Argus: The World Engine for Scalable Onchain Games | Scott Sunarto

Transcript

what is I think the most beautiful like you know like value at of like have having anything on chain is the fact that like you will see people building on top of it right and this could be like anything from like the G and the entire game State being fully on chain or just like you know the nft being on chain like you will see emergent Behavior form around anything that is like you know onchain data what's up everyone welcome back to another episode of zerx research if you're listening to this podcast there's a good chance that like Dan and I you believe the future of Finance is on the blockchain and we're excited that London is becoming a global hub for blockchain Innovation and institutional adoption of digital assets that's why we're pump to host the 2024 digital asset Summit in London this March don't miss your chance

to get ahead of the curve later in this episode we'll tell you how you can save 20% off on your ticket what's up everyone welcome back to another episode of zerx research we are super excited for today's episode we've got Scott sardo the founder and CEO at Argus labs and for those who aren't familiar Argus is a game development company that's also building building infrastructure for uh game developers to more easily build fun games so Scott thanks for coming on yeah thanks for having me awesome so congrats on the launch of dark Frontier first of all I played it and it's really awesome I got to number one on the leaderboard actually after like seven hours of grinding after work and then woke up the next day and uh yanic uh left me with like two to three small little planets so I was like

barely even still active in the game so got really unlucky there but how's the launch so far yeah it's been a lot of it's been really great of course like we had like a lot of like um like users who are interested and like funny enough we've only like basically invited like a small chunk of people that like pre-registered for like like kind of like our Round And So like um so like yeah it's been great we learned kind of like a lot in kind of like the process we were able to like really kind of like I think like really try to push the limit of like what our kind of like you know basically new infrastructure able to do um and like yeah that's like basically kind of like um like kind of like you know been very exciting past two weeks um and like yeah I think in

general kind of just like love to just like see people having fun um kind of like playing your game um and like of course I think like in your case like you had to face the unfortunate reality that like you're facing like like literally the Undisputed goat of like you know like basically kind of the game um and so like um so like and so like yeah but like you know otherwise like GL you had like a nice seven hours before that happened no yeah it was really cool I was honestly just really impressed with like the uh the ux of like getting onboarded and I want to dive a little deeper into that architecture a little later but if if you could start out and be as Frank as you possibly can how would you kind of like describe the current state of the gaming space in

crypto like you've got the really popular og1 axi infinity and then you've got immutable X building kind of like more of the infrastructure layer and you got alium parallel Prime like just what's your honest opinion on most of these games yeah um I think like I i' I've been like kind of like around and see um crypto gaming space evolve um from like kind of like very very early days that like crypto kitties and I think like um I think like nowadays like you wouldn't really think about crypto kitties as a game but like when crypto kitties first came out that was really kind of I think the first Spark of like um what I we think like you know crypto game could be right I think that's really kind of where the discussion really came into into being and I think like people see

the axi uh sorry the crypto kitties like uh breeding as like some form of game onto itself right um and so that was like kind of basically um what we kind of like I think like that was what really I think like started it all for some people um and I think like over time like you know like um I think like games like Dark Forest came along where kind of like become like kind of the category defining like kind of like fully onchain games and eventually like um like things like AI came along with play to earn and so on and so forth right um I think like in my opinion so far is that I think like a lot of these things um I think like leads into this like kind of like weird cargo called um kind of like Mania uh every single time

right I think like every time there's this new paradigm or this new ways of like or even like a new playbook of like building crypto games um like we see people like just like Fascinate around like this new like cool tool primitive um it ended up just like copy and pasting that formula right um and then basically we see this with like x infinity the moment that like oh like you know play to earns have like some sort of like traction um like everyone copi and paste it like the play to earn two token model um and like uh which ended up like not working very well like it was like one of the like biggest regrets that a lot of company does like in crypto gaming and they ended up pivoting to something else like afterwards right either you get completely burnt out and

