fx_dungeon_2: a NFT-Game Proof of Concept by PRJKTNEON
It turned out that it was possible to build a full-fledged game into an NFT. Well, it’s almost full-fledged. But it’s a game, nonetheless.
PRJKTNEON announced a rougelike minigame on the Tezos blockchain, and we bought this NFT and tried it out. 70 minutes of fun for 6.66 tez is not that bad, if you ask us!
The Gameplay in fx_dungeon_2: How to Win Without Freaking Out (You Can’t)
NFT tokens on the fxhash marketplace are not just the usual pictures with unique addresses and purchase/sale history. The platform is a marketplace of tokens with embedded Java Script code. Previously, artists only used js code to generate images like Garden,Monoliths. Turns out, an entire game can be written into a token.
In a nutshell, fx_dungeon_2 is a roguelike game where you explore mazes in search of a way out. Along the way, you have to fight or run from enemies and pick up white and green “health” cans.
The fx_dungeon_2 features different character classes with varying strength, resistance and hunger characteristics. Incidentally, since the game is written as “a fork from another, truly full-fledged, roguelike game”, the author simply forgot to remove the hunger characteristic from the collection’s description and code. You won’t find anything like that in fx_dungeon_2.
The basic principle of the game is simple. In fx_dungeon_2, a map is randomly generated with several floors, dozens of enemies and one of three characters with different params:
- Netrunner: has average strength and defence characteristics with average attack speed;
- Street kid: Less powerful, but more likely to survive compared to Netrunners. His attack power is significantly reduced;
- Samurai: Very powerful, but has a low life span. They have the highest attack speed.
Our token produced a street kid.
The character type and map type are created once and cannot be changed again. All that remains is to buy a new token for 6.66 tez so that fxhash can generate a new labyrinth.
The main task is to find the stairs leading to the next floor and then to the exit of the dungeon. The hardest part is figuring out that there are stairs in front of you. We wandered around the maze for 10 minutes and hopelessly pressed the space bar until we accidentally discovered it.
As you progress, you’ll encounter monsters of roughly the same difficulty: black as coal skeletons and white zombies, as well as radioactive slugs and simply various obstacles in the form of walls, doors, skulls, and boxes. They can be beaten by constantly walking towards them, or you can simply run away. Objects will simply damage your character if you encounter them. The good thing is that on each floor there are several large and small bottles of green liquid to restore your health.
See the Flygohr collection description on fxhash for more details on the controls and monsters.
How We Played fx_dungeon_2
The game was difficult to get through: it took us exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes. During this time, we died many times, cursed, got up, died again and ran to the beaconing stairs.
You can try it too, just click on the link. This will open the page with our token.
Flygohr has other collections, including previous versions of fx_dungeon marked “interactive,” All featuring infinite variations thanks to random map generation.
Why Games in NFT Are More Interesting Than JS Pics
Proof of Concept is about proving the feasibility of an idea. And an NFT token with a simple game is the nicest and most interesting way to demonstrate this.
That’s why before judging the primitive roguelike fx_dungeon_2, we should remember the core idea behind its creation. What seems pointless and merely “fun” at first becomes an idea that can be developed and improved upon.
It would be especially great if such tokens could be opened from a phone or tablet. For example, when travelling on public transport and needing to kill some time. On a large desktop or laptop monitor, such a creation would not look impressive enough.
Conclusion
You can write up to 30MB of data to fxhash in NFT. By comparison, Pokemon Red, the very first Super Mario Bros and DOOM (1993) weighed only 10MB, 31KB, and 3MB respectively. So making a full game and putting it into an NFT is quite feasible.
We’d be very happy to play something more complex on the Tezos blockchain. Something where you have to think more, but not because you have to open the game description to understand the gameplay. It will be great to see the dialogues not only in the under-cut code, but also in the roguelike game itself.
We wish success to Flygohr and everyone who follows his footsteps in development!
