After making a "fork in the road" decision last year in May, I'm happy to share that Ethgard is now in Phase 2 (P2) and the prototype version is live: https://ethgard.com.
The existing P1 version of the game remains available at ethgardlegends.com, while the new P2 replicates the logic in an MMO environment. The exciting part? EGL is seamlessly connected - just enter the arena and talk with the NPC.
Roadmap
- Phase 0: Splinter Royale (Auto Battler)
- Phase 1: Ethgard Legends (Auto Battler + Collectible Gard Game)
- Phase 2: Ethgard (MMO) + Ethgard Legends
- Phase 3: ??? (Platform)
Why?
If you're wondering why I decided to expand the game, the answer is simple:
As a gamer, I enjoy multiple genres - strategy, RPGs, MMOs, etc. So rather than confining myself to one genre, why not think bigger and build a platform that spans across genres and enables others to build on it as well.
The Future of Gaming: Mods and Player Creativity
Many popular games started as mods of existing games:
- League of Legends and Dota 2 began as Warcraft 3 mod: DotA.
- TFT originated from the Dota 2 mod: Auto Chess.
There are even dozens of well-done fan-made Pokemon versions. Mods are a powerful way to build new game ideas, but they aren't easily monetized. What if that could be changed? Phase 3 will be crucial to achieve this.
AI Agents
Another reason to expand the game was to allow for more exciting features, such as AI agents. Imagine having an interactive world, where some NPCs are actually AI agents.
Why Pixelated Graphics?
Around the fork decision, I was playing one of my favorite OG Pokémon games, Ruby, and it struck me how much story could be told with just a few pixels. Pixel art not only makes it easier to bring games onchain due to smaller sizes, but it also lowers the threshold for people to create their own game assets. Last but not least, pixel art is timeless.
What About Ethgard Legends?
The game mode will continue to be developed! The latest update (v3.0.0) introduces an important feature:
Bi-Monthly Seasons
Starting now, there will be two seasons every month, and players who participate and achieve certain ranks will receive titles that last for the next season, increased ETHSHARD drop rates in chests, and achievements, which currently do not provide benefits but hold potential for the future.
| Rank | Title | ETHSHARD Bonus |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | the Champion | 20% |
| 2 | the Hero | 15% |
| 3 | the Veteran | 10% |
| 4-5 | the Warrior | 5% |
What does this mean for Hive?
One of the advantages of pixel games is that their maps are stored as JSON - the same json which our blockchain is very well suited to store. I've been working on a potential solution of using Hive and HAF as a decentralised storage for the worlds I'm building, starting with Ethgard. If that's something you'd like to see, let me know.
PS: I've obtained Hivegard.com as well. 😉
I would love to make a multiplayer strategy or adventure game on top of the hive chain but I can't get my head around how to make it work async - like how can it work if the players are not all online at the same time?
Some games take over and play on the players behalf after a certain amount of inactivity, right?
You can't build something like that directly on Hive. Think of Hive as a big decentralised storage. You can put all kinds of data on there, but in order to use it, you'll need to create applications which read from and write to the data.
In order for the user to be "online", you'll need to utilise real-time frameworks (i.e. https://colyseus.io/ - which I'm using for both Ethgard & Ethgard Legends). When the user changes maps, opens chest or defeats a monster, you could update the data onchain, but you will always need an offchain application layer between Hive and the user.
Yeah I have made realtime multi-player games before and already experimented with storing some data on the hive blockchain a while back, the front end would be JavaScript/WASM and likely non-persistent data in sqlite or mysql. This being turn-based or at least not realtime would mean any round trip slowness wouldn't impact play - think chess rather than a FPS.
My challenge is with a mass multiplayer strategy game is one player holding everyone else up. Back in the Play By Mail days the moderator (like a DM) would take over if someone was too late responding (or the mail didn't arrive), but not sure how that would appeal to folks who might only log in every couple of days like here on Hive.
That said, @themarkymark pointed out to me the audience is so small anyway, it might be less of a problem than actually getting players in the first place.
I'm not sure I understand your game design. Could you provide a more detailed a example?
As a simple example, consider a game of poker where there are 5 players. If the 5th player doesn't log in for a couple of days, the other players can't continue so should the computer take over?
