Source: AW Research
This article provides a comprehensive review of Crypts and Caverns (C&C) as a programmatically generated map NFT project and its history and role in the Lootverse ecosystem. The article explores the reasons behind CheDAO’s acquisition of C&C, highlighting the enormous potential they see in its adaptive map generation capabilities. CheDAO plans to integrate C&C into Lootverse and other domains with the aim of establishing it as the standard map for widely adopted blockchain games. The article also traces the feedback from early C&C community members. Overall, the article discusses the prospects of community-driven blockchain games that will enter a new era with the advent of C&C.
CheDAO Revives C&C
Crypts and Caverns (C&C) is a project for programmatically generating NFT maps on the blockchain. It was recently acquired by CheDAO, and this acquisition has attracted attention from various communities within the Lootverse ecosystem. Many people are curious about what C&C is, its development direction, and how it aligns with CheDAO’s vision. This newfound attention provides an opportunity for CheDAO to revive C&C.
What is C&C and its History
Lootverse is an ecosystem derived from Loot, which was created by Dom Hoffman in August 2021 (almost the two-year anniversary of the release of Loot!). Loot consists of 8,000 text-based randomly generated equipment NFTs. Despite its simple appearance, Loot has sparked infinite creativity and imagination within the NFT community. People have begun to expand on the world implied by Loot by creating various derivatives, such as stories, games, art, and more. Lootverse encompasses all these derivative works and builds an open metaverse.
- Virtual avatar is the canvas of digital assets, but NFTs are optional.
- An overview of Hashed, a top-tier cryptocurrency fund in South Korea more than 130 projects, with a focus on gaming and infrastructure.
- Population dividend, relaxed regulations, Vietnam is becoming a new holy land for cryptocurrency exchanges to go overseas.
There are four core projects in Lootverse:
The image below shows Atlas (the world map), which includes a total of 16 countries such as FOX, Power, and Giants. All of these countries are derived from the metadata of Loot. Atlas shares many similarities with “Game of Thrones” in terms of complex political landscapes and diverse nations. In addition, NFT projects such as Realms, Loot, Genesis Adventurers, and Crypts and Caverns also follow the basic setting of these countries in Atlas.
Realms randomly generates land and kingdoms in the form of NFTs. It introduces a grand gaming environment to Lootverse. Players with Realms can build buildings, collect resources, and wage war against others in the game. This provides a background for strategy games and conflicts. As core lands and territories, Realms provide space for adventurers in Lootverse to explore and conquer.
Loot, as mentioned above, was created by Dom Hoffman and it is the beginning of the entire Lootverse. Loot consists of 8,000 randomly generated equipment presented as NFTs in text form. Although they have a simple appearance, these mysterious items evoke limitless possibilities. Loot provides the foundational components and a broader world for other projects to build upon through expansion and derivation. It is the core DNA that gave birth to Lootverse.
Genesis Adventurers uses legends, rarity, and other mechanisms to create upgraded adventurer characters in Lootverse. It interprets deeper meanings from the original Loot contract and builds complex background stories. Genesis Adventurers adds identity, progress, and richness to the world through the characters it develops. As advanced adventurers, Genesis unlocks more complex storytelling and game possibilities for Lootverse.
Crypts and Caverns, created by Threepwave, generates underground dungeon maps on the chain. The layout, doors, points of interest, and other elements of each map are randomly generated and fully stored on the chain. These map data can be interpreted by the game in text, 2D, or 3D formats. By providing these “seeds,” Crypts and Caverns allows game creators to easily incorporate randomly generated dungeons. This project enables games like Heroes and LootMMO to quickly build Rogue-like dungeon gameplay on the basis of Loot items and characters. In particular, Heroes integrated C&C into its core Lootverse theme over a year ago, becoming a demonstration of the versatility of C&C. By using C&C for procedural dungeon generation and incorporating heroes, items, and mechanisms, Heroes showcases the potential of C&C as a diverse element of blockchain games. In this way, Crypts and Caverns adds “locations” to Lootverse and creates random yet structured environments for adventures.
Crypts and Caverns fills an important gap in Lootverse. While Loot provides items and Genesis Adventurers creates characters, Lootverse still lacks the environment and background for adventures to take place. This is precisely where Crypts and Caverns cleverly fills the gap. The randomly generated maps stored entirely on the chain create infinite possibilities for game developers.