they just like pivot back to web 2 which is you're starting to see right now which is like insane um and then like some of them just like nap it's like you know like fully onchain game and whatsoever right and so like um I think like crypto gaming is like one of those categories in crypto where there's kind of like um like a huge identity crisis um like typically gaming have been like this like very um kind of like basically like Playbook driven kind of like industry um like you know like people gaming is like very very hard industry to like be in it's like very hit driven and so people do whatever it takes to like kind of drisk their product right and so like this comes into like this is like why if you go to like app store um you see so many Match Tree games right

like you know like these formula get keeps getting repeated because like people in games are like you know very fascinated and they're very kind of obsessed with Frameworks um the unfortunately reality here is that um there is no Playbook and there like I think even so far I just like don't see there being a Playbook or framework for crypto games right and so the only thing that you can do and the best way to position yourself really crypto games is to like really figure out how you can push the plot and kind of like you know basically discover this like Playbook ourselves the moment that you kind of find yourself like cargo culting or just doing the thing that you don't really understand you're just kind of following the wave um I think that's like really the part where you kind of like really

get sucked into this Vortex that you no longer have control over right like you just like ended up like oh if this thing's like pend out it's great but if like most time most of the times like things don't pan out and like because we were such in the early days of like crypto games like the only way that I think like you could survive is to like um spend a lot of time doing research right and this comes into like building a lot of these like infrastructure yourself right um like it is the reality that a lot of the things that I think um like is like people obsessed about in crypto games are really kind of just like basically the lowest of bar like I think like we fascinated about like you know like social login and like seamless onboarding like um these are really kind

of like table Stakes right this shouldn't be like a goal that we aspire to be these are really kind of just like table Stakes for us to even be kind of a game wor playing um and a lot of the things that will kind of like Define and kind of like um like actually allow crypto games to be like you know like a differentiated game and it's like a like basically being like a paradigm shift is like everything that comes beyond that right so like I think like when I think about oh like look at this game it has like Smo and boarding and like why are we talking about this this is like table Stakes right and so like um and like that's like really why I think like um I think like I I think it's just like I think like this whole like on boarding

feeli is like is like I think like sometimes like overlast like I think we should like um we should like do this obviously because it's the table Stakes but it's not really a destination um but like yeah I love hearing uh your point there because when you zoom out I think that really shows where we are with crypto gaming today right like that that's the priority is making a sweet onboarding process when you think about that like yes I think it should be smooth and easy for the user but I guess there's like a school of thought that kind of seems to be prevailing and for logical reason is the user shouldn't really know the game is on chain is that kind of the goal You're Building towards or do you think there's like somewhere a different Landing space in on the

spectrum that still makes sense where yeah it feels like a crypto game but it's easy to do and that's probably a good thing for like a some sort of different reason like how do you feel about the game actually feeling like it's on chain yeah so I think like the key thing here is that I think like there is like some sort of like more Nuance to this right there is I think two kinds of crypto gaming companies in crypto um there are crypto gaming companies that are embarrassed that they are a crypto gaming company um and then there are kind of like crypto gaming company that is not as shy or they're just not embarrassed they're proud they're crypto Gam gaming company right um and a lot of the crypto games that I would say like the web 2.5 game um

they're kind of like sometimes like embarrassed like if you just like see like like the way that they do coms and like you know like this is a technical podcast so I'll just kind of be frank here right just like um like they would sometimes like kind of just like oh like you know like we're an nftd but we only do NF very little like you know where our focus is building a great game and like they kind of try to sweep it under rug and kind of they just like try to not mention it or you kind of like put NFD in a very convoluted way that you are barely like able to figure out that it's a blote inside of it um or like sometimes like you know they would just like oh like you know they would just like even not have any mention of cpto

or blockchain from their website right because they're trying to play this Arbitrage of like you know like the users like whatever um and then again there are kind of companies on the other hand who really is like and like kind of identify as crypto or blockchain company uh and the the problem here is that people see this as too EXT like as like it's like kind of like a mutually exclusive like like you know like diagram that like hey if you are like you know a crypto gaming company identifies as a crypto gaming company that means that um that means that your onboarding is going to be because like um you only care about the crypto part and you don't like you don't understand real users and this is like kind of like I think like a dumb like you know like kind of like you know like

