I’ve been into onchain game space for 2 - 3years. And I was excited when I saw Dark Forest, MUD, Moving Castle, and whatever at the time. But it seems that the onchain game pace is still struggling to realize composability in different games. I would be happy to give another perspective on the composability.

I like an analogy. My idea is very simple.

Idea

Learn from DeFi

Short description of the concept

• Provide the components/functions that are integrated into an on-chain game as an independent service.

• Integrate the independent services to make games and other applications (that don’t need to be games).

For example

• A service that provides playable avatars to game players.

• A service that behaves as a login reward function.

• A virtual vegetable firm service that provides vegetables to players. Players feed seeds to firm vegetables with an interval.

• A virtual restaurant that provides dishes with vegetables.

• A virtual grocery store that allows firms to sell their vegetables to players.

• A virtual car company that designs cars for games.

We’ll create such components and functions as an independent service, and then integrate them into games or other applications to build worlds. That doesn’t mean we need to create games on Autonomous World but create smaller components that are usable for games.

Previous my team tackled building a protocol that may be a good sample to represent this concept in the past. Here is the article. https://mirror.xyz/starknet-metamaterial.eth/G8TLixABSyEL_tZ40iS4hAsOy_fxHdDA-Bw6x1aYCbs

What happens?

For builders

Luxury brands, car companies, gachas, vegetable farms, grocery stores, and restaurants were created on the on-chain. If you are a game builder, you can create a car racing game using clothes provided by luxury brands. There are some technical hurdles, but you would be allowed to convert/adjust the cars' performance and the avatars' look without permission in that game to make the game enjoyable. (Ofc, the adjustment should be done offchain/client side)

This is an analogy of the basic concept of blockchain, as seen in the cases of Uniswap and Liquity. They allow multiple frontends that stand on their smart contract. That means the upper layer can have different use cases and adjusted UI/UX for users. I think the games are allowed to adjust the looks and performances of the on-chain stuff to have flexibility.

Or there could be a service that provides a simple wardrobe application where users are free to customize the clothes they own and show them off to their friends. It’s not a game, but it sounds fun :).

You could start a restaurant serving food prepared with vegetables from vegetable farmers.

Vegetable farmers could sell their produce to restaurants or grocery stores.

For players

Players will acquire clothes and vehicles by interacting with each component. They sometimes go to stores to buy clothes and sometimes gather materials to craft vehicles. The way of getting such stuff can be diversified. Then, the player goes to a car race game and plays it.

Another player may grow vegetables in the firm and take them to the restaurant to obtain dishes. If a car race game has a function that accepts the dishes to improve the vehicle's performance, the player would be able to mark a good record with the dishes.

The concept doesn’t mean creating only games but creating a world. One player might find fun in growing and selling vegetables. The other might find fun in customizing avatars or competing in car races. Modular on-chain games allow players and game builders to have different motivations.

The origin of the concept

A tweet of 4156

Creating a virtual car company sounds really interesting.

So far, I can say that most of the on-chain games are monolithic models. Therefore, the components (items, avatars, craft function, login reward, quests, etc) in the game were created as bespoke functions that haven’t given us interoperability, network effects, or positive feedback in different games. I’m not trying to say that is bad; such monolithic games can provide a high-quality gaming experience to the players.

However, on the other hand, modular games (or non-game applications) should be allowed to exist in Autonomous World as a contrasting idea. That is, functionally minimized components exist independently in Autonomous World, and these are integrated into games (or non-game applications).

Looking at the scene of Blockchain and DeFi space, I can say they exist as a modular ecosystem. Each service is functionally specified and independent to be integrated into different services. Uniswap doesn’t provide lending, option or other but provides a well-tuned DEX function. And other services integrate Uniswap into option, lending, or other products.

Can we adopt the same concept for the Autonomous World?

Takeaways from Loot

Loot is an NFT collection with only strings representing loot in A game.

When dom disclosed the collection to the world, the game didn’t exist. But the community built lots of games and applications that related to Loot after the minting with fever. My takeaway was that we don’t need to have games first; components should be created first in the crypto space. Ofc, I know the concept is completely different from the conventional game creation. But I also know that events in the crypto space are often unbelievable and against real life.

Why now?

We have game engines like Autonomous World and Dojo, but we don’t have game assets, components, or functions as public goods. Unity and Unreal Engine have very rich plugins and assets. Attention to the on-chain game space is getting high these days, but the joining barrier still remains.

Key advantages

• We can escape from the difficulty of creating games with restricted blockchain rules.

  • You don’t need to create all the game components. Things you need to create should be minimized.

• Non-game builders will be able to jump in.

  • If you have experience in DEX development, why not create a vegetable exchange service in Autonomous World?

• We can have a network effect.

• High forkability

• Players who have different motivations will jump in

What’s the goal?

When I explain this concept to others, many ask me, “What’s the goal of this concept?”

Wait. This concept is similar to DeFi or the Blockchain space, so we can learn from them for the answer. It is like answering the question, what is the goal of DeFi?

I can say that the concept will extend the on-chain game space to one of metaverse. Seeing the world where we live, I realize that the real world consists of modular components such as restaurants, grocery shops, barbers, vending machines, etc.… . Same thing. If we built many components in on-chain verse, they would connect and behave like the real world or a more magical world.

The concept is not a service but a principle for builders. The entire ecosystem will be a DAO of a game studio. Be optimistic for the future and we are standing at the point of creating a whole new dApps that is like Uniswap in DeFi. Just build it.

The first step

Are you interested in creating an on-chain luxury brand, Dermes?

If yes, contact me. I want to discuss this concept more from a technical perspective. I’m about to build Dermes for the first step of the concept.

Dermes will provide high-end avatar outlooks to gamers. The designs should be pixel art, and I hope that general users join the creation and sell clothes to earn. I also expect that games adopting Dermes will be created in the future.

Now I’m looking for the members of Dermes, feel free to DM/reply me 🙂

Don’t you want to make and participate in a game studio bigger than Nintendo, Unity, or Epic Games? To do that, we need to take hands together and allow more builders and players in Autonomous World. I think this concept can be the key to that.