On-Chain Games. The Past, Present & Future - Issue #4
This the fourth in a series of posts that had been originally published on Revue.co With Revue shutting down, the Bored Ape Games on Chain blog/newsletter is moving here and will be mirrored at thechaingamer.eth on Mirror.
This article was originally published on Feb 3, 2022
Welcome to my newsletter, Bored Ape Games on Chain.
I’m going to be focusing on the intersection of blockchain and gaming. I believe we’re going to see tremendous growth in this area over the coming years and I hope to document some of that here and share it with you, the community.
In this issue, we’ll talk about on-chain games. What are they? Why do they exist? And what kind of future do they have? Let’s dive in!
The Horde
On the 27th of September 2021, or a long long time ago in NFT time, Wrangler posted the first announcement in the EtherOrcs Discord.
The Beginning
@everyone ZUG ZUG fellow Orcs, we have some news to drop your way.
First, we wanted to update you on the project itself.
Our developer has a brain bigger than any legendary wizard around and was able to pull off an amazing feat:
EtherOrcs will be the very first NFT RPG that is 100% on chain!
That’s right, many didn’t think it could be done, but our developer pulled it off.
In addition, the project remains exactly as promised:
Free to Mint.
0% Royalties.
100% on-chain.
That’s not all, if you’ve followed the project closely you know we have many bright minds working together to bring you multiple firsts within the NFT space.
-Training/ leveling pools.
-Pillaging/ equipment upgrade pools.
-Upgradeable metadata
-Farming pools for earning our native utility token $ZUG!
The game theory involved in this project will have multiple layers of game play to start, with more in the works for the down the line. We want the utility of $ZUG to remain in high demand long after every Genesis Orc spawns. We’ll be sharing info soon to that regard that will blow every Orc’s mind.
This announcement marked the beginnings of a genre that would explode in popularity in the months to come. The very first on-chain RPG game was about to be born.
What is an on-chain game?
Simply put, on-chain games are a genre of blockchain games where all the actions of the player(s) are recorded on the blockchain.
Taking an RPG example, my character levels up and I get 3 skill points to allocate across STR, DEX, INT. I would make my selection, choosing where to spend my skill points & once ready, I would interact with the blockchain this imaginary RPG is deployed on, and via a smart contract I would record the new stats of my character. These new stats would now be stored “on chain”.
Now as some (most?) of the folks reading this will likely know, these interactions with the blockchain, especially Ethereum, the most popular one, can get quite costly. So practically speaking, it severally limits the level of interactivity that you can get from an on-chain game.
On the scalability side there are now Layer-2 (L2) networks that are orders of magnitude cheaper than Ethereum Mainnet, so that helps significantly!
Now let’s talk about some popular on-chain games and get insights from the teams behind these projects!
Ether Orcs
The Beginning
The EtherOrcs team met in the Anonymice discord, another on-chain project that gamified the minting experience. Liking what they saw, the team started thinking ways they could combine RPG elements with a gamified minting experience.
Each whitelisted discord member was allowed to mint 2 EtherOrcs from a mint-able supply of 1500, after that, the only way to mint the rest of the Orcs was by farming and spending $ZUG, the token.
Ether Orcs - An Introduction
The initial supply for Orcs was originally supposed to be 5000 Orcs, but with a community vote, it was decided that the supply would be increased by 50, to 5050. These 50 Orcs would be distributed amongst the devs.
Minting went live on 10.11.21, sold out the same day. By 10.16, 98% Orcs were staked, and all that $ZUG being earned had been used to mint 2500+ more Orcs. A total of 4050+ minted!
By 10.20.21 all 5050 Orcs were minted.
The value of the Genesis Orcs, per the game’s design is in the fact that they are the only ones who can be sent to farm $ZUG tokens which are used for raiding, pillaging, and will have additional utility as the game progresses.
An Interview with Wrangler
I reached out to the EtherOrcs team with some questions about the project. How they got started. What their influences were, etc. Wrangler, from the EtherOrcs team, was kind enough to go through the questions and send me his answers which I’ve included here!
Ready to raid. !ZUG !ZUG
Q: I know Anonymice was part of the motivation, but where the idea of the RPG come from? Did you guys have a good idea of where/how to get started?
