Talk in detail about the full-chain game and track masterpiece Dark Forest (Dark Forest)

Author: Fred Li, Source: Author Twitter @Dacongfred

Recently, I have developed a strong interest in full-chain games, especially after watching the movie “All or Nothing”, and I have new ideas about the similarity between games and fraud. Representative works: Dark Forest (Dark Forest).

What exactly is a full chain game? How to solve information opaque fraud? How is it different from other projects? Today I will talk to you about the following 4 aspects:

**1. What is the full chain game? **

Before we talk about the full-chain game, let’s briefly understand what aspects the game involves, including game assets, game logic, game state, game data storage, etc. In common Internet web2 games, such as King of Glory, LOL, Yuanshen, etc., all game-related everything is stored in the company’s server, and everything from assets to gameplay settings is owned by the centralized company.

In blockchain games, people began to think about whether they could provide a better gameplay/economic cycle for the game through chaining, so Axie, Stepn, etc., which were very popular before, were born. The game creates an open and liquid economic system. On the one hand, game assets have financial attributes, and on the other hand, player assets are unique and cannot be tampered with.

Although the assets are on the chain, the core logic such as gameplay is still off the chain, so there will still be disadvantages of centralization. Just like in the recently watched “All or Nothing”, especially for card games such as Depp and Zhajinhua, the opacity of the game process and game status will cause countless players to become wronged. One of the reasons why many web2 game games with money are widely criticized.

Since the assets can be on-chain, can other game logic, game data storage, etc. be all on-chain? So the full-chain game was born; in addition to the assets on the chain, everything related to the game is also stored on the chain, thus ensuring the complete decentralization and on-chain of the game.

2. The essential differences and advantages of full-chain games and other web3 Gaming

So what are the benefits of storing all game rules, game states and data storage on the chain for full-chain games? In addition to the transparent and credible game rules and state just mentioned, there is another very big advantage that lies in the free and open composability:

The full-chain game endows it with license-free interoperability. Players can add modules and make new plug-ins to the full-chain game, thus giving birth to prosperous second or even third creations. In this ecology, players spontaneously combine, build and try various things and gameplays, thus forming an organic community, thus realizing the paradigm shift from PGC to UGC.

3. Representatives of full-chain games In order for everyone to better understand full-chain games, here is an introduction to Dark Forest, a representative full-chain game. It was developed by MIT graduate Brian Gu under the pseudonym Gubsheep, inspired by Liu Cixin’s novel “Dark Forest”. Other members include Alan, Ivan, and Moe, and the project is currently unfunded. However, Argus Labs, its team’s new project, recently raised $10 million.

Dark Forest is also one of the earliest incomplete information games built on a decentralized system. As a space conquest strategy game, players start a journey on their own planet to explore the infinite universe, discover and occupy other planets and resources to Grow your own empire.

The three biggest highlights of Dark Forest: Two of them were just mentioned when introducing the full-chain game. First, the game logic, data, and state are all on-chain, and centralized individuals cannot have a single control over their behavior results;

The second is a free and open high-combination game ecology: the open-source full-chain game model gives Dark Forest permissionless interoperability. It is essentially an Ethereum smart contract, and any address can interact with it, thus giving birth to a prosperous second Creation of ecology (plug-in), resulting in more ecological communities.

For example: Project Sophon wrote the Dark Forest local library to allow users to start a round of games off-chain or on-chain; Ukrainian game organization Orden_GG built a trading market for artifacts and added a liquidity pool; Chinese DAO MarrowDAO|GuildW@ marrowdao has developed many plug-ins including the artifact trading market and GPU drawing tools, etc. Its UGC ecology is very interesting.

In addition, one of the great highlights of Dark Forest is the use of zk-SNARKS technology for information hiding, because for strategy games, if all information is transparent, the opponent will know their position, and strategic confrontation cannot be implemented under full transparency. , and Dark Forest uses zk technology to make most of the universe and opponents hidden when players enter the game for the first time.

They only become visible when the player explores hidden areas. Every time a player moves, a proof is sent to the blockchain that the move was valid, without revealing their coordinates in the universe.

In general, Dark Forest redefines the possibility of web3 games. Many people praised “Dark Forest” as a perfect case of intersection between games and cryptography, and also inspired many full-chain game projects later. (However, I did not find the official number of players announced by Dark Forest, only the previously reported 10,000+ historical cumulative players)

**4. Limitations and considerations of full-chain games It sounds like full-chain games have so many benefits, but the current proportion of full-chain games in Gamefi or Web3 Gaming games is not as high as expected. What is this? ** The reason is also based on the characteristics of the full-chain game:

1. Low immediacy limits game categories

• From the current types of full-chain games, it can be seen that they are basically SLG-type strategy games, which do not have high requirements for real-time performance of games, while single-player RPG, AVG, ACT, and moba games are more demanding in real-time The performance requirements are very high. If the data is stored on the chain, the current blockchain performance is still difficult to support timeliness. This type of game is more suitable for asset chaining.

2. The high cost of on-chain interaction limits user participation

• All transactions on the chain need to pay gas fee. If there is no reasonable economic model, it will become a burden for players to play games.

In addition, when studying the full-chain game, some extended thinking has also occurred, and everyone is welcome to discuss it together.

3. Are there any special features in the economic model of full-chain games compared to games with assets on the chain? It remains to be seen.

4. In the paradigm of transitioning from PGC to UGC led by full-chain games, how users can carry out secondary creation at low cost is the key. Therefore, infrastructure such as plug-ins/tools for game development is also crucial. There may be new opportunities here?