Crypts and Caverns: What important role did the giant awakened by CheDAO play in Lootverse?

Original source: AW Research

This article comprehensively reviews the history and role of Crypts and Caverns (C&C), a programmatically generated map NFT project, in the Lootverse ecosystem. The article explores the reasons for CheDAO’s acquisition of C&C, highlighting the great potential they see in its adaptive map generation capabilities. CheDAO plans to integrate C&C into the Lootverse and beyond, aiming to establish it as the map standard for widely adopted full-chain games. The article also traces feedback from early C&C community members. Overall, this article explores the prospect of community-driven full-chain games, which will enter a new era with C&C.

CheDAO restart C&C

Crypts and Caverns (C&C) is a programmatically generated NFT map project on the chain. It was recently acquired by CheDAO. This acquisition has attracted the attention of various communities in the Lootverse ecosystem to C&C. Many people want to know what C&C is, where it is headed, and how it fits into CheDAO’s vision. This new focus provides an opportunity for CheDAO to restart the C&C.

What is C&C, and its history

Lootverse is an ecology derived from Loot as its core. Loot was created by Dom Hoffman in August 2021 (soon to be the second anniversary of loot’s release!), and contains 8,000 random text-based NFTs of equipment. Despite its simplicity, it has inspired creativity and imagination within the NFT community. People began to make various expansions based on the world that Loot suggested, such as stories, games, art, and so on. The Lootverse encompasses all of these derivative works, building an open metaverse.

There are four core projects in Lootverse:

The image below shows the Atlas (world map), which contains a total of 16 countries such as FOX, Power, and Giants. All of these countries are derived from Loot’s metadata. From the perspective of complex political structure and diverse countries, Atlas has many similarities with “Game of Thrones”. In addition, NFT projects such as Realms, Loot, Genesis Adventurers, Crypts and Caverns also follow the basic settings of these countries in Atlas.

Realms randomly generate lands and kingdoms in the form of NFTs. It introduces a grand game environment to the Lootverse. Players who own Realms can build buildings, collect resources and wage war on others in the game. This provides the backdrop for strategy games and conflicts. As the core land and Territory, Realms provide Lootverse adventurers with a space to explore and conquer.

Loot, as mentioned above, was created by Dom Hoffman, it is the beginning of the whole Lootverse. Loot consists of 8000 randomly generated pieces of gear presented as NFTs in text form. Although simple in appearance, these enigmatic items spark endless possibilities. Loot provides the base components and provides a wider world for other projects to build on through extensions and forks. It is the core DNA that the Lootverse produces.

Genesis Adventurers utilize lore, rarity, and other mechanics to create upgraded adventurer characters in the Lootverse. It deciphers deeper meanings from the original Loot contract, constructing a complex backstory. Genesis Adventurers add identity, progression, and richness to the world through the characters they develop. As an advanced adventurer, Genesis unlocks more complex storytelling and gameplay possibilities for the Lootverse.

Crypts and Caverns, created by Threepwave, generates dungeon maps on-chain. The layout, doors, points of interest, and other elements of each map are randomly generated and stored entirely on-chain. These map data can be interpreted by the game in text, 2D or 3D format. By providing these “seeds”, Crypts and Caverns allow game creators to easily join randomly generated dungeons. The project enables games like Heroes and LootMMO to quickly build Rogue-like dungeon gameplay based on Loot items and characters. In particular, Heroes integrated C&C outside of the core Lootverse theme over a year ago, serving as a demonstration of C&C’s versatility. By using C&C for procedural dungeon generation and incorporating heroes, items, and mechanics, Heroes demonstrates the potential of C&C as a fundamental element of diverse blockchain games. In this way, Crypts and Caverns add “locations” to the Lootverse, creating random but structured environments for the adventure.

Crypts and Caverns fills an important void in the Lootverse. While Loot provided the items and Genesis Adventurers created the characters, the Lootverse still lacked the setting and context in which the adventures take place. This is the void that Crypts and Caverns neatly fills. Randomly generated maps fully on-chain create endless possibilities for game developers.

