review to claim their champions. Ship early, ship well - the board is live.