These maps also have a high level of composability. The data is stored on the chain in a standardized manner, allowing any project to access and build on top of Crypts and Caverns maps. We have already seen this idea realized in games like LootMMO. As more creators realize the potential of building on top of Crypts and Caverns, a variety of game experiences can emerge. Games that combine elements of survival, dungeon exploration, puzzles, and role-playing can all leverage the foundation of Crypts and Caverns.
Just as Loot provides the basic items for the Lootverse world, Crypts and Caverns provides the basic building blocks for adventures – randomly generated adventure spaces. This aligns perfectly with the spirit of Loot – open, generative, and composable. Crypts and Caverns helps translate the immense potential of Lootverse into concrete game experiences. Although still in the early stages, with imagination and the foundation provided by projects like Crypts and Caverns, the future looks bright for creating an immersive metaverse. We eagerly look forward to seeing what creative minds can build using the puzzle pieces available today. Crypts and Caverns helps turn these dreams into reality.
The four NFT projects mentioned earlier shape the basic worldview of Lootverse, but to achieve Lootverse, a powerful game development framework is essential. And this framework is DOJO.
Dojo is an open-source verifiable game engine built with Cairo. As an important tool in full-chain games, Dojo represents a significant milestone in blockchain gaming. Its groundbreaking proof system enables new possibilities in gaming, such as verifiable random number generation (RNG) and private inputs. Dojo provides core infrastructure such as ECS, networking, tools, etc., to help developers quickly build high-quality blockchain games. With Dojo, the long-promised true ownership and interoperability in crypto games can finally become a reality. By providing scalable and cost-effective computing, Dojo unlocks game complexity that was previously impractical. As a community-driven open-source project, Dojo promotes permissionless innovation among blockchain game developers. While supporting many Lootverse experiences today, Dojo’s goal is to empower the next generation of players across chains with game universes.
With the DOJO game engine, the game development process will be simplified. We are also committed to advancing the core projects of Lootverse and forming its foundation framework. This paves the way for developers to create games consistent with the Lootverse framework and use DOJO in the future.
The Current Status of C&C, Community Situation, and Early Holders’ Perspectives
After the birth of C&C, it now has a loyal community of holders who still appreciate its visionary premise. Early holders discuss its enormous potential in Lootverse and on-chain interoperability. However, the lack of progress has led to fatigue, and many wonder if the initial promises will be fully realized.
However, the community’s interest was reignited after hearing about the acquisition by CheDAO. The community holds a cautious optimism, hoping that this marks a restart of development but without abandoning previous work. Many support preserving the core vision of the project’s adaptability mapping module. They emphasize that creative applications outweigh commercial motivations.
Overall, under the leadership of CheDAO, the C&C community is excited about the prospects of its revival but also strongly wishes to maintain the founding ideals that initially attracted them. The insights from community members provide valuable perspectives for CheDAO in planning the future path.
Why CheDAO Took Over C&C and Community Feedback
Based on interviews with early holders of C&C, they mentioned one key motivation for their participation was the promise of integration with Realms Eternum. This reveals the community’s expectation of C&C’s relevance in the Realms Autonomous World. Some disappointment in the community was triggered when progress stalled.
In the proposal, CheDAO expresses confidence in the huge potential and strong community of C&C. The main motivations for acquiring C&C include: developing a fully on-chain C&C game to showcase its utility; collaborating to build a multi-functional C&C mapping module; taking on community management responsibilities; and establishing partnerships to expand the integration of C&C games.
CheDAO’s overall vision is to build a fully on-chain ecosystem through community autonomy. By leveraging C&C’s generative mapping capabilities, CheDAO can enrich the autonomous world it is building and accelerate the realization of its vision.
The C&C community largely welcomes CheDAO’s proposal to revitalize the project. They hope that CheDAO’s resources can unleash the potential of C&C on a larger scale. It is crucial to maintain close contact and involvement with the community throughout the entire transition process.
Prospects for C&C in Loot and Realms
Loot, with its algorithmically generated virtual item packs, has pioneered a new form of NFT art and collectibles. By envisioning a collaborative on-chain world driven by community creativity, Loot showcases extraordinary imagination. It has spawned the “Lootverse,” triggering a wave of derivative projects in gaming, art, fashion, and other fields. Its emphasis on openness and community autonomy embodies the decentralized value of blockchain technology.