These maps are also highly composable. Data is stored on-chain in a standardized manner, allowing any project to access and build on top of the Crypts and Caverns map. We’ve seen this idea come to life in games like LootMMO. As more and more creators realize the potential of building on top of Crypts and Caverns, a wide variety of gaming experiences can emerge. Games that incorporate elements of survival, dungeon crawling, puzzle solving, role-playing, and more can take advantage of the foundations of Crypts and Caverns.

Just as Loot provides the foundational items for the Lootverse world, Crypts and Caverns provide the basic building blocks for adventure - randomized adventure spaces. This fits perfectly with the ethos of Loot - open, generative and composable. Crypts and Caverns helps translate the vast potential of the Lootverse into a concrete gaming experience. It’s still early days, but with imagination and the building blocks provided by projects like Crypts and Caverns, the future looks bright for creating a fascinating metaverse. We can’t wait to see what creative minds will build using puzzle pieces available today. Crypts and Caverns help turn those dreams into reality.

The four NFT projects mentioned above have shaped the basic world view of Lootverse, but to realize Lootverse, a powerful game development framework is essential. And this framework is DOJO.

Dojo is an open source verifiable game engine built with Cairo. As an important tool in the whole chain game, Dojo represents an important milestone for the game on the chain. Its breakthrough proof system enables entirely new gaming possibilities, such as verifiable random number generation (RNG) and private inputs. Dojo provides core infrastructure, such as ECS, network, tools, etc., to help developers quickly build high-quality blockchain games. With Dojo, the promise of true ownership and interoperability in crypto gaming can finally become a reality. By providing scalable and affordable computing, Dojo unlocks game complexity that was previously unfeasible. As a community-led open source project, Dojo facilitates permissionless innovation for on-chain game developers. While it powers many Lootverse experiences today, Dojo’s goal is to empower the next generation of player-owned gaming universes across chains.

With the DOJO game engine, the game development process will be simplified. We’re also working to advance the core projects of the Lootverse, forming its foundational framework. This paves the way for developers to create games that align with the Lootverse framework and use DOJO in the future.

The status quo of C&C, the community situation and the views of early holders

After the birth of C&C, C&C now has a loyal community of holders who still appreciate its visionary premise. Early holders talked about its great potential in the Lootverse and on-chain interoperability. But stalled progress has led to fatigue, with many wondering whether the original promise will be fully realized.

However, after hearing the news of CheDAO’s acquisition, the community’s interest has been revived. The community is cautiously optimistic, hoping this marks a restart of development, but not wanting previous work to be thrown away. Many supported the core vision of preserving the Project Adaptive Mapping module. They emphasize creative applications over commercial motives.

Overall, the C&C community, led by CheDAO, is excited by the prospect of its revival, but at the same time has a strong desire to maintain the founding philosophy that drew them in in the first place. Insights from community members provide valuable perspective for CheDAO to chart its future path.

Why CheDAO took over C&C and community feedback

Based on interviews with early C&C holders, they mentioned that a key motivation for participation was the promise of integration with Realms Eternum. This sheds light on the community’s expectations regarding the suitability of C&C in Realms Autonomous World. When progress stalled, it sparked some frustration from the community.

In the proposal, CheDAO expressed confidence in the great potential and strong community of C&C. The main motivations for the acquisition of C&C include: developing a fully on-chain C&C game to demonstrate its utility; collaborating to build a multifunctional C&C mapping module; assuming community management responsibilities; and forming partnerships to expand C&C’s game integration.

The overall vision of CheDAO is to build an ecosystem on the entire chain through community autonomy. By leveraging C&C’s generative mapping capabilities, CheDAO can enrich the autonomous world it is building, thereby accelerating the realization of its vision.

The C&C community has largely welcomed CheDAO’s proposal to reinvigorate the project. They hope that CheDAO’s resources can unleash the potential of C&C on a larger scale. Maintaining close contact and engagement with the community throughout the transition will be critical.

