• Dark Forest runs with Zero-Knowledge-Proof
• Dark Forest shows the possibilities of the blockchain
• Blockchain gaming could revolutionize the gaming industry
What exactly is Dark Forest?
Dark Forest is described on its own wiki page as a real-time strategy game in which you traverse the universe and conquer planets. The task is to expand your own empire while not being destroyed by your opponents. You should collect as many points as possible. However, if you don’t feel like constantly fighting for points, you can also create your own adventure. So there are various ways to play the game. The game was inspired by the science fiction novel of the same name by Chinese author Liu Cixin. However, the idea of creating a blockchain-based game from it came from MIT graduate Bian Gu, also known by the pseudonym Gubsheep, designboom magazine reports. He probably read the book by accident a few days after a conference that dealt with zero-knowledge proofs, after which he reportedly came up with the idea of the blockchain-based game.
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How does Dark Forest work?
According to Heise, the big difference to other real-time strategy games such as “Eve Online” or “World of Warcraft” is that the game does not depend on servers, but runs completely on the blockchain. More specifically, the game runs on the xDai blockchain, a sidechain of Ethereum, using zkSNARKS technology. This validates players’ moves on the blockchain – without this information being shared with other players, designboom explains. Players therefore have no control over the results of their actions and cannot find out anything about other users. This is a small revolution, designboom continues, because until recently, incomplete information on blockchains was an almost impossible task, as information about every transaction and every party remained visible in the public space. Recently, however, with the implementation of zkSNARKs on Ethereum, the transparency of the blockchain has undergone a transformation.
Could blockchain now also revolutionize the gaming industry?
Dark Forest successfully demonstrates that the blockchain can do more than just enable cryptocurrency transfers. The blockchain offers advantages over the way conventional video games are currently running. It enables interactive player profiles to be created. The assets one acquires while playing could actually be owned absolutely by the player, for example in the form of NFTs or their own in-game wallet. In turn, this would allow players not only to collect points, but also to earn money. In addition, the blockchain ensures a secure payment option all day, seven days a week. The trend is still very new, so whether serious disadvantages will appear over time cannot be answered at this point in time. But MIT Technology Review is already confident that the game could be seen as a revolutionary step toward constructing new, shared, decentralized metaverses that would not belong to anyone, designboom reports.
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