Crypts and Caverns: A Sleeping Giant Awakened by CHEDAO

Summary

This article comprehensively reviews the history and role of Crypts and Caverns (C&C) in enriching the Lootverse as a procedurally generated map NFT project. It examines CHEDAO’s motivations for acquiring C&C, highlighting the immense potential they see in its adaptable generative mapping capacities. CHEDAO plans to integrate C&C across Lootverse and beyond, with the goal of establishing it as a widely adopted standard for on-chain games requiring maps. The article also traces feedback from early C&C community members, who welcome the renewed momentum under CHEDAO’s leadership while hoping its core values are preserved. Overall, it explores the promise of community-driven on-chain gaming as C&C enters a new era.

Assumed responsibility for C&C, CHEDAO draws renewed attention

Crypts and Caverns (C&C), an ambitious on-chain procedurally generated NFT map project, has recently been acquired by CHEDAO. This exciting change of hands has refocused attention on C&C across the Lootverse community. Many are taking a fresh look at what C&C is, what it aims to achieve, and how it fits into CHEDAO’s vision. This renewed interest presents opportunities to reconnect with C&C’s roots and re-examine its future potential.

What is C&C and the history of Lootverse

The Lootverse is an ever-expanding creative universe that was born out of the Loot project. Loot, created by Dom Hoffman in August 2021 (the two-year anniversary of the Loot project is coming soon!), consisted of 8,000 text-based NFTs with random fantasy gear. While simple in appearance, it ignited infinite creativity and imagination within the NFT community. People began creating expansions, stories, games, art and more based on the world implied by Loot. The Lootverse encompasses all of these derivative works, forming an open metaverse.

Several influential derivative projects have sprung up in the Lootverse.

The image below depicts the realm Atlas (World Map), which encompasses a total of 16 orders (countries), such as the FOX, Power, and Giants. All these nations are derived from the Loot metadata. The Atlas bears a striking resemblance to the Game of Thrones universe in terms of its intricate political landscape and diverse nations. Additionally, the NFT projects like Realms, Loot, Genesis Adventurers, Crypts and Caverns adhere to the foundational settings of these nations within the Atlas.

Realms randomly generates lands and kingdoms represented as NFTs. It introduces macro gameplay environments for the Lootverse. Players who own Realms can build structures, gather resources, and wage wars against others. This provides a backdrop for strategy gameplay and conflict. As core lands and territories, Realms create spaces for Lootverse adventurers to explore and conquer.

Loot is the original project that sparked the entire Lootverse. It consists of 8,000 randomly generated gear as text-based NFTs. While simple in appearance, these cryptic items ignite infinite possibilities. Loot provides the foundational components and implies a broader world for other projects to build upon with expansions and derivatives. It is the core DNA that the Lootverse emerges from.

Genesis Adventurers utilizes lore, rarity, and other mechanics to create leveled-up adventurer characters in the Lootverse. It interprets deeper meaning from the original Loot contract to construct complex backstories. Genesis Adventurers add identity, progression, and richness to the world through its developed characters. As advanced adventurers, Genesis unlocks more complex storytelling and gameplay possibilities for the Lootverse.

Crypts and Caverns, created by Threepwave, generates on-chain dungeon maps. The layout, doors, points of interest and other elements of each map are randomly generated and stored fully on-chain. This map data can be interpreted by games in text, 2D or 3D formats. By providing these ‘seeds’, Crypts and Caverns allows game creators to easily incorporate randomized dungeons. The project has enabled games like Heroes and LootMMO to quickly build Rogue-like dungeon gameplay on top of Loot items and characters. In particular, Heroes integrated C&C beyond the core Lootverse theme over a year ago, becoming a demonstration of C&C’s versatility. By procedural generating dungeons with C&C and incorporating heroes, items and mechanics, Heroes showed the potential of C&C as a foundational primitive for diverse on-chain games. In this way, Crypts and Caverns adds ’places‘ to the Lootverse - random but structured environments for adventures to occur.

Crypts and Caverns fills an important niche in the Lootverse. While Loot provides the items and Genesis Adventurers creates the characters, the Lootverse still lacked the environments and settings for adventures to take place in. This is the gap that Crypts and Caverns elegantly fills. The randomly generated, fully on-chain maps create limitless possibilities for game developers.

The maps are also highly composable. The data is stored on-chain in a standardized way, allowing any project to access and build on top of Crypts and Caverns maps. We are already seeing this idea come to life with games like LootMMO integrating these maps. And as more creators realize the potential of building on Crypts and Caverns, there is no limit to the gameplay experiences that could emerge. Games blending survival, dungeon crawling, puzzle solving, roleplaying and more could all leverage Crypts and Caverns foundations.

