Author: FaultProofBen
Gm!
It’s officially WASD’s one month anniversary!
I want to thank all of our collectors, subscribers, Twitter followers, and Discord community members for your support in our early days.
It means everything, and I hope you all have enjoyed reading these pieces over the past month as much as I have writing them.
Here’s to many more great ones!
One of the leading topics of this inaugural month has been MUD.
MUD is a development framework for building EVM applications.
It’s become very popular as an “engine” for building onchain games and autonomous worlds, as it makes this process easier by providing developers with resources, contracts, and code libraries so that they don’t have to build their entire game from scratch.
The proof of its popularity is in the pudding. There’s a litany of games being built in MUD, many of which we’ve covered so far on WASD including:
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OPCraft2
And we’ve only just scratched the surface.
If you dive deep into the Lattice Discord, you’ll see that there are a ton of other upcoming MUD games that have yet to be released.
With WASD, I always have a bias towards spending more time covering games that are playable in some way, shape, or form.
I do this because it’s fun to write about games that I can actually play, but also to show everyone that the idea of building an onchain game is not just pie in the sky, but something that is being done today.
However, whether you are an explorer, enthusiast, builder, or investor, its still important to know what’s coming down the pipeline, so you keep tabs on the state of the ecosystem, identify trends, and find fun new games to play.
With that in mind, let’s explore the frontier of MUD by taking a look at five upcoming games that have caught my attention.
In doing so, we’ll not only see what’s coming next, but also pull some valuable insights about the future of onchain games and crypto as a whole.
Below, I’ll give an overview of each game as well as my early thoughts on it based on what I’ve seen and read. In honor of the upcoming NFL season and my love of sports debate shows, I’ll call this second section “First Takes.”
Now, let’s get to it!
Network States
Overview:
Network States is a PVP strategy game.
The objective of Network States is to grow your “state,” which is represented by tiles on a grid.
To start, each player in the game is assigned one tile, and they can acquire more by deploying soldiers. Players receive a certain amount of soldiers each block based on the amount of tiles they hold, and they can be used to attack other players in the game to conquer their states.
A unique aspect of Network States is its use of AI, as the game utilizes GPT-4 to create the background and history for each state.
The LLM will also update this lore based on the different moves that players make and the events that take place during the game itself.
Network States is being developed by Small Brain Games, the same team behind other onchain titles like Words3, Dark Seas, and Ape’s Gambit. The most recent public playtest for Network States was held in June, however, Small Brain Dev did showcase some gameplay during the MUD Community Call in July.
First Takes:
I’m very excited to try out Network States, especially given how much I enjoyed Words3 and the caliber of the Small Brain team.
As someone who likes strategy and PVP games, it looks like a lot of fun, and I’m excited to figure out the best ways to grow my state and conquer my challengers.
I’m also very interested to see the use of LLMs to create lore, and I think this could go a long way towards enriching the game world while creating fun content.
All in all, Network States is near the top of my list of most anticipated onchain games. I’ll be keeping close tabs to see if there are any updates or playtest announcements.
However, given that Small Brain Games did absolutely no marketing before the mainnet launch of Words3, we’ll probably find out Network States is live the day it launches.
Autochessia
Overview:
Autochessia is a PVP auto-battler.
Auto-battlers are a genre of real-time strategy (RTS) games that became popular following the release of the Auto Chess Mod for the Web2 game Dota 2.
(I know, I just mentioned a game that isn’t fully onchain. I should be ashamed of myself.)
Similar to “manual” chess, auto-battlers involve placing pieces (which can be represented by characters or monsters) onto a grid-like board to fight other players. After each player does this, a battle commences, with the outcome determined randomly.
Autochessia takes this concept and puts it onchain, as players will be able to battle against one another in games of up to eight. Each of the pieces that you play (known as heroes) can be purchased on a marketplace, and is able to be upgraded.
Autochessia uses some novel infrastructure under the hood, such as zero-knowledge (zk) proofs to hide the identities of players waiting in the lobby to join a game.
Notably, the dev team also created supporting infrastructure for the MUD ecosystem in the form of Cement, a code library to help with building games.
First Takes:
I’ve never played an auto-battler, but I’m still very eager to try Autochessia.
I believe the game is technically live on the Lattice Testnet, but I was not able to find other players to try it out with, which is understandable given that the team has done little marketing to-date.
Despite my lack of experience with the genre, I do like strategy games, so I’m curious to see what that aspect of the game will look like. I’m also interested to see whether some sort of cryptoeconomics get implemented into the marketplace.
I think using zk-proofs to hide the identity of players in a game is a great, practical use case for zk-tech, and between that and their creation of Cement, I’m very bullish on this team.
I’ll certainly be keeping close tabs on Autochessia’s progress, and to see what the team keeps cooking up.
Kamigotchi
Game Overview:
Kamigotchi is an onchain, pet-themed RPG.