We knew we wanted game theory and RPG elements so that was the starting point. I think we had a pretty strong plan from day one on how we wanted the entire system to work and the different phases, but along the way we’ve definitely made pivots based on what we learned, what the community wanted, and what was most fun for our users.
Q: What are your influences?
We all played a lot of older MMOs (like Ultima Online, Runescape, etc. etc.) so we definitely have a lot of those 90s PC game references. We all have pretty eclectic taste though in games, media, and projects…
Q: Thoughts on the genre in general? Do you think it’s a fad or here to stay? How do you see it evolving?
Definitely not a fad. I think what’s really interesting about on-chain games is that they are very social. When we started EtherOrcs, we knew we wanted to be on-chain and we knew that constraint meant there would be a very particular set of constraints on what you can do. That set of constraints makes gameplay much more like a board game than a typical game. I think that’s what’s quite interesting about the genre… it’s a fundamentally different experience – we aren’t trying to make a traditional AAA video game.
Q: Does the game become more interactive over time, or does it stay more of a management RPG?
Definitely more interactive. We think a sustainable model has to have both management and interactive elements. We’re really excited about the potential that more interactivity has for engaging new players as well while still offering a lot of great additional utility, value and experiences for existing players.
Q: Wolf Game seems to be the most popular/well known “on-chain” game. Have you guys tried it out? Why do you think that is the case?
I don’t think any of us played in the early stages although we certainly took some notes from what they did. We have a good relationship with Shepherd who was inspired by Orcs to create their game and is using some of our tech in the project as well. I think Wolf Game really captured lightning in a bottle with adding “risk” to the equation in the game theory which really no one had done previously – everyone being a bit afraid of taking anything from users before then. Fundamentally, it’s the social engagement part that makes it so fun – I think the idea is very intuitive as well so easy for people to engage with.
Infographic from the EtherOrcs Game Guide
In the current phase of the game, the team has introduced Allies. These characters have different utility. The first to be released were Shamans and they are minted using $BONESHARDS, which you get as rewards for conducting raids, which cost $ZUG. Shamans have been completely minted and now the second EtherOrcs Allies, Ogres have been made available. The minting mechanism remains the same. Gain $BONESHARDS from raids and mint Ogres.
Derivatives
At the time of this writing, it has been over 100 days since the EtherOrcs launched. They’re recognized, rightfully so, as the OGs of the on-chain RPG genre and have inspired a bunch of other projects! Wolf Game, Wizards & Dragons, Defenders of DogeWood, Space Game, etc.
All these games have experienced their fair share of problems. Wolf Game, the most popular on-chain RPG in terms of volume traded as well as floor price increases, had to be paused because of smart contract issues pretty early on.
Some Wolf Game derivatives did more copying and less original work than others.
I heard of Wolf Game through Beanie’s Twitter (an NFT influencer who has recently been exposed in a 70 tweet thread for fraudulent activities) but decided to sit that out, primarily because the floor ran up quite aggressively.
It got me interested in the genre, and I started looking into on-chain games in more detail. That’s what prompted all the research into Ether Orcs, and when Wizard & Dragons’ twitter came out of thin air with “!guard”, I decided I wanted to try out an on-chain RPG for myself.
The WnD team paid out a bunch of money in bug bounties before launching. Some of the bug fixes addresses Wolf Game exploits that led to Wolf Game being paused in the first place. I really liked the fact that this team was willing to pay out approximately 200K USD before even starting the mint.
Wizards & Dragons... waiting for L2 launch
WnD started out pretty strong. I minted two wizards because I was able to get whitelisted. The wizards started farming $GP tokens, which I sold for $ETH and bought another wizard on secondary… Then it all crashed.
There was a bug in the training contract. A number of players tried staking and though it looked like the transactions went through, the staking never happened. Soon after, there was a quest that allowed players to claim $GP tokens which they proceeded to sell off. People were looking to cut their losses rather than wait and see how the development team would respond. Ever since that time, WnD has effectively been paused.
A special thanks to Dale Denton (@boomennial) for giving me the details of what exactly went wrong that caused the WnD NFTs & $GP token to crash.