Just as Loot established a creative spark for the Lootverse, Crypts and Caverns provides a basic building block - randomized spaces for adventures. This aligns perfectly with the ethos of Loot - open, generative, and composable. Crypts and Caverns helps turn the vast potential of the Lootverse into concrete gaming experiences. It is still early days, but with imagination and some foundational pieces provided by projects like Crypts and Caverns, the future looks clear for creating an engaging metaverse. We eagerly anticipate seeing what creative minds will build next using the puzzle pieces available today. Crypts and Caverns is going to help these dreams come to reality.

The four aforementioned NFT projects shape a fundamental worldview about Lootverse, but to materialize Lootverse, a robust game development framework is essential. That framework is DOJO.

Dojo is an open source, provable game engine and toolchain built with Cairo. As the first of its kind, Dojo represents a huge milestone for on-chain gaming. Its groundbreaking proof systems enable entirely new gaming possibilities like verifiable RNG(Random Number Generator) and private inputs. Dojo provides core infrastructure like ECS, networking, tooling and more to help developers quickly build high quality blockchain games. With Dojo, the promise of true ownership and interoperability in crypto gaming can finally become reality. By facilitating scalable and affordable computation, Dojo unlocks gameplay complexity that was infeasible before. As a community-led, open source project, Dojo promotes permissionless innovation for on-chain game developers. While it powers many Lootverse experiences today, Dojo aims to empower the next generation of player-owned gaming universes across chains.

With the DOJO game engine in place, game development processes will be simplified. We’re also dedicated to advancing Lootverse’s core projects, forming its foundational framework. This paves the way for developers to create games aligned with Lootverse’s framework using DOJO in the future.

The current state of C&C, its community, and early holder perspectives

Years after inception, C&C now has an established community of loyal holders who still appreciate its visionary premise. Early holders speak of its immense potential for Lootverse and on-chain interoperability. But stalled progress led to fatigue, with many wondering if the initial promise would fully materialize.

Still, enthusiasm reignited following news of CHEDAO’s acquisition. The community is cautiously optimistic, hoping this signals renewed development but not wanting previous work discarded. Many voice support for preserving the project’s core vision of adaptable mapping modules. They emphasize creative applications over commercial motives.

Overall, there is excitement within the C&C community over its revived prospects under CHEDAO, balanced by a strong desire to uphold the founding ideals that first drew them to participate. Their insights provide valuable perspective on charting the path forward.

Why CHEDAO assumed responsibility for C&C and the community’s feedback

Based on interviews with C&C early holders, a key motivation they cite for participating is the promised integration with Realms Eternum. This reveals the community’s hope for C&C’s applicability across Realms Autonomous World. When progress stalled, it led to disappointment.

In their proposal, CHEDAO expressed belief in C&C’s immense potential and strong community. Key motivations for acquiring C&C include: developing a fully on-chain C&C game to demonstrate utility; collaborating to build a versatile C&C mapping module; assuming community management responsibilities; and forging partnerships to expand C&C’s gaming integrations.

CHEDAO’s overarching vision is to build an on-chain ecosystem enabled by community autonomy. By harnessing C&C’s generative mapping abilities, CHEDAO can enrich the autonomous worlds it is constructing, thereby accelerating its vision.

The C&C community largely welcomed CHEDAO’s proposal to reinvigorate the project. They hope CHEDAO’s resources can unlock C&C’s potential on an even grander scale. Maintaining close community contact and participation throughout this transition will be vital.

Application Prospects of C&C in Loot and Realms

Loot pioneered a groundbreaking new form of NFT art and collection with its algorithmically generated bags of virtual items. By envisioning a collaborative on-chain world driven by community creativity, Loot displayed remarkable imagination.

It gave rise to the ‘Lootverse‘, sparking a wave of derivative projects across gaming, art, fashion, and beyond. Its emphasis on openness and community autonomy embodied the decentralization values of blockchain technology.

Building upon the concepts behind Loot, Realms further constructed an expansive autonomous world encompassing diverse experiences from Lore to gaming. Realms achieved tight integration with other Lootverse initiatives through shared characters, assets, and environments.

Realms provided tooling and conditions for experimentation, catalyzing developer and builder creativity. It also stimulated community enthusiasm by enabling participation in the construction of persistent on-chain world. The spirit of cooperation and growth fostered an engaged ecosystem.

