Mask Natural: Why is the full-chain game rising, and what is its charm?

Interviewee: Tianran

Organizer: Wànwù Dǎo

As the registration for the Wànwù CreatorCamp gaming camp is underway, there has been a heated discussion about blockchain games within the Wànwù CreatorCamp S1, focusing on the transformation from 2.0 to 3.0 in a dialogue with Huofeng Chen Yuetian in the article “Dialogue with Huofeng Chen Yuetian: Only 3% of 167 Quality Game Companies Transition to Web3”. In this context, we spoke with Tianran, the head of ecology and investment at Mask Network, who is a firm believer in on-chain games. What new thoughts and actions does he have? Below is a partial transcript from August 1st:

Wànwù Dǎo: How has the development of full-chain games progressed? What stage are we currently in?

Today, I mainly want to share the history of the development of full-chain games, focusing on the two main camps: Dark Forest and Loot. I believe that anyone who has been in the industry for a while has at least heard of one of them. Many people find these projects impressive but seem unsure of their actual utility. The development journey of these two leading projects in the full-chain game ecosystem is a fascinating history. Understanding this history will help you better grasp why full-chain games exist, their significance, value, and audience.

Let's first look at the Dark Forest ecosystem, which includes 0xPARC, Lattice, and the Mud full-chain game engine. The Loot ecosystem began with the fascinating text-based NFT, Loot, which then spawned several projects, including DopeWar, Realms, and the Dojo full-chain game engine. Consequently, Dark Forest and Loot have given rise to the two major game engine ecosystems, Mud and Dojo. If we were to draw a Web2 analogy, I think Mud resembles Unity more, while Dojo is more like Unreal Engine.

Dark Forest was initially created by Brian Gu in 2020 when he was a junior in college and also working at the Ethereum Foundation. During his research, he found ZK (Zero-Knowledge) quite interesting and decided to create a game, where ZK played a crucial role.

In centralized games, there is a concept called "fog of war," which means you can only see nearby players on the game map and not the entire map, requiring you to explore to find your enemies, similar to Red Alert. This is straightforward in centralized games but challenging in decentralized ones because everything on-chain is public and transparent. However, ZK can help conceal some information, so he used ZK to implement the fog of war on-chain. The term Dark Forest itself was inspired by the novel "The Three-Body Problem," and he designed it as a game where players explore new worlds like spaceships in that universe, using ZK to hide locations. This game operated from late 2020 to early 2022, with battles occurring every one to two months. Initially, there were only a few hundred players, but later it grew to over a thousand, totaling around six to seven thousand unique addresses.

People found this to be a cool and interesting concept, especially since it was a game format they had never encountered before. Before people distinguished between full-chain and non-full-chain, their understanding of Web3 games was primarily GameFi. However, Dark Forest differs from previous GameFi projects as it lacks an economic model and NFTs. It was just a group of tech-savvy individuals enjoying low-cost transactions, as the ZK mechanism allowed for computational power to be utilized, enabling players to mine with their GPUs. If you could mine faster, you would have a greater advantage in battles, which attracted many tech enthusiasts eager to win.

Of course, this also meant that it wasn't very user-friendly for the average person. The initial interface was quite rudimentary. Personally, I played it early on in late 2020 and found it interesting, but I gave up after half an hour, which is quite normal. I wonder how many of you have similar experiences from the early days.

Overall, it is a new game that is core to Ethereum, utilizing cutting-edge ZK technology, with everything written on-chain. It inspired many young talents to explore, not just in gaming but also in discovering various new applications of ZK. By early 2022, they felt that although Dark Forest had developed a complete plugin ecosystem, if it continued in a cycle, its potential would be limited. They saw broader applications for ZK and thus established a new organization called 0xPARC, primarily focused on ZK research. Several impressive ZK projects have emerged from this organization, which originated from Dark Forest. The founder, Brian Gu, is also from the same MIT class as Pacman, the owner of Blur, both born around 1998.

Initially, they aimed to allocate 80% of their efforts to ZK and 20% to games, but later realized that full-chain games were also quite interesting, leading them to shift their focus to a 50-50 split between ZK and full-chain games. The full-chain game branch is called Lattice, which developed the Mud game engine.