Building on the concept of Loot, Realms further constructs a broad autonomous world that encompasses various experiences from legends to games. By sharing characters, assets, and environments, Realms tightly integrates with other Lootverse initiatives.
Realms provides tools and conditions for experimentation, nurturing the creativity of developers and builders. It also sparks community enthusiasm by allowing participation in building a sustainable on-chain world. The spirit of collaboration and growth cultivates a vibrant ecosystem.
As a programmatically generated map NFT project, Crypts and Caverns seamlessly integrates into the on-chain worlds of Loot and Realms. By contributing unpredictable and unique maps, C&C brings new possibilities to these environments. C&C can also be integrated into games developed independently by CheDAO and others, showcasing its versatility across different projects.
Loot envisions a community-driven ecosystem, Realms expands it into a collaborative autonomous world, and C&C provides adaptable and composable components that enrich world-building. The synergy between them pushes the evolution of participation economy and creativity in on-chain gaming to new frontiers.
CheDAO’s Future Plans for C&C
Roadmap
In order to fully unleash the potential of C&C, CheDAO plans to develop in three directions in the future:
I had trouble accessing your link so I’m going to try to continue without it.
‘Realmpire’ Goals
The goal is to deeply collaborate with the Realms team and seamlessly integrate the C&C generated maps into the core Realms gameplay loop. This will solidify C&C as a key component of the flagship core in the Lootverse project.
In this direction of development, C&C plans to integrate into Realms Eternum by the end of the year, while also developing a map version of Loot Survivor (please refer to our Realms Grant Application for more details).
Loot Survivor Map Version:
Loot Survivor plays a crucial role in the Lootverse and has important connections with Realms. In this context, it has been decided to initiate integration with C&C in Loot Survivor, followed by expansion to Realms and the broader Lootverse, presenting a natural progression.
Below is a demonstration of specific game scenarios that appear after integrating CC NFT into Survivor.
Feature Overview
Prior to embarking on adventures in Loot Survivor, players who own C&C NFTs can choose to enter the map, while players without C&C NFTs will follow the original game flow.
About Resources
We will align the search events in LOOT SURVIVORS with the data structure of C&C NFTs, including resource output, encounter scenarios, and escape situations. For example:
0 – Stone Temple (30%) → XP(8,15) Enemy_1(level)
1 – Mountain Deep (25%) → XP(10,20) Enemy_2(level)
2 – Desert Oasis (20%) → XP(2,6) Enemy_4(level)
3 – Forest Ruins (12%) → XP(25,50) Enemy_5(level)
4 – Underwater Keep (7%) → XP(35,60) Enemy_9(level)
5 – Ember’s Glow (5%) → XP(50,100) Enemy_10(level)
Reward1 (12%) → HP(1,20)
Reward2 (40%) → WEAPON(X,Y)
In summary, different types will be assigned different output reward coefficients, including the type and level of encountered enemies.
About Exploration
We will include map information in the exploration results.
For example: Encountered XXX (monster name) in XXX (map name).
In addition, we will enhance the narrative of Loot Survivor by adding unique descriptions to each map. This will include special events that occur on the map and their effects.
‘Lootverse’ Goals
In addition to Realms, active development of other game experiences centered around the Loot theme will be carried out to highlight the adaptability of C&C. The integration of C&C will enrich these new game universes and expand its presence in various Lootverse derivative projects.
In this direction, C&C plans to integrate into 5 Loot-themed games by the end of this year. Looking ahead to next year, this number is expected to significantly increase, possibly reaching 20-40 games.
According to recent plans, C&C will integrate with DevilCell (details can be found in our Realms Grant Application), while also integrating with Loot items and $LORDS. This plan is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.
DevilCell:
The development plan for the DevilCell game will be completed in three stages. In the first version, DevilCell will use C&C as the game map, and the initial version is scheduled for testing in September 2023. The second version will integrate Loot items, and the third version will integrate $LORDS.
Below is a brief introduction to the functions of C&C, Loot items, and $LORDS in DevilCell.
The Role of C&C in the Game
Users begin by crafting their own cells at the start of the game. These cells maneuver across the dungeon map, which is represented by CC NFTs, acquiring resources, competing, reproducing, and engaging with a variety of events.
