# 0xShadow

0xShadow is an on-chain Clash of Clans x tower defence x Lovecraftian-horror x survival-like game where you build and expand your village with your friends and where each village is an [Autonomous World](https://0xparc.org/blog/autonomous-worlds) (AW).

## Introduction/Motive
Ludens defined what an AW is and the role blockchains play in their creation. A World, as they describe it, can be anything, but we will focus on games specifically.

We want to take this a step forward and ask, “Given an entity that respects the introduction rules of the World, what makes that entity want to inhabit the World?”. I.e. the “Why” or existence motive of the World and the entity that inhabits it.

The “Why” of an AW is the enablement of fun, through an environment to do what was previously impossible. The “Why” of the entity that inhabits the World is what determines the theme and story of the constructed World.

Before we investigate potential stories/themes for the World, let's clarify an important point: we want to cater the game to non-crypto native people. We want to create an immersive and magical experience for them such that they play the game without knowing what crypto is or realizing the crypto implementation. However, they discover new possibilities, applications and experiences that this infrastructure allows for. Everything will be designed to accomplish experiences like:

- “I haven’t slept in 3 days, I can’t stop playing this game”
- “Oh, the coins I just won are worth $100, HOLY SHIT”.
- “Wait a second, I can sell my archer tower for money, wtf is SudoSwap/OpenSea, I need to investigate!!!!!”
- “Hmm, PlayerX said that they’ll help protect my village and send reinforcements in exchange for 100 coins, but how can I trust them? Wait, what’s a smart contract?”
- “AHH I need to pay rent, I think I should attack more, wtf is Ethereum and solidity, maybe I should learn more about it…”
- Ideally, this won’t happen but: “This update is awful, I am so pissed that my defenders and coins are locked into this game. Wait.. what? someone cloned the game and made it better and I can transfer all my assets there instantly???????”

The World we create will only define the core game rules. Just like the universe we live in, it will organically evolve based on the needs of its inhabitants, their creativity and constraints. Our intention here is to make a v1 proof of concept that is fun enough to capture an engaged audience. We want to create a World that people are excited to inhabit and build upon.

## Gameplay
- Connect your wallet, join or create a village. Only 100 villages can be created in v1. It is possible to build and level up faster with more players in a village, so village creators are incentivized to recruit more players.
- There is no limit on the number of players that can be in a village.
- Once added, each player gets the same access rights as the owner of that village, except selling/transferring ownership of that village.
- Each village comes with a Gold Mine that generates tokens.
- There are two types of actions within 0xShadow, attacking and defending.
- In order to defend, players purchase and construct defence buildings (archer towers, bombers, etc.) with tokens to defend their castle against attackers. As the Defender Castle levels up (by winning battles against attackers [destroying all attacking units without the Castle being destroyed]) the Gold Mine generates tokens faster.
- In order to attack, players purchase attack units which they control with Solidity scripts and then send the units to attack villages. Scripts can range from the simple (attack the nearest building), to the complex (coordinate with nearby troops, adjust pathfinding on the fly, etc.) Attackers gain tokens, whenever they destroy a target castle/village.

## Composability
As an on-chain game, we expect plugins/mods/extensions to build that fully utilize the inherent composability and interoperability of blockchain. Some interesting ideas that could be built are:

- Solidity scripting for attacks and defence strategies enables hiring private security (bots operators) to protect your village.
- Insurance contracts against your buildings
- Funding bounties and mercenaries to go after others.
- Sudoswap pools for game assets like defensive buildings
- Uniswap liquidity pools provide liquidity for in-game currency
- Superfluid to stream tokens to your castle as and when they are minted.
- Your village will be an ERC721 token, so you can buy/sell villages with assets in it.
- And most importantly, in our game, social dynamics, ownership, governance, and economics arise from the need to survive.

For example, we can expect alliances between Defenders to form, where they share resources when needed. However, this allows more complex diplomacy, treachery, and other social dynamics to emerge from a simple rule set. In essence, we aim for this to be a Conway’s Game of Life type system, where hugely complex dynamics emerge from very simple starting rules.

v1 of the game is where we validate if the world is fun and useful for users.

## v2 FUN
Once validated, we move to v2, which is where things get interesting (none of this is formalized, just ideas on how to make the game more exciting and improve gameplay):

- On-chain terrain generation + nice tooling: Allow villages to customize the look of their village and since it’s on the chain, governance will play a pivotal role in how each village looks.
- Custom physics in each city
- Have big NFT projects pay out of their treasury to create 3d models of their NFTs. Your nfts are your characters in the game, so you roam around as Goblins and Milady’s building and attacking.
- Move from meta tx to some sort of account abstraction to improve user experience, investigate starknet
- Investigate openness:
- Essentially, is it possible to put different villages on one map, and have them separated by some distance calculated randomly upon initialization?
- The cool thing about this idea is that anyone can do it (composability) + it opens up interesting possibilities for the expansion of villages as your population increases. The game becomes one massive world, with kingdoms fighting to expand and travel from point A to B, fighting anyone they encounter on their way. This is very interesting from an alliance and diplomacy perspective.

## How Matrix ties in
There are many potential ways in which 0xShadow can tie into the Matrix core product as both a growth engine and an incentive mechanism for people to participate in quests. One obvious way is to allow people to earn in-game currency (which can be used to buy defense buildings and other future items) by completing Matrix quests. Another is to create Clan War mechanics, in which Matrix Creator Communities battle or work with each other, forming tighter community bonds.

We can take inspiration from other games, using them as analogues.

-**Mobile Games**: Earning in-game currency by doing outside tasks (watching ads)
-**Mr.Beast**: Creators building stronger community through the use of games
-**/r/Place**: Creators using game-esque synchronous events to build community
-**Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, CoDM, EVE Online, etc.**: Using Clans and in-game communities to drive engagement

## Theme
The theme of this game draws from the fact that there’s no way of knowing when you will be attacked and what units/strategy will be used to attack you. This creates an air of suspense, mystery, and fear.

As such, we will draw from Lovecraftian-horror themes of mystery, with the use of fog and mist to obscure the space around your village and otherworldly attackers.