As a procedurally generated map NFT project, Crypts and Caverns integrates seamlessly into the on-chain world of Loot and Realms. By contributing unpredictable and unique maps, C&C enriches these environments with new possibilities. C&C can also be integrated into games independently developed by CHEDAO and others, showcasing versatility across projects.

Loot conceived a community-driven ecosystem, Realms expanded this into a collaborative autonomous world, and C&C offers adaptable composable pieces to enrich worldbuilding. The synergy between them propels the evolution of participatory economics and creativity within on-chain gaming into new frontiers.

CHEDAO’s next plans for C&C

The Roadmap

In order to fully unleash the potential of C&C, CHEDAO plans to evolve in three directions in the future.

‘Realmpire’ Direction

A profound collaboration with the Realms team will be pursued to seamlessly integrate C&C generative maps into the core Realms’ game loop.This will cement C&C as a key component empowering the flagship within Lootverse projects.

In this developmental direction, C&C is set to integrate into Realms Eternum by the end of the year, alongside the development of a map version of Loot Survivor (Check our Realms Grant Application for more details).

The map version of Loot Survivor:

Loot Survivor holds a pivotal role in the Lootverse and shares a significant connection with Realms. In this context, the decision to initiate integration with C&C within Loot Survivor, and subsequently expanding to Realms and the broader Lootverse, unfolds as a natural progression.

Here’s a demonstration of a specific gameplay scenario that emerges after integrating CC NFTs into the Survivor.

Functionality Overview

Before the exploration in Loot Survivor, players with C&C NFT can select a map to enter, while players without the C&C NFT will follow the original game process.

Upon selecting a map, relevant information about how the map will influence exploration will be displayed. This includes various outputs, probabilities of triggering events, or additional bonus coefficients.

About Resource

We will align the search events in LOOT SURVIVORS with the data structure of the C&C NFT, encompassing resource yields, encounter scenarios, and escape situations. For instance:

1. 0 - Stone Temple (30%) → XP(8,15) Enemy_1(level)
2. 1 - Mountain Deep (25%) → XP(10,20) Enemy_2(level)
3. 2 - Desert Oasis (20%) → XP(2,6) Enemy_4(level)
4. 3 - Forest Ruins (12%) → XP(25,50) Enemy_5(level)
5. 4 - Underwater Keep (7%) → XP(35,60) Enemy_9(level)
6. 5 - Ember's Glow (5%) → XP(50,100) Enemy_10(level)
7. Reward1 (12%) → HP(1,20)
8. Reward2 (40%) → WEAPON(X,Y)

In summary, different types will be assigned varying output bonus coefficients, encompassing encountered enemy types and their levels.

About Exploration

We will include map information within exploration outcomes.

For example: Encountered XXX (monster name) in XXX (map name).

Also, we will enhance the narrative of Loot Survivor by incorporating unique descriptions for each map. This will encompass special events occurring on the map and their impact.

‘Lootverse’ Direction

Active development of other gaming experiences centered around the Loot theme, beyond just Realms, to highlight C&C’s adaptability. C&C integration will enrich these new gaming universes and expand its presence across various Lootverse derivatives.

For this direction, C&C is set to integrate into 5 Loot-themed games by the year’s end. Looking ahead to the next year, this figure is anticipated to grow significantly, potentially reaching 20-40 games.

In accordance with the recent plan, C&C will integrate into the DevilCell (Check our Realms Grant Application for more details), alongside the integration of Loot items and $LORDS. This plan is set to be completed by the end of 2023.

DevilCell:

The development of the DevilCell game is planned to be completed in three phases. In the first version, DevilCell will integrate C&C as the game map, and the initial version is set for playtesting in September 2023. The second version will integrate the loot items, and the third version will integrate the $LORD.

Below are brief description of the functionalities of C&C, Loot items, and $LORDS in DevilCell.

C&C usage in-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.

Loot items usage in-game

Similar to how characters can equip loot items in other games, in DevilCell, each cell can also be equipped with loot items. Different loot items have various positive effects on cells. For instance, some items might increase a cell’s health, leading to a longer lifespan, enhance a cell’s agility to improve its ability to escape, or boost a cell’s attack capabilities, influencing the outcomes of battles with other cells.

$LORDS usage in-game

In DevilCell, there exists a marketplace for cells, where players can engage in breeding with cells owned by other players through listing their own cells for sale (acting as buyers). Players who list their cells can set specific attribute conditions for the cells owned by other players (acting as sellers). If the conditions are met, the player owning the listed cell (seller) can use their cell for breeding. The resulting offspring cell belongs to the player who listed it (buyer), and the gas cost of the breeding operation is covered by the player providing the cell. The token corresponding to the listing price goes to the participant (seller). $LORD will serve as the circulating currency in this marketplace.