Players can craft their own cells at the beginning of the game. These cells maneuver across the dungeon map represented by CC NFTs, acquiring resources, competing, reproducing, and interacting with various events.
The Role of Loot Items in the Game
Similar to how characters in other games can equip Loot items, in DevilCell, each cell can also equip Loot items. Different Loot items have different positive effects on cells. For example, certain items may increase a cell’s health, prolong its lifespan, enhance its agility to improve its escape ability, or enhance its attack power, affecting the outcome of battles with other cells.
The Role of $LORDS in the Game
In DevilCell, there is a cell marketplace where players can mate their cells with cells owned by other players by listing their cells for sale (as buyers). Players listing cells can set specific attribute conditions for cells owned by other players (as sellers). If the conditions are met, the player who listed the cell (seller) can use their cell for breeding. The offspring cells produced belong to the player who listed it (buyer), and the gas cost of the breeding operation is paid by the player providing the cell. The tokens corresponding to the listed price belong to the participants (sellers). $LORD will serve as the circulating currency in this marketplace.
‘C&C Era’ Goals
By fully integrating C&C into a game project that is completely different from the Loot theme, C&C can be fully utilized as a universal and scalable mapping primitive for building autonomous worlds. To pursue this direction, C&C will drive the integration of more types of external games.
In this direction, it is expected that C&C will be integrated into 5 non-Loot themed games by the end of this year, including Heroes and Cellula. By next year, this number is expected to expand to 30-60 games.
To better achieve this goal, we will continue to develop C&C into an advanced map editor. This development aims to make C&C compatible not only with Dojo but also with Mud and other future game engines. On the other hand, we will actively expand the developer community. For example, we plan to organize various types of grants, hackathons, game creation competitions, as well as online/offline conferences.
Our Overall Goal
Our comprehensive goals include Realmpire, Lootverse, and C&C Era, which aim to integrate into a total of 10 games by the end of this year, and expand this number to 50-100 games by the end of next year.
By pursuing these three directions, CheDAO aims to showcase the diversity of C&C and integrate it into blockchain-based games like Lootverse and other games. This will move towards their vision of achieving a self-governing world. Other plans include collaborating to optimize C&C as a flexible mapping module for game creators. By expanding the toolkit while respecting the community-driven spirit, the goal is to empower developers to build immersive worlds by generating NFTs such as C&C. Continuous community engagement and participatory design will be crucial throughout the integration process. Despite the challenges, CheDAO remains committed to unlocking the full potential of composable NFTs like C&C.
The future of community-driven blockchain games is full of hope.
CheDAO envisions building a thriving developer ecosystem, initially centered around Loot themes and C&C, empowering developers to build Loot-themed gaming experiences that include C&C. The ultimate vision is to make C&C the standard for generative mapping in the entire blockchain gaming field. In the long run, CheDAO aims to enable most blockchain games that require procedural mapping to adopt C&C, even those unrelated to Loot. This will achieve broader goals of CheDAO in unleashing the full potential of composable NFT primitives like C&C and empowering community-driven innovation in the blockchain gaming field.
Key Contents of Community Call
CheDAO recently held an engaging community meeting with Crypts and Caverns members on July 31, 2023, at 14:00 UTC, conducting direct dialogue.
CheDAO expresses deep gratitude to early believers and shares progress on game integration and the StarkNet bridging plan, as well as support for the evolution of C&C as a flexible mapping module. In addition to CheDAO, other key participants also shared their thoughts.
Luke and Yao introduced themselves and their projects. Luke talked about Web3MQ, a trustless relay network that provides infrastructure for autonomous worlds like C&C. They aim to offer seamless and trustless interactions for users within these worlds. Yao focuses on building community and governance tools for crypto projects with Metaforo, emphasizing the importance of community governance in decentralized games.
Taylor reviewed his journey with C&C. He explained that he was initially attracted to the universality of C&C as it could be a part of any dungeon game. He mentioned his continuous support for the project since its launch and hopes to see C&C integrated into the broader Loot ecosystem. Taylor also revealed his belief in Damian and Rex, citing their experience in operating companies and launching games as their capabilities to control C&C. He mentioned spreading the information about C&C through domain allocation and the contributions made through the domain ecosystem. Ultimately, he expressed confidence in Damian and Rex’s ability to further drive the development of C&C.
Like what you're reading? Subscribe to our top stories.
We will continue to update Gambling Chain; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!