The team has since been working on their L2 migration, creating a gamified bridge from ETH mainnet to Polygon which will be powered by $GP. This was done with the help of the Ether Orcs team who have been amazing at helping any and all on-chain RPG projects with development issues.
It remains to be seen if WnD Reborn (the re-launch) will be able to regain momentum. The team has seemingly done the right things, but their initial lack of communication and a very long pause in the game make it an uphill battle.
On-chain games coming soon
When WnD entered their long pause, I continued to search for other on-chain games that might have potential, and that were trying to add to what already existed in the market.
I found a few upcoming games and talked to the dev teams of a couple of those projects about their motivations, plans for their games, and their thoughts on the future of the on-chain genre.
The games I discovered were:
The Citadel, an EVE Online inspired on-chain game
2112.run, a CyberPunk style game
Hunger Brainz, a game of humans vs. zombies
Space Game, a sci-fi RPG game
Hunger Brainz is currently going through similar pains as other on-chain projects. Their initial launch didn’t go smoothly which led them to refund a lot of their minters and they are now working on bringing the game online on L2. The last announcement in their discord was informing the community that the team was regrouping and trying to come up with a plan to make things right.
The other three projects are yet to launch. Out of these 4 games, I spoke to The Citadel team & the 2112.run founders.
The Citadel
I reached out to The Citadel team, and they kindly agreed to answer questions that I had about the project. What follows are the questions and answers. The interview was conducted in written form, and the team’s answers have been included without any edits.
The Citadel. Coming online. Soon.
Q: How did the team get together? Background on the team. Whatever you want to share.
We’ve all known each other for at least 10 years at this point. Some of us met in high school, some of us met in college, and some of us met online, but we’ve all grown to become friends in real life. Career-wise, we’ve each specialized heavily in development, business management, or marketing.
Basically, we’re big nerds.
Q: What was the motivation for doing another on-chain RPG?
As dedicated EVE players, it has been our dream to make a space game with a proper economy for a long time. When NFTs came about as a means of letting players trade freely, we knew it was time to see the vision through. Wolf Game’s success as an experiment with a single staking pool and fixed risk only made us more confident that we were headed in the right direction.
Beyond offering players more interesting risk and reward trade-offs than are currently common, we believe that we have the technical expertise to avoid the problems that have plagued other projects.
Q: What are your influences in terms of games? Could be on-chain or traditional games.
We’ve been huge gamers for years, especially space games. Our economic inspiration comes mainly from EVE Online and Star Citizen. Our resource management and top-down real-time strategy inspiration stem from games like Starcraft, Factorio, Civilization, and many others. In terms of gameplay and art style, we’re going for vibes similar to Faster Than Light and Highfleet.
For on-chain games, we’re huge fans of EtherOrcs. We have the utmost respect for the teams, and they serve as a model for our own. Following their example, our goal is to consistently underpromise and overdeliver, keeping the community close at heart. !Zug
EVE Online Web 3 Edition?
Q: Thoughts on the genre in general? Do you think it’s a fad? Is it here to stay? How do you see it evolving?
We think blockchain games will soon take the industry by storm. Since the inception of online gaming, players have been fighting each other to bolster their characters’ stats, top leaderboards, and acquire better items. However, despite their efforts and time spent earning these items, they had no real ownership rights, and no way of trading them.
This led to the rise of parallel black markets (RMT), which crippled many of those games’ economies for a period of time. Representing game items as crypto seems like an ideal way of solving this problem. By conforming to tradable standards, each item has real ownership and tradability baked in.
Beyond blockchain-based items, we think games that occur fully on-chain are an interesting experiment. So far, we’ve seen that they can allow for interesting pairings of game strategy with basic DeFi. We thoroughly believe that this specific sub-genre can go a lot further, and that it may be possible to represent more and more interesting mechanics this way, eventually culminating in something closer to the backend of a standard PC game. We hope to push the state of the art for on-chain games forward with our initial release, and to eventually push the boundary between on-chain games and traditional games.
Q: Does the game become more interactive over time, or does it stay more of a management RPG?