The Mud full-chain game engine was also inspired by Dark Forest, as developing a game directly on the blockchain is quite challenging and makes future modifications nearly impossible due to the complexities of interacting with the blockchain. They decided to abstract Dark Forest's experience into a framework or engine for broader use, leading to the creation of Mud.

They coined a great term for full-chain games called Autonomous World. I’ll explain why this term is excellent. One aspect is "Autonomous," which refers to the "A" in DAO, implementing an automated, self-governing infrastructure using blockchain. "World" refers not only to the entire world but also to a specific world, as long as it has certain rules. For example, Harry Potter is one world, and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is another. In summary, any specified, rule-based, self-executing world fits the definition of Autonomous World, reminiscent of the earlier concept of the Metaverse. I personally believe that in a year, the term Autonomous World may become synonymous with Metaverse, but overall, it is a well-crafted term that encompasses many aspects, including games, NFTs, DeFi, and DAOs, as Autonomous Worlds also require governance and a financial system, aligning with Ethereum's vision of creating a Network State. Another distinction made by the Mud team is that DeFi represents simple on-chain applications, while Autonomous Worlds are complex on-chain applications.

The first example is their official project launched in November 2022, called OPCraft, which is a simple fork of MineCraft running on the OP chain. Essentially, every action in MineCraft, such as digging a piece of land, is an on-chain action. However, OPCraft introduced an interesting concept allowing players to set their own rules. One player established a rule similar to land grabbing, allowing others to pledge allegiance and use their resources to join a specific nation, thus becoming citizens of that nation with equal rights to those assets and lands, resembling a form of communism. Many people joined to try it out, resulting in a chain-based communist society. This was quite amusing; from the perspective of writing rules, it seemed simple, but once the rules were established and people joined, it truly felt like an autonomous world. A significant milestone occurred in May when they completed Mud V2 and hosted a large hackathon, resulting in 109 submissions, with eight teams from China participating.

Another project created by the Mud team is called Sky Strife, a real-time strategy game where players command troops to attack each other's bases, requiring four players to be online simultaneously. They often organize playtests weekly, but it can be challenging to gather four players outside of those two-hour sessions. This number also highlights the issue that not many people can easily engage with full-chain games.

Loot was founded a bit later, at the end of August 2021, as the first text-based NFT. By that time, the bull market had already been ongoing for about two months, so Loot emerged during the latter half of the bull market. Before this, NFTs were primarily profile pictures, and Loot's arrival brought a sense of novelty to the industry. It intentionally avoided illustrations to leave room for imagination. Each Loot NFT contains eight pieces of equipment described in text form, leading people to believe the imaginative potential was limitless. Initially, no one paid attention to it, but I remember that from the third day, people started buying, and I purchased my first piece on the fifth day.

Subsequently, some people created simple forks based on Loot, with some attempting to develop specific ideas. In total, there were hundreds of derivative projects, most of which turned out to be scams and disappeared within one to three months. However, about twenty projects remained of decent quality, collectively forming the complete Loot ecosystem. Among these, four NFTs are particularly important: the first is Loot itself, the ordinary character; the second is Genesis Adventurer, understood as a high-level character; the third is Realm, representing large territories like Chang'an, Luoyang, and Suzhou; and the fourth is Crypts and Caverns, which are smaller maps designed as dungeon-like environments. This project aimed to create 8,000 random maps to serve as a universal map, hoping that various dungeon-themed games worldwide would use the same map, allowing for combinations and arrangements.

These four projects are key components of the Loot ecosystem, along with other interesting projects that supplement the ecosystem, including housing, pathways, experience points, etc. When pieced together, they create a relatively complete new world reminiscent of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

Moreover, if you were to create a new world on the level of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," how would you do it? Would you write a book like the original author of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"? From my perspective, starting with a text-only NFT sparked imagination, and then filling it with content could lead to the creation of something on par with "Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

Dojo was developed by Realm, Cartridge, and Briq on StarkNet. They observed Mud's success and forked a version at the end of 2022. Since StarkNet is not EVM-compatible, they rewrote it to be purely ZK-compatible, meaning that once you complete programming, it automatically converts to what ZK requires, allowing for provable steps, which is an important attribute of ZK.

