Fully Onchain Gaming & Autonomous Worlds

In 2020, Dark Forest, a fully onchain game, garnered substantial attention and built a cult-like following. The game was simple, a MMORTS using zkSNARKS where players navigate and combat in space. 

At its peak, Dark Forest facilitated multi-day battles, where teams of 15-20 engineers worked to refine their strategies and compete with one another and win financial prizes. Other teams built smart contracts on top of the game that allowed them to share yield won from battles.

Unfortunately, despite its small yet devoted community, Dark Forest and other fully onchain games have historically been less successful when compared to Web 2.5 games, as they remain less appealing to the broader population, both in terms of developers, and players.

Before delving into why fully onchain games have been historically less successful, it’s important to clarify what exactly fully onchain gaming refers to. Fully onchain games are games where all state altering logic is executed onchain, and all game states are recorded onchain. 

For example, if Player A and Player B are playing a game of Chess, and Player A moves their pawn from e2 to e4, the chain:

• Executes the move from e2 to e4
• Records the state, for both Player A and Player B, where the pawn is at e2, and the state where the pawn is at e4.