Yes, but we’re hoping to get the best of both worlds. Our current path forward keeps the strategic element of managing your fleet of ships around each ship’s limitations. However, during active gameplay, players will be engaged on a much more regular basis in managing the subsystems within each ship. As we’re envisioning it, certain ships will lend themselves better to passive play styles, and others will require more active play.
My thoughts
I really like the way The Citadel team has gone about building their game. A lot of launches have been rushed and then been plagued by pause issues. At the same time, “slowing down” is not a term known to many in the NFT space. I would actually say it is one of the biggest weaknesses we have as a community. Few understand what it takes to build products, especially games. It takes a lot of time, money, and commitment. Things do not get built overnight and trying to rush through, doesn’t really pay off.
The Citadel team shared their soft whitepaper in early December.
The team followed up on the 13th, following the Noundles project founders bailing on their community, talking about steps they were taking to ensure the community would be in control of the project sooner rather than later.
Decentralization of The Citadel
On the 5th of January the team released the final version of the Whitepaper on their website. It was straight forward, nicely formatted, easy to understand. By our (the NFT community’s) current standards, this was more than good enough to launch :), instead they continued to work on development, and on the 19th released a more detailed Yellowpaper that covers the more technical workings of the game’s economy.
The Citadel team is scheduled to freeze code check-ins today and have the Solidity Finance auditing team begin contract audit that is scheduled to take a couple of weeks. They also contributed $35,000 out of pocket since this is all being done before the game’s launch.
The team is expecting to launch in late/end February, although the exact date hasn’t been announced yet. They also plan to dox themselves prior to the launch, another move that gives me confidence!
#BUIDLING Underway
Obviously, it is impossible to predict how the project will go once it launches, but in my opinion, after hanging out in the discord and talking to Fleet Commander, I am *very* excited for The Citadel. It is quite likely that this project ends up becoming a Web3 version of EVE online and if they succeed at this, it will be a huge leap forward for the entire NFT gaming ecosystem!
2112.run
2112.run was the only one of these games that isn’t using pixel art. That’s something that made me curious, and well their website is just absolutely nuts!
2112.run - Worlding Building in Web 3
I hopped on a video call with Brulo (Bruno) & Winnd (Mauro), they’re both doxxed by the way, to learn more about 2112.run.
The Board Game was a huge inspiration to Bruno & Mauro
Bruno & Mauro told me how they’re huge fans of the CyberPunk genre as well as Netrunner. For those who don’t know, Net Runner is an absolutely legendary board game, where one player, the Runner makes “runs” against a corporation to breach its defenses.
You can take a look at their website and instantly get a feel for how much work they’ve put into the world building aspect. The site itself is top notch. As I mentioned earlier, this is the only on-chain game that I’m currently aware of that deviated from the pixel art style and went in a completely different direction. There are very strong CyberPunk vibes here! I love it!
Schäfer & Schäfer Laboratories
I think one of the reasons I enjoyed our conversation so much was because I’m a huge fan of world building and I loved the comprehensive approach that Bruno & Mauro are taking. They envision the 2112.run universe to have comics, webisodes, games, community written stories, etc. and each of these things tie in to and build out the world of 2112.run. Talk about ambitious :)
In that respect, it is inaccurate to call 2112.run an on-chain RPG. By their own admission, Bruno & Mauro want it to be an entire world which evolves with its community. They don’t want to script the story, instead build it out as they go. Think, choose your own adventure, but the book is written when you make your choice.
The Cryptorunners
Their plan is to start by releasing bundles of 3 rootpasses. There’s a Cryptorunner rootpass, a Console Item rootpass, and a Land rootpass.
The Cryptorunner rootpass is burnable for a Cryptorunner PFP which will grant you access to the game.
The Console Item rootpass is burnable for a Console Item NFT that will enable new game mechanics.
The Land item rootpass is burnable for a Land NFT which represents the place you will be hacking from and will also enable the most advanced mechanics.
Not your typical stake to earn tokens project. As Bruno said it is more of an “immersive transmedia project!”. Mauro added to this and described a system that he’s been working on which he dubbed the “Decentralized Narrative System”. Essentially, it serves a mechanism to allow the community to build the 2112.run universe by submitting stories etc. and having other community members validate the story. Everything from spell-checking to making sure it fits into the narrative so far and there are no inconsistencies with how the world has been built out thus far.
