🏠 The Home of Onchain Gaming is here | Skill Tree #31
I launch a website, Pirate Nation launches combat V2, and gaming launches tech developments into new spheres
For those of you that want to be notified of our the best crypto newsletters, check out the Alpha Assembly. A central hub for all the newsletters you will ever need.
Home of Onchain Gaming
I (finally) released my website for everything about onchain games and autonomous worlds, covering games, news, events, and education. Essentially, it’s this newsletter but more, better, and easier to find all the information.
You can already explore game descriptions for 20+ games, summaries of key educational pieces, and the latest news.
👉 Check out onchaingaming.world
Twitter thread with background info
Thoughts on Pirate Nation Combat V2
ICYMI, Pirate Nation did a big upgrade to their combat system, adding turn-based card battles.
How it works
A player’s card deck is based on multiple factors like pirate level, ship type, and ship slots
Turn-based, with limited mana every round
What’s interesting
The card battles bring a new gameplay as well as meta layer to the game. They provide more gameplay depth while adding a new dimension to picking pirates, ships, and their combination. How far cards become part of the meta will depend on how understandable the system is for players
Cards are not new NFTs. Instead, they provide utility to existing game assets/NFTs. This has implications for value accrual. Moreover, it limits tradability, and therefore the emergence of an economy, around cards
Leveling up pirates unlocks more cards. As cards are non-tradable, this mechanic may turn into an effective sink
The now created foundation of a card-based battle system can be expanded upon in the future, depending on how much strategic depth the combat should have
Applications of ZK Primitives to Gaming
Why deploy the latest research in onchain games
lower stakes
concrete use cases
relaxed constraints
Requirements for fully onchain games: fast cheap, composable, responsive, private → huge exploration space
Challenges & where ZK can come in
Fog of War: How to contextually reveal hidden information
solutions: secure enclaves, MPC based constructions
Privacy: How to provide privacy without prover latency
solutions: incremental proving with recursive proofs, homomorphic encryption
Fairness: How to ensure the integrity of the game (when actions are executed off-chain)
potential solutions: verifiable random functions (at a high frequency), verifiable delay functions for ability timers (to precent people from trying all permutations)
Bonus: A (non-exhaustive) list of onchain games
Bonus II: Investments in AI in Gaming
Valuations go up but no web3-type hype yet