C&C Application Prospects in Loot and Realms

Loot is pioneering a whole new form of NFT art and collectibles with its algorithmically generated packs of virtual items. By envisioning a collaborative on-chain world driven by community creativity, Loot demonstrates extraordinary imagination. It gave birth to the “Lootverse,” which sparked a wave of spin-off projects in games, art, fashion, and more. Its emphasis on openness and community autonomy reflects the decentralized value of blockchain technology.

Building on the concept of Loot, Realms further builds a broad self-governing world, covering a variety of experiences from lore to games. By sharing characters, assets, and environments, Realms is tightly integrated with other Lootverse initiatives.

Realms provide the tools and conditions for experimentation, unleashing the creativity of developers and builders. It also sparks enthusiasm in the community by allowing participation in building a persistent on-chain world. A spirit of collaboration and growth fosters a vibrant ecosystem.

As a programmatically generated map NFT project, Crypts and Caverns fits seamlessly into the on-chain world of Loot and Realms. By contributing unpredictable and unique maps, C&C brings new possibilities to these environments. C&C can also be incorporated into games independently developed by CheDAO and others, demonstrating its versatility in different projects.

Loot envisions a community-driven ecosystem, Realms extends it into a collaborative autonomous world, and C&C provides adaptable composable components that enrich worldbuilding. The synergy between them pushes the evolution of participation economies and creativity in on-chain gaming to new frontiers.

CheDAO’s follow-up plan for C&C

route map

In order to fully release the potential of C&C, CheDAO plans to develop in three directions in the future:

‘Realmpire’ target

Will work closely with the Realms team to seamlessly integrate C&C generated maps into the core Realms game loop. This will solidify C&C as a key component that gives the flagship core of the Lootverse project.

In this direction, C&C plans to be integrated into Realms Eternum by the end of the year, while developing a map version of Loot Survivor (check out our Realms Grant Application for more details).

Map version of Loot Survivor:

The Loot Survivor has a key role in the Lootverse and has important ties to the Realms. Against this backdrop, the decision to initiate integration with C&C in Loot Survivor, with subsequent expansion into Realms and the wider Lootverse, presented a natural progression.

Below is a demonstration of a specific game scenario that emerged after integrating CC NFTs into Survivor.

Functional Overview

Before exploring in Loot Survivor, players with a C&C NFT will have the option to enter the map, while players without a C&C NFT will follow the original game flow.

About resources

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

0 - Stone Temple (30%) → XP(8,15) Enemy_1(level)

1 - Mountain Deep (25%) → XP(10,20) Enemy_2(level)

2 - Desert Oasis (20%) → XP(2,6) Enemy_4(level)

3 - Forest Ruins (12%) → XP(25,50) Enemy_5(level)

4 - Underwater Keep (7%) → XP(35,60) Enemy_9(level)

5 - Ember’s Glow (5%) → XP(50,100) Enemy_10(level)

Reward1 (12%) → HP(1,20)

Reward2 (40%) → WEAPON(X,Y)

In short, different types will be assigned different output reward coefficients, including the type of enemy encountered and its level.

About Expeditions

We will include map information in the expedition results.

For example: XXX (monster name) was encountered in XXX (map name).

Additionally, we’ll be enhancing Loot Survivor’s narrative by including unique descriptions for each map. This will include special events happening on the map and their effects.

‘Lootverse’ target

In addition to Realms, other gameplay experiences will be actively developed around the Loot theme to highlight the adaptability of C&C. The integration of C&C will enrich these new game universes and expand their presence in various Lootverse spinoffs.

In this direction, C&C plans to integrate into 5 Loot-themed games by the end of this year. Looking ahead to next year, this number is expected to grow significantly, possibly reaching 20-40 games.

According to recent plans, C&C will be integrated with DevilCell (see our Realms Grant Application for details), as well as Loot items and $LORDS. The plan is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.

DevilCell：

The development plan of the DevilCell game will be completed in three phases. In the first version, DevilCell will use C&C as the game map, and the initial version is planned for testing in September 2023. The second version will integrate Loot items, and the third version will integrate $LORDS.

The following is a brief introduction to the function of C&C, Loot items and $LORDS in DevilCell.

The role of C&C in the 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 iety of events.