Overall, its advantages include that the ecosystem is not limited to games; its developer community is very loyal and robust, featuring three flagship projects: the well-known StarkNet EVM Kakarot, the sorter Madara, and the game engine Dojo. Recently, StarkNet also announced plans to create an application chain, where Madara and Dojo may be directly integrated.

Another advantage of Dojo is that its team is relatively complete, with several projects like Influence, a space game, already having established teams and IPs within the Dojo ecosystem. Although the hackathon progress may be two months slower than Mud's, the core game team of Dojo is more mature than that of Mud. Most projects in Mud are more hackathon-oriented, resulting in lower quality but a larger quantity.

The first game on Dojo is Loot Survivor, a lightweight mini-game that allows players to control a Loot character, encounter monsters, and equip themselves. It is a classic arcade game, and since it is developed by the original Loot team, it fully inherits the Loot setting, including nations, races, generals, and strategists.

This concludes the discussion of the development history of full-chain games using Dark Forest and Loot as examples. The PPT link for this sharing is as follows, and everyone can read more.

Wànwù Dǎo: Why did you enter full-chain games early and remain steadfast?

For me, part of the reason is that I bought Loot early and spent a long time in the community. Additionally, I discovered that this field is quite fascinating. Simply put, full-chain games in 2023 resemble DeFi in 2019. CeFi and GameFi were both semi-centralized, allowing people to initially experience the interesting capabilities of blockchain. However, ultimately, everyone realized that both were half-baked, and now when people want to start new projects, they will definitely turn to DeFi, as they see its prospects.

StepN sparked a significant wave of enthusiasm, but it eventually cooled down. However, without this process, people wouldn't have realized that full-chain games are the next big thing. Thus, the transition from CeFi to DeFi mirrors the transition from GameFi to full-chain games.

Moreover, as mentioned earlier, full-chain games are complex applications on-chain, while DeFi represents simple applications on-chain, which creates a clear distinction.

People tend to categorize DeFi into two camps: one consists of projects backed by major American VC funding, while the other is community-driven or even fair-launch projects. These two factions often engage in heated debates. Another interesting analogy from the gaming industry is that Mud feels very much like the first type, being Ethereum's legitimate child, while Dojo is clearly community-driven.

Regarding Mask's involvement in full-chain games, I initially only bought some Loot and later inadvertently invested in some StarkNet ecosystem game projects. Thus, I encountered four of the five flagship projects on StarkNet quite early. By the end of 2022, people gradually realized that full-chain games on StarkNet seemed promising. Mask is known for social applications, but we also have many social components or protocols and have invested in numerous application layers. The main connection to Autonomous World is integrating Mask's protocol layer into it. For example, Mask's product, Next ID, can help consolidate various identities across different chains. In the context of full-chain games, this application direction is quite understandable. For instance, in the first game, if you reach level 100, you are considered a high-quality player. Therefore, the second game may intentionally attract you by allowing you to start at level 30, showcasing how DID can be applied.

The second is Web3MQ, a communication layer protocol that facilitates both person-to-person and machine-to-machine communication. In gaming, it can serve as a messaging solution across different games.

The third is MetaForo, an application layer product for forums, which includes a fair grant voting platform and subsequent related autonomous events, making it a community governance solution.

The fourth is RSS3, which provides feeds. In gaming, a classic example would be notifications similar to those on QQ Spaces or Renren, such as alerts that your crops have been stolen, which can be implemented within game feeds.

Thus, this encompasses a relatively complete picture of what we envision for full-chain applications. I believe that overall, social and gaming are intertwined. I often say that Mask aims to become the Tencent of the Web3 world. Now, with the emergence of Autonomous World, I feel this vision is more achievable. Initially, we focused on Tencent's social aspects, then moved into Tencent's strong investment presence, and now, adding the gaming component seems quite logical.

Currently, there is relatively little investment in the full-chain gaming ecosystem, which is still in a very early stage, so most funding is primarily through grants.

Wànwù Dǎo: The narrative of full-chain seems distant from the Chinese ecosystem. What suggestions do you have?