‘C&C Era’ Direction

Integrating C&C into gaming projects entirely distinct from the Loot theme, will tap into the broader applicability of C&C as a generalized and extensible mapping primitive for autonomous worldbuilding. In pursuit of this direction, C&C will drive the integration into a greater variety of external games.

For this direction, C&C is expected to be integrated into 5 non-Loot-themed games by the end of the year, including Heroes and Cellula. By the following year, this number is projected to expand to 30-60 games.

To better achieve this goal, we will continue to evolve C&C into an advanced map editor. This development aims to make C&C compatible not only with Dojo but also with Mud, and potentially other game engines in the future. On the other hand, we will also vigorously expand the developer community. For instance, we plan to organize various types of grants, hackathons, game jams, as well as online/offline conferences and more.

Our Overarching Goal

Our comprehensive goal encompasses Realmpire, Lootverse, C&C Era is to achieve integration into a total of 10 games by the end of this year, and to expand this number to 50-100 games by the end of the next year.

By pursuing these three directions, CHEDAO aims to showcase C&C’s versatility by plugging it into on-chain games across the Lootverse and beyond. This will move towards their vision of an autonomous world. Other plans include collaborating to optimize C&C as a flexible mapping module for game creators. By expanding its toolkits while honoring its community-driven ethos, the goal is to empower developers to build immersive worlds enabled by generative NFTs like C&C. Continuous community engagement and participatory design will be crucial throughout this integration process. CHEDAO remains committed to unlocking the full potential of composable NFTs like C&C despite challenges.

The future is bright for community-driven on-chain gaming.

CHEDAO envisions building a thriving developer ecosystem initially centered around the Loot theme and C&C, empowering developers to build Loot-themed gaming experiences incorporating C&C. The ultimate vision is for C&C to become the standard for generative mapping across on-chain gaming as a whole – in the long run, CHEDAO aims for most on-chain games needing procedural maps to be able to adopt C&C, even those not related to Loot. This will fulfill CHEDAO’s broader goal of unlocking the full potential of composable NFT primitives like C&C to empower the next generation of community-driven innovation in the on-chain gaming space.

Highlights from the Community Call

CHEDAO recently hosted an engaging community call with Crypts and Caverns members on July 31, 2023 at 14:00 UTC, opening up direct dialogue.

CHEDAO expressed deep appreciation for early believers and shared progress on games integration and StarkNet bridging plans for C&C. Supporting C&C’s evolution as a flexible mapping module is a priority.

Apart from CHEDAO, other major participants also shared their thoughts.

Luke and Yao introduce themselves and their projects. Luke talks about Web3MQ, a trustless relay network that serves as a foundational infrastructure for autonomous worlds like C&C. They aim to provide seamless and trustless interactions between users within these worlds. Yao focuses on building a community and governance tools, Metaforo, for crypto projects, emphasizing the importance of community governance in decentralized games.

Taylor reflects on his journey with C&C. He explained that he was initially drawn to C&C because of its universality, as it can be a part of any dungeon game. He mentions his support for the project since its launch and his desire to see C&C integrated into the broader loot ecosystem. Taylor also reveals his belief that Damien and Rex, with their experience in operating companies and launching games, are in a good position to assume control of C&C. He mentions spreading the world about C&C and their contributions to the realm ecosystem through realm grant. Ultimately, he expresses his confidence in Damien and Rex’s ability to contribute further to C&C’s development.

In Q&A, the community raised thoughtful questions:

Q1: ‘How are you going to link the maps in-game?’
A1: ’CHEDAO are designing a map generation module that ingests C&C data to output integrated maps. More updates are coming this week.‘

Q2: ‘What game genres may best fit generative maps?’
A2: ’CHEDAO currently sees potential for real-time strategy games which require less on-chain intensity. But more exploration is needed.‘

Q3: ’How can non-developers contribute?’
A3: ‘CHEDAO welcomed game design feedback, community management, promotion and more.‘

Q4: ’How to resolve the problem that closed-loop maps lacking exits?‘
A4: ‘Adding map properties like new doors is a great suggestion.’

Community members expressed excitement over C&C’s revived prospects under CHEDAO, hoping the resources can fully realize its promise. Preserving core values was also emphasized.

Both sides pledged to collaborate on a vibrant C&C ecosystem with regular updates and communication. The call made promising steps towards restoring momentum.

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