Decentralized Multiplayer RPG

We propose a simple turn-based multiplayer RPG whose game rules and assets are governed entirely by blockchain metadata.

Our team has software engineering (10+ years and Masters of Engineering) plus game development experience.

The idea is to have the entire game state on the blockchain. There would be a ledger containing the entirety of the game state, like map, NPC, levels/locations, monsters, items/equipment, character classes, etc.

Players would interact with the information from the master ledger to move to different levels, interact with monsters, and NPCs. Validity of actions would be checked against the master ledger and rules will be implement by smart contracts to ensure validity of player actions.

In the event of bugs or hacks, a new master ledger to update game state can be introduced for players to migrate to, or they can still choose to play on the old master ledger, since it will always exist in the blockchain.

Refinement v1.1

Purpose: To encourage adoption of Cardano and dApps on blockchain, show-case the features and benefits of blockchain technology with a Turn-based multiplayer RPG

How can Blockchain affect Gaming?

The idea of blockchain is decentralized consensus of a chain of data, where this data shall persist forever and where anyone can add data to it, so long as the consensus is always met. This proposal shall try to draw out the benefits of persistent data and decentralization on the blockchain as the main feature to emphasize within the game's framework.

Evolving and persistent data on the blockchain should have value, as it is evidence of a player's progression in the game. Tokenizing this progression to give it value is important.

Decentralized Gaming Objectives

- The game should not have an overseeing central entity that administrates the game. Therefore, the game's rules and assets should be defined upfront and be used as a "genesis block" to define the game's rules and assets. Assets shall include definitions for things like all the abilities, items, classes, and locations to the game.

- The game state for each player are built from assets from the "genesis block", like starting items, abilities, etc.

- The game shall be self-governed by players within the rules of the game. Smart contracts shall be utilized to verify the validity of actions within the game along with the "genesis block"

- Players shall submit transactions whenever they wish to interact with assets from the game to build their game state. Transactions are unique to a player, since a wallet and private key will be needed to sign the transactions.

Visualization of the Game, Playing the Game

Since the genesis block and game state all reside on the chain, any person can technically query the blockchain for this data and build a visualization of the game, and play the game by submitting valid transactions to the blockchain.

A server would query the blockchain for information about the game's assets, and be able to link those assets to visuals on the screen. To service a particular player, the server would need to know what the player's unique identifier is, to query and obtain the latest tip of their game state. Knowing the latest tip of the game state, the player can then execute transactions to perform actions like "Monster Encounter", or "Travel to Location", or whatever action the game's rules allow, to evolve their respective game state.

The above description is laid out in the attached block diagram.

Proof-of-Concept Plan

The game's front-end will be through a web application. The assets for the PoC shall be 2D and/or text-based. The main goal is to show-case a decentralized self-governing game where a player's every action shall be stored on the blockchain to build their game state.

Development of the Proof-of-Concept will have two stages.

PoC Stage 1 (3 months, $15k USD)

The stage 1 proof-of-concept demonstration will try to showcase:

1. Decentralized battle encounters that are initiated by players.

2. Battle encounter outcome resolution and game state update for players that are participating.

3. Web-based front-end interface to perform the decentralized gaming transactions for battle actions, which update the game state.

4. Basic assets to the game just to perform simple gaming actions. Players will be able to select one or two classes, while be able to fight one or two types of monsters.

PoC Stage 2 (3 months, $15k USD)

1. Tokenization of battle rewards and items

2. Scalable battle system within the battle encounters. We want players to have a fruitful experience with executing fewer actions, so Tx costs are not overrunning.

3. More assets to the game plus actual design on the game, its starting mechanics and progression

Things Currently in Progress

- Evaluating smart contracts for game core data, battle encounters, and player creation/progression. Use this to fleshing out high-level full stack block diagram for gaming framework

- Scoping development of front-end interface: wallet, creating and signing transactions and/or smart contracts

- Ramp-up on the Plutus Playground

Funding Request

The cost of software development would be $60K USD for both stages of the proof-of-concept and would go towards:

1. Costs for software development. Hiring an additional part-time engineer to develop.

2. Server costs for webhosting to distribute the web interface for the game.