Both Bruno & Mauro emphasized how they want to create a safe community enriched with stories and games which can serve as an entry point into NFTs and crypto for a lot of board games & RPG fans.
2112.run - Alleyway Punks
From my conversations with them, and from what I’ve observed in their discord and on their website, they’re off to a fantastic start. I can’t wait to see where the world of 2112.run goes!
Closing Remarks
I just realized it has been almost a month since I sent out the last newsletter!
Writing this one was quite challenging because no matter how many projects I tried to keep track of, there were always more on the horizon! I’ve learnt of two along the way! Raid.party and Ethernal Elves are just a couple of examples.
It is hard to stay up to date in NFT land, but we try! My goal with this newsletter was to provide an introduction to on-chain games and talk about a few projects that I think are going in interesting directions.
I remain very curious about the evolution of on-chain games. My guess is, we are going to see very few survive in this particular genre and grow. Others will evolve from on-chain to more immersive blockchain gaming experiences, and as with all games, most will be gone… but not forgotten because they will live on in the blocks of the world computer.
Official Resources:
EtherOrcs is a collection of 5050 Orcs ready to pillage the blockchain. With no IPFS or API, these Orcs are the very first role-playing game that takes place 100% on-chain.
Ethereum blockchain game EtherOrcs companion website with live orcs/allies explorer, gear rarities, and useful analytics.
Join the EtherOrcs Discord Server!
EtherOrcs - The First NFT RPG with Gamified Rarity that Lives 100% on the Blockchain. | 33,167 members
The Citadel is a strategy game set in space and implemented on the Ethereum blockchain, created by a team of experienced artists, developers, and space fans.
Yellowpaper | The Citadel Game
The Citadel is a strategy game set in space and implemented on the Ethereum blockchain, created by a team of experienced artists, developers, and space fans.
Join the The Citadel Discord Server!
// [DOCKING REQUEST ACCEPTED] // | 10,520 members
Wizards And Dragons Game
Join the Wizards & Dragons Game - WnD Discord Server!
Check out the Wizards & Dragons Game - WnD community on Discord - hang out with 26,869 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
2112.run is a multidisciplinary transmedia roleplaying project featuring a decentralized narrative gaming experience. Be part of an emerging cyberpunk universe that’s affected by your decisions.
Join the 2112.run Discord Server!
Check out the 2112.run community on Discord - hang out with 20,607 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
On a quaint farm in the metaverse, a flock of Sheep congregate and produce a healthy supply of $WOOL. They huddle together in a Barn and are sheared regularly by their owners to farm the $WOOL. With more $WOOL, the farmers can purchase more Sheep! But outside lurk dangers the Sheep are terrified of… The Wolves.
An On-Chain RPG with the metadata and images are generated and stored 100% on-chain. No IPFS. NO API. Just the Ethereum blockchain.
Space Game - 100% Onchain. NFT Game.
Space Game - 100% Onchain. L2-L1 Hybrid. P2E NFT Game.
Our original idea was to create an Idle hero clicker game that utilizes staking NFTs. Sadly, we ultimately realized that a clicker game wouldn’t be possible on Ethereum, and would almost definitely be subject to abuse. Not wanting to abandon the idea as a whole, we opted to create a game that relied on common idle-game mechanics and gameplay loops to make RaidParty.
The Unknown fled with our weapons and other valuables. This sacrificial act displayed by the Elders means there is likely much more at risk and the fate of the Ethernal Elves lean upon the Sentinels.
In this thread we will disclose the identity of one of the (currently) most (in)famous NFT influencers. But before we do that, we first explain our (philosophical) justifications and provide some important disclaimers.
DISCLAIMER
I own one EtherOrc that I bought on secondary.
I own a BUNCH of WnD NFTs and $GP tokens.
26 Gen 0 Wizards
5 Gen 0 Dragons
2 Magic Runes, 2 Air Runes, 1 Water Rune, 1 Earth Rune
10 Dragon Whips
Approximately 2 million $GP