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Author: 0xAkina
Gm onchain gamers, Captain Akina here. 🫡
At WASD, we’ve always been dedicated to spotlighting the amazing projects building in our ecosystem.
We don’t (yet) live in a world dominated by AI agents, so behind each game or piece of infrastructure lies a giga-brain builder (or many of them).
Today, we’ll look at eight who are helping push the onchain gaming space forward and that are worth watching throughout the rest of 2024.
Let’s get into it!
NOTE: This is a subjective list!
These are just my picks, builders are not listed in any particular order, and there are many other great ones in this space that I didn’t get the chance to include in this piece.
Tax Cuts
Tax Cuts is the co-founder of one of the most popular onchain games out there: Primodium.
Primodium is an onchain MMO and factory simulator inspired by Factorio and built using MUD.
You aim to build a galactic empire in the game by accumulating resources and engaging in PVP battles with other players.
Tax Cuts and the team are set to release a new update, v0.1, at some point in the next several weeks and are building towards a mainnet release (the date for this is TBD).
v0.1 and the mainnet release are not only incredibly exciting for Primates (fans of Primodium) but should help bring new players into the space while leading to an explosion of interesting mods and extensions.
Sebastien Guillemot
Sebasiten Guillemot is the co-founder of Paima Studios.
Paima is building a framework for developing onchain games across L2s and dogfooding their own tech with their flagship title Tarochi.
Tarochi is an onchain RPG similar to Pokemon, where you can battle and collect NFT monsters.
The game recently held its mint for Genesis Trainer NFTs (a 10K collection that gives you boosted in-game progression and access to limited edition mints) in preparation for their Season 1 release, which will drop on February 15 and include mobile support.
I anticipate Tarochi will gain a lot of traction in the coming months, and if so, I would not be surprised if this leads to more teams building with Paima Engine.
Small Brain
Small Brain is the man behind Small Brain Games.
A serial onchain gaming dev that aims to have a new mainnet release every six weeks, Small Brain has built numerous titles across several genres, including Words3 (a PVP word-builder), Network States (a PVP strategy game), Drawtech (a financialized drawing game) and others.
These games all share some characteristics, as they are easy to pick up, have unique mechanics, and often give you the opportunity to win (or lose) ETH.
Small Brain has teased that he’s working on a new game – I’m very excited to see what it entails and what else he cooks up in 2024 and beyond.
Amitt Mahajan
Amitt Mahajan was one of Farmville's co-creators and is now the founder of Proof Of Play.
Proof of Play is the studio behind Pirate Nation, an RPG where you can quest, battle, and craft NFT items.
Proof Of Play is also developing infrastructure, including an onchain gaming engine of their own, and raised a $33 million seed round in 2023 led by a16z Crypto and Greenoaks.
The team recently announced the launch of their PvP mode for holders of Founder’s Pirates (The game’s flagship NFT collection), where they’ll be able to stake PGLD and duke it out on the seas with other players.
PVP sounds like a lot of fun, and so I expect Pirate Nation to grow over coming months as this new feature (and others) gets rolled out to the broader public.
Kooshaza & Kooshaba
So far, we’ve covered individual builders, but now we’ll cover a tandem of them.
Kooshaza and Kooshaba are brothers, and the duo building Sky Strife over at Lattice.
Sky Strie is an RTS where you compete in turn-based PVP matches with the aim of capturing players’ bases while protecting yours from attack.
Built using MUD, Sky Strife is in the midst of Season 0.2, it’s third persistent playtest since November 2023 on the Redstone Holesky Testnet.
The game is not only fun but also a demonstration of the capabilities Lattice’s infrastructure.
As such, I’ll be playing and keeping close tabs on what Kooshaza and Kooshaba are building as they gears up for Sky Strife’s upcoming mainnet launch.
Scott Sunarto
Scott Sunarto is the founder and CEO of Argus Labs.
Argus is the team behind World Engine, a sharded rollup SDK that enables developers to create their own horizontally scalable L2 optimized for hosting onchain games.
They also develop games using their stack and have an in-house research lab.
In 2023, Argus secured $10 million in a Series A led by Haun Ventures and launched Dark Frontier, an independent reboot of Dark Forest and the first game built using World Engine.
I’m very interested to see how Scott and Argus fares in the “engine wars” as they compete to attract games with the likes of MUD, Dojo, Paima, and Curio.
Komorebi
Komorebi is the man behind AW House, a multi-pronged organization that hosts hacker houses worldwide, provides grants, and conducts research.
Komorebi also has a studio, Baratie, which RedSwap, the first DEX on Redstone, and re-recently released 1337, a game where you try to land on the number 1337, as a Frame on Farcaster.
Komorebi Hacker House is scheduled for ETH Denver from February 28 to March 4 and should be a great source of alpha for up-and-coming onchain games.
I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of it and what else he builds through Baratie!
Bullish on These Builders
Whether they’re building games, infra, or both, each of the eight builders on this list are stewarding projects that are pushing the onchain gaming ecosystem forward.
They (and the litany of other talented operators in this space) are all worth following so you can keep tabs on what they’re cooking.
When onchain games hit escape velocity, it’s likely that many on this list will be held in the same regard as OG DeFi Founders.
We don’t know which onchain games will become the “Uniswap, Aave, Synthetix, and Maker” of the sector.
But we do know that with builders like these eight at the helm, the future of onchain gaming is bright.
Disclosure: Akina holds Genesis Trainer NFTs.
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