Infinite Seas blog #1

# Infinite Seas Studios and the Vision for Onchain Gaming

### Infinite Seas Studios

Infinite Seas Studios is crafting a fully on-chain maritime trading and diplomatic social game with Move. Our aim is to experiment with the extent to which a game can foster microtransactions and player-to-player trading, all powered by our AMM infrastructure and backend engine. We want to create a game economy that is not only immersive but also has a tangible impact on the real-world economy.

As a team of dedicated MMO enthusiasts, we draw inspiration from classics like Heroes of Might and Magic, Mir2, RuneScape, Bat Mud, Age of Empires, and Uncharted Waters IV. We're committed to creating a world not just to play in, but to live in. We're not just another Ponzi game; we are gamers at heart who are passionate about building sustainable games with real traction. Through innovative trading mechanics and strategic alliances, we aim to offer a unique gaming experience.

We believe the most exciting fully on-chain games should be infinite, defined by non-session gameplay and infinitely large maps, with an open economy design. Such worlds can truly be called autonomous worlds, where the game environment evolves and thrives on its own.


### Why an Open Economy?

* Blockchain offers a great environment for microtransactions between players. We aim to create a game that players are encouraged to trade game assets with each other just like real world maritime trading between ports and ports.
* Good game design seamlessly integrates with the design of tokens. In our game, every craft, resource, and piece of game data is tradable. Players must sail to islands and other ships to offload their inventory.


### Why an Infinite Game?

* **non-session**: blockchain as a autonomous backend should be used to create games that are running continously and in a trustless way.
* **infinitely large map**: infinite big map works like cross-sever games in traditional gaming. Infinitely big map is the cornerstone of creating a new-comer friendly open world pvp game. New-comers are able to join games anywhere on the map. they can choose a island coordinates that they feel secure to start the jounry.


### Game Economy Design Philosophy

We believe in order to create a sustainable and engaging game economy, we need to design the economy as a dissipative structure. Dissipative structure is a thermodynamics concept which is understood to be the spontaneous emergence of order and structure through the organization and flow of energy. In our game design, the flow of resources and player actions drive the emergence of complex economic behaviors and structures.

**Closed System**: The entire world is a closed system where the overall resources and energy are finite, similar to our planet. Players are continuously bathed in the arrow of time and low entropy sunlight that allow for the complexity and order of raw materials and life to emerge and increase. This implies that everything within the game must adhere to conservation laws where nothing is lost but transformed from one form to another. This setup helps create a sustainable environment, ensuring every action has a consequence, adding depth and realism to economic interactions.

**Open System**: The islands owned by players operate as open systems within this closed world. They can interact with and impact each other through exchanges of matter and energy (e.g., trading resources or energy). This allows for dynamic interactions between players, such as trade and diplomacy, affecting the local economies on individual islands based on players’ actions.

**There are 4 ways of how our game economy design fits in with the law:**

1. The game economy operates as a system that transforms low-entropy raw materials (like sunlight, resources, and creatures) into high-entropy wastes (such as weapons, boats, consumables, and buildings) through activities like crafting, smithing, and cooking. This transformation satisfies players' needs and desires. As players engage in these behaviors, entropy is emitted, enhancing the complexity of the world over time, in alignment with the arrow of time, making each action and its consequences progressively more impactful.
2. The order in the economic system can only be maintained by a steady stream of low-entropy materials and energy.
3. All game economic production is based on the resources provided by nature.
4. Whatever players produce must eventually decay, fall apart, or dissipate, returning as waste to nature.

### Our Narrative

You, as a player, will start your journey in "Infinite Seas" at the dawn of seafaring. Each island is a fresh start in an old world, waiting for you to shape its path. As you play, your choices will push your island through different historical times, letting you create unique cultures, technologies, and specialty goods. This game lets you guide your people from the ancient past to a future you shape. Take on the challenge of building a lasting legacy on the shifting seas.

### What Types of Players Fit into Our Game?

<img src="https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1qdwXEkC.png" width="300">

* achievers, motivated mainly by increasing their skill levels, trading, and collecting crafts.
* explorers, motivated by exploring the game world and learning how it works. They love sailing and visiting islands. They may interested in thieving which involves to explore hidden information.
* socializers, motivated by trading, working with other players, joining alliance, creating treaty.
* killers, motivated by competition, victory, domination, and also trolling.

### What We Built for Playtest Batch 0

- **Infinite Map with Islands Distributed (MVP Part 1)**: Explore an expansive, infinite map filled with diverse islands.
- **Island Management Actions (MVP Part 1)**: Claim islands, mine resources, plant crops, cut wood, craft items, and manage island inventory.
- **Ship Management (MVP Part 2)**: Manage ship rosters, ship inventory, sailing, and engage in combat.
- **Leaderboard (MVP Part 1)**: Earn points by defeating different levels of PvE and PvP ships.