Right. Yes, you'd have to program an AI to take over for the user.
it looks pretty awesome! i like the graphice since it's easier on the eyes as in some other game graphics. 😉😎👊
Glad to hear! The current graphics are somewhat placeholders, but I like them as well. I'm not yet sure whether to stick with 16x16 or 32x32, the latter being better for desktop-sized screens.
They remind me of old school Zelda! I love it!
ahhhhh, right. 🤙
I like the sound of this roadmap, so the current cards we own/earn will be usable in the future gamemodes too or will it all merge into one gamemode?
I'm not sure about integrating the cards into other game modes, but rewards earned within Ethgard Legends should also be usable across Ethgard. For example, players could use Ethershards earned in Ethgard Legends to build their own home base within Ethgard. However, constructing certain elements might also require additional resources like wood and stone, which would need to be gathered from other sources.
Wouldn't it be better to focus on the first product? It seems to me to be a solid idea and that if well executed, it could become a great game. I haven't evaluated it in depth to see if it's totally on-chain or just blockchain integrations (off-chain). And why not make it for Hive? Because of the zero transaction fees.
This is the first product, just more refined. When I initially built the auto battler, the context was completely different. It was planned as a new game mode for another ecosystem, Splinterlands, which would have a completely different monetization channel by utilizing their in-game assets and tokens. However, the community was not interested due to the struggles of their main game, so I had to pivot.
Now, the current game mode, which follows an auto-chess style, relies on having no pay-walls. This means that all playing cards in the game must be free, which significantly limits monetization options. We do have Heroes, which are collectible cards, but that's nothing compared to other TCG's with hundreds of new cards per year. Similar games like HS Battlegrounds or TFT depend on a small selection of cosmetic purchases to generate revenue. While there is the option to introduce a token, without carefully designed tokenomics, this can easily lead to an unsustainable extractor-driven inflationary spiral.
By expanding the game into an world-building MMO, a whole new set of possible rewards and monetization options opens up. Most importantly, rewards which make sense and aren't just about "number goes up".
I'm not exactly sure about your definition of onchain and offchain, particularly in relation to your second sentence. Building onchain applications on Hive is not trivial unless it is a social application utilizing the "native smart contracts," since Hive was designed as an application-specific blockchain—essentially a social media blockchain. Most use cases that involve custom JSON rely on soft consensus, which, as the name implies, does not enforce onchain logic but instead allows applications to store and read JSON blobs on the blockchain. These JSON blobs are then used in offchain applications.
For example, when a user submits a market_purchase custom JSON, the application processes it, runs its own logic, and updates its database accordingly. However, nothing prevents the application from modifying its database directly, meaning there is no strict onchain enforcement. This is where Hive Engine and VSC come in, as they enable code execution in a decentralized and transparent manner. However, in both cases, the execution is not happening directly on Hive but rather on an L2 that runs on Hive, with its own consensus mechanisms. Applications can also build their own L2, such as Splinterlands with its SPS Chain, but this process takes time and requires developing an entire infrastructure. This is why smart contracts are typically a more efficient solution, as they allow developers to focus on building the contracts themselves rather than the entire framework around them. Another option is HAF (Hive Application Framework), which, hopefully, will introduce smart contracts in 2025. As far as I know, a significant part of developing application with it relies on SQL, which kept me so far from using it.
With this in mind, Ethgard Legends is largely onchain. Game items, pack openings, forging, and heroes, including their upgrades, are all fully onchain, meaning that players can interact with the game logic independently of Ethgard Legends’ centralized servers. However, battling and chests remain offchain.
For Ethgard, everything is currently offchain, as it is still in its prototype phase to test and refine the concept. The long-term goal is to bring as much of the game onchain as possible, ensuring that it can continue to exist and be developed and improved upon by the players themselves.
My goal is to build the best possible product, if that can be done on Hive, that'd be great.
You've managed to answer all my future questions. Thank you for that.
When I refer to only the ON-CHAIN and OFF-CHAIN context, I mean in general. Maybe developers should forget about fully integrating blockchain, in your case avoiding in-game transactions so the player doesn't have to pay a fee, nobody likes that. An example of this is certainly Axie Infinity (maybe only the Origins version, the classic is a bit suspect to say that). The game runs OFF-CHAIN, although NFT upgrades can be requested in-game, there is no internal market or trading of anything during the game, just the game.
This is excellent!! Good job
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