In Kamigotchi, players roam a 2D-world to collect spirits that the team refers to as “Kami’s.” Each Kami is unique, with different traits and varying health, power, and violence attributes.
Kami’s can also be used to farm tokens in areas known as nodes. However, players become vulnerable while doing so, as their Kami can be “liquidated” and killed by another player in the game.
Kamigotchi is being built in MUD V1 by Asphodel Studios, and is holding a semi-public playtest on the Lattice Testnet.
Asphodel is developing another game, which is an MMO that is also called Asphodel.
Like many other MUD titles, Kamigotchi will have signature-free gameplay through the use of burner wallets, with users only needing to top up their gas. As we’ve discussed in previous pieces, a burner wallet is a wallet that is stored locally in a users browser, and has the right to sign transactions on their behalf.
First Takes:
Although I have not been able to play it yet, Kamigotchi looks like a lot of fun.
I’m really excited to get into the PVP aspects of the game and wreak havoc on other players by messing with and liquidating them. I also really like the aesthetic of the game, and think that Kami’s look adorable.
In addition, based on their use of burner wallets, I would also imagine that the overall game UX is quite smooth, as users will not have to be constantly signing transactions.
Overall, Kamigotchi seems very promising, and I am eagerly waiting for their launch and upcoming mint on Optimism.
Battle For Blockchain
Overview:
Battle for Blockchain (BFB) is an upcoming MMO auto-battler.
BFB is being developed by Minters, the same studio that behind Rhascau, a turn-based, PVP racing game live on Arbitrum Nova.
Although BFB was announced via a Medium post this past Monday, we do know some details.
The game will take place in a medieval world known as Droetopia, and will have several unique features like support for asynchronous gameplay, as well as a rewards system where players can earn tokens and in-game loot.
BFB is being developed using a combination of MUD and Godot, which is an alternative graphics and physics engine to Unity and Unreal that can be used to build 2D or 3D games.
BFB is slated for a 2024 release, with no public details yet on which chain they plan to launch on (or if the will deploy their own roll-app). The Minters team will be dropping notes chronicling the game’s progress, the first of which was released on Tuesday.
First Takes:
Given that it was only recently revealed, there is no available footage or demos to get a closer look at Battle For Blockchain.
However, given the caliber and track record of the Minters team I have very high hopes for the game.
In particular, as a degen, I’m very curious to see what the rewards system will look like.
Minters first game, Rhascau, utilized a Stake-To-Play mechanism, where players could put up ETH in order to participate in a match.
My best guess is that Battle For Blockchain will have a similar system, which, given the power of financial incentives and the desire for crypto users to speculate, I think will help attract interest and players to the game.
Bochamon
Overview:
Bochamon is a monster-tamer RPG.
As it name and iconography suggests, Bochamon is similar to a fully onchain Pokemon, in that players can explore a digital world, collect up to nine different creatures, and battle against others in turn-based, PVP combat.
The winners of each battle will earn BochaCoin, an ERC-20 token on OP Mainnet that can also be bridged to Base via Layer 0.
Bochamon is being developed built using a combination of MUD and Unity, and a prototype was built in just one week during the ETHGlobal Superhack Hackathon earlier this month.
The team has been posting updates in a thread in the Lattice Discord since, and say they are set to release a public demo within a week.
First Takes:
Based on their demo, I think Bochamon looks very cool, and is especially impressive given that it was created in such a short time period during a hackathon.
The success of Pokemon speaks for itself when it comes to fun gameplay, and I think putting it onchain could provide similar fun while providing new affordances.
I also like the idea of introducing a rewards system. Because of this and its PVP nature, I think complimenting (or replacing) token rewards with an aforementioned Stake-To-Play mechanism that allows players to wager ETH in each battle could be a fit and allow for more sustainable financialization.
Overall, I’m very excited to try out Bochamon, and I think it has a lot of promise.
Takeaways and Common Design Trends
As you can see, there are a bunch of cool games being built in the MUD ecosystem.
Looking across all the ones we discussed, there were several common design trends that stood out.
One is that nearly every game discussed above is turn-based.
I don’t think this is that much of a surprise, given that blockchains are well-suited for this type of game due to the technological constraints and issues with latency that they face today.
Another common thread is that all five games had some sort of PVP component.
I really like this focus, as I find PVP games to be more fun than PVE ones due to their competitive and social nature. I think these qualities, along with the ability to create very high stakes games through mechanisms like Stake-To-Play, should help a great deal with attracting new players into the ecosystem.
Finally, we’re also seeing a lot of innovation at the individual game level, with features like burner wallets in Kamigotchi, zk-lobbies in Autochessia, and the use of LLM’s for-in game lore in Network States.
I think this reinforces the idea that onchain games are a leading indicator for broader application design trends within crypto, and also illustrates how they are a great breeding ground for experimentation with all kinds of new technologies.
All in all, I can’t wait to play five of the games I talked about today.
And I’m very bullish on the future of the MUD ecosystem.
Thanks for reading!
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Have a great weekend and see you all on Monday!