Full-chain is not solely about narrative; people still want to create tangible outcomes. However, full-chain is also a space that emphasizes narrative. Mud coined the term Autonomous World, and Loot itself is a massive narrative. For Chinese creators to craft their own narratives for Western audiences is quite challenging; it may be more effective to operate within existing narratives. There are indeed examples suitable for Chinese entrepreneurs, such as MetaForo, which I helped connect with. Once you immerse yourself deeply in the community, you can identify opportunities to contribute.

Additionally, I've advised many friends heading to Paris to try and directly engage with those developing full-chain projects, seeking ways to contribute based on their developments and getting involved in their initiatives.

The Loot ecosystem itself is a significant funnel. Initially, there were 300 or more air projects, with about 30 being relatively viable. After a year, most of those 30 ran out of funds, leaving a few that were driven by passion. Ultimately, this large funnel results in outstanding projects. Although Mud is not currently fundraising, I would be willing to assign it a valuation of three to five billion dollars, and I believe a hundred billion dollars is within reach. For Dojo, I think it might be slightly less, but it would certainly be valued at two to three billion dollars. Thus, the final products emerging from this funnel create a complete Loot-themed version of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

However, I personally believe that Mud's lack of IP is a significant drawback. Still, its authenticity ensures it attracts enough developers to create content. On the other hand, Dojo's core Loot IP can attract many people, especially for Chinese projects, as nearly every project faces the significant challenge of how to market themselves in the West. They hope their projects are recognized in the West and can secure funding from Western investors. A major advantage of participating early in the Loot ecosystem is that once it gains traction, Westerners will naturally come in. In other contexts, you would have to create a new IP to convince Americans that it's valuable.

For example, StepN is essentially a Chinese IP, and not many Americans know what StepN is doing. However, Loot, despite being quiet for a while, will impress people when they return and see that it has continued to develop and produce tangible results, attracting a lot of organic interest, especially for Chinese entrepreneurs, which can resolve many issues.

Wànwù Dǎo: Who are the most in need of full-chain games?

To be honest, currently, no one needs full-chain games. This is a clear case of trying to make something presentable before pushing it to users. If I had to say who needs it, I think it's the eager VCs who see this as a new investment opportunity and start to engage, so perhaps each project team is currently its own user base.

The user retention for Dark Forest is not very high, which is partly why the Dark Forest team decided to shift focus from continuing to develop the game to creating Mud, as they felt the potential of a single game was limited.

Wànwù Dǎo: What new gameplay possibilities does full-chain offer that Web2.0 does not?

One example I particularly like to mention is that in the past, many different manufacturers produced Three Kingdoms games, where each version of Cao Cao or Zhuge Liang was not the same character. However, in Web3 games, I believe that within the Loot ecosystem, there will certainly be 50 or more games, just like there are countless Three Kingdoms games, but in this case, Cao Cao or Zhuge Liang will be the same NFT. This demonstrates a significant value that Loot has achieved. In the earlier Web2.5 gaming era, people said you could use monkey avatars in games, but now, the games featuring monkeys have not produced much success. This is because, fundamentally, Web2.5 games still operate on their own servers with little interest in compatibility with others, failing to form a complete ecosystem. Thus, monkey-themed games are only developed by the monkeys themselves.

Another good point is that once the PFP (Profile Picture) logic fades, people will genuinely seek new ideas and discover that full-chain offers a more advanced narrative, where multiple Three Kingdoms games can feature the same Zhuge Liang, which is a very meaningful concept. This could also apply to the same Luoyang and Suzhou.

Wànwù Dǎo: How do you define "full" in full-chain? Does it have to be 100%, or is some off-chain activity allowed?

First, if you look at the infrastructure of chains, you'll find that many are developing so-called application chain infrastructures, making it easier for people to launch chains with a single click. However, more than half of these are just modifications of OP Stack, so strictly speaking, every chain is quite centralized. However, ZK-based chains require mining machines to achieve decentralization, such as Opside, which is being developed by Wànwù Dǎo.

I believe that people's tolerance for what constitutes "full-chain" is quite high right now. As long as you adhere to the general industry standards and use their tools, even if there are some centralized components elsewhere, people are unlikely to criticize you.

Wànwù Dǎo: Thank you, Tianran, for sharing your insights on full-chain games. We are launching the second season of Wànwù CreatorCamp in September, focusing on Web3 games, and we welcome you to return for continued discussions with the projects!