I recently took the time to sit down and talk to Davey, the programmer for Subway Rats, about his thoughts on the project. We went over a series of topics about the different challenges and obstacles of creating a successful project so that others can learn how to create their own in the future. 

What was the inspiration behind Subway Rats?

Davey: Well, originally I was hesitant to start an NFT. I didn’t really see the value in PFPs and thought it would be a bad idea, but I eventually came around to it because I liked crypto and believe that decentralization has a lot of benefits for people. 

Back in 2015, I was mining bitcoin on my computer and making a small profit from it. That led me to a lot of exposure to the crypto communities. I was there when Crypto Kitties first started and thought it was interesting how they created utilities with their breeding mechanisms, but I never got into it. 

The idea first began when my friend Midnight, the Subway Rats artist, first started suggesting that we create an NFT together. She lives in New York and had a few ideas about how to incorporate that scene into artwork. That eventually turned into Subway Rats. 

How did you and Midnight meet?

Davey: We met online actually through playing video games on Steam a while back. We’ve been friends for quite a while and play League of Legends together a lot. 

That’s where a lot of our conversations about the project first began; and when we decided to actually do the project we agreed that whatever happens, we’re still going to be friends in the end. 

It was important to separate our friendship from whatever NFTs would create for us because that’s what we valued most. So, we decided to make it a passion project instead of solely focusing on profits.

What challenges did you encounter while creating Subway Rats?

Davey: I think the biggest challenge for us was to ignore the FOMO and trends that come with NFTs. You know, people were constantly telling us to try similar things that other projects were doing, but we didn’t want to make a collection that copied something else. This was our idea and we wanted to stick with it. 

We knew when we started building that the FOMO wave was already behind us. However, our plan has never been to ride a hype train or hop on a new trend. We just wanted to build experiences that people would enjoy and find value in. 

Were there any ideas you had to reject?

Davey: We had to reject a lot of ideas from our community. Not because they were bad, but because some ideas are just too ambitious and technically challenging to pull off correctly. 

It’s easy to make a good idea, but for a programmer, it’s not always a simple thing for us to do. We’d love to implement every new feature that we think sounds good, but programmers have to evaluate if it’s even possible first. 

What’s more difficult when developing an NFT - Solidity or Web2 code?

Davey: Solidity is more challenging because it’s permanent. When you’re developing a website or generating an image, there is some room for mistakes because you can correct them. 

But Solidity can’t be undone and one small error in the code can bring the whole project down, so it takes a lot more time to develop smart contracts because you have to analyze the code more and make sure that everything is correct before you finalize it. 

What advice would you give to someone thinking about making their own NFT?

Davey: Just because something is being done by other projects doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. Don't do something just because "it's what everyone else does." 

Evaluate each decision and pick the paths that you think will best fit your vision. This may lead to ambitious ideas that require innovation in the space and that's where you can start to build value.

Take our process to get into the discord, for example. It wasn't a difficult thing technically to set up, but people found it so refreshing to see something new that, for many, it was the sole reason they decided to dig deeper into our project.