Players can craft their own cells at the beginning of the game. These cells move around the dungeon map represented by CC NFTs, acquiring resources, competing, multiplying, and interacting with various events.

The role of Loot items in the game

Similar to characters in other games that can equip Loot items, in DevilCell, each cell can also equip Loot items. Different Loot items have different positive effects on cells. For example, certain items may increase a cell’s health, prolonging its lifespan, enhance a cell’s agility to improve its ability to escape, or enhance a cell’s attack ability, affecting the outcome of battles with other cells.

The role of $LORDS in the game

In DevilCell, there is a cell marketplace where players can mate with cells owned by other players by listing their own cells for sale (as buyers). Players who list cells can set specific property conditions (as sellers) for cells owned by other players. Players (sellers) who own the listed cells can use their cells to reproduce if the conditions are met. The resulting offspring cell is owned by the player who listed it (buyer), and the gas cost of the breeding operation is paid by the player who provided the cell. The tokens corresponding to the listed prices are owned by the participants (sellers). $LORD will be the currency in this market.

‘C&C Era’ target

Fully integrating C&C into a game project that is completely different from Loot’s theme will give full play to C&C as a general-purpose and extensible mapping primitive for the construction of autonomous worlds. In pursuit of this direction, C&C will push to integrate a wider variety of external games.

In this direction, expect C&C to be integrated into five non-Loot-themed games by the end of the year, including Heroes and Cellula. This number is expected to expand to 30-60 games by next year.

In order to better achieve this goal, we will continue to develop C&C into an advanced map editor. This development aims to make C&C compatible not only with Dojo, but also with Mud and other game engines in the future. On the other hand, we will also actively expand the developer community. For example, we plan to organize various types of grants, hackathons, game creation competitions, and online/offline conferences, etc.

Our overall goal

Our combined goals include Realmpire, Lootverse, C&C Era, into a total of 10 games by the end of this year and expand that number to 50-100 games by the end of next year.

By pursuing these three directions, CheDAO aims to demonstrate the versatility of C&C, incorporating it into on-chain games such as Lootverse and beyond. This will move towards their vision of a self-governing world. Other plans include cooperative optimization of C&C as a flexible mapping module for game creators. By expanding the toolkit while respecting the community-driven ethos, the goal is to empower developers to build immersive worlds by generating NFTs such as C&C. Continued community engagement and participatory design will be critical throughout the integration process. Despite the challenges, CheDAO remains committed to unlocking the full potential of composable NFTs such as C&C.

The future of community-driven on-chain gaming is promising.

CheDAO envisions a thriving developer ecosystem, initially centered on Loot themes and C&C, giving developers the ability to build Loot-themed game experiences that include C&C. The ultimate vision is to make C&C the generative mapping standard for the entire on-chain game field. In the long run, CheDAO’s goal is to enable most on-chain games that require process mapping to adopt C&C, even games that have nothing to do with Loot. This will fulfill CheDAO’s broader goal of unlocking the full potential of composable NFT primitives such as C&C, empowering the next generation of community-driven innovation in the on-chain gaming space.

Highlights of Community Call

CheDAO recently held an engaging community meeting with members of Crypts and Caverns on July 31, 2023 at 14:00 UTC for direct dialogue.

CheDAO expressed its deep gratitude to early believers and shared progress on game integration and StarkNet bridging plans, as well as support for the evolution of C&C as a flexible mapping module. Besides CheDAO, other major players also shared their thoughts.

Luke and Yao introduce themselves and their project. Luke talked about Web3MQ, a trustless relay network that provides the infrastructure for autonomous worlds like C&C. They are designed to provide seamless and trustless interactions for users within these worlds. Yao focuses on building a community and governance tool 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 the ubiquity of C&C because it could be part of any dungeon game. He mentioned having supported the project since its launch and wanted to see C&C integrated into the wider Loot ecosystem. Taylor also revealed that he believes Damien and Rex, with their experience running companies and launching games, have the ability to control the C&C. He mentions dissemination of information to C&C through domain grants, and contributions to it through the domain ecosystem. Ultimately, he expressed confidence in Damien and Rex in taking C&C further.