way to argue right because like just because you are a pride and like you just like want to like you know actually be maximally on chain just because you want to like push the plot in terms of like how the crypto games are integrating with blockchains doesn't necessarily mean that that needs to be a sacrifice of the user experience right and so this is like kind of the work that we do um on infrastructure side at arus is really like let's build blockchains that are actually you know like designed from first principles from the players right again um like not a lot of companies are able to do this like you know basically kind of Designing their own blockchain and whatsoever and so I think like we're very fortunate um to be able to do that um but yeah I think in general like I

think like we just like reject this kind of dichotomy of like um if you're kind of a crypto gaming company and you want to do things on chain that means that you're going to ignore the the the real users or like you know you're going to like exclude the mass like the mass Market um I just don't think that the economy should exist right in the same way that when like the internet first exists like um like like we don't kind of build like email apps or like we don't wield websites by kind of like intentionally saying that hey like we will um do whatever it takes to make sure the normies cannot use it right but it's still kind of maximally internet right like you like just because like you know oh it's like just because it's like using the internet more doesn't

mean that it's like trying to kind of exclude um kind of like you know the normal users or traditional users right and so like um and so like I think like there is kind of really smart ways to kind of like navigate this and I think like um like I think the black and white approach is of like oh like you either be a crypto gaming company that is onchain and like whatsoever and like have bad user experience versus like the ignore crypto and be a normal web 2.5 game is like I think that's a very very kind of we spectrum and so like that's really kind of why I'm like H like but like yeah I think like that's kind of kind of like the point that makes sense kind of trying to walk that fine line between the two is

probably very difficult but I do want to zoom out a little bit here just for the audience who's not familiar uh Scott and a couple other buddies uh made the first uh fully onchain mmts game uh using ZK snarks I believe which I can't even imagine how difficult that was back in the day with the lack of documentation in 2020 but uh nevertheless you ran into some huge problems on a chain called xdi which is now nosis I believe um and basically you were filling up all of the blocks and like it just didn't have the capacity to handle the fully onchain aspect of the game which led you to build Argus today so what were the primary problems specifically that you identified that you are incorporating in World engine to help uh I guess make those problems more easily navigatable

for game developers on Argus yeah so I think like the problem here is like really kind of like twofold right I think like uh first and foremost there is kind of like just like the very pure um game developer problem um um and that part of the problem is just really simple is like um like it's like really hard to build uh like like like a fully onchain like fully onchain game like um like solidity and smart contracts um they were really never designed to run kind of these like uh like game like Behavior right um like B like a blockchain like I think like smart contracts are kind of like first and

foremost are like basically what we like to call event driven so it's like very good for things that are like transaction in nature is are transaction oriented let's say you want to make a swap like you you want to make um let's say a token transfer these are things that are transaction driven there's like event driven there's like a very explicit user action um that they're trying to complete and then the program uh creates a side effect right um games are very different um like um like this is like why like you don't you you don't see people build using kind of like web Frameworks to build games right they have their own like cluster of toolings and framework and like game engines like this is like the manifestation is like game engines because there's such a different kind of software um they need

to kind of like you know basically like like a runtime that behaves very differently than like a normal like you know web server this is like why like you know most games cannot run using like um they cannot have like a normal like nodejs backend right because like um it functions like very differently in nature um and so that's the kind of like the biggest problem right like the smart contracts are like an event driven runtime and like games are what we like to call like Loop driven um where like even without user input like the game time moves forward right and so um that's like one thing the second part is really kind of just about scale right um like blockchains again are like you know like back in like 2018 like we really started with like you know when ethereum

first just coming start start to kind of like become popular there's more people building smart contracts um like the way we're using these smart contracts are very very primitive right uh when we start building games like Dark Forest um like we start to kind of really push the limit of like um like what like you know like the state machine can handle right like every single transaction in the dark forest was like a move on chain and therefore there needs to be computation that is being done that um and so this reach a lot of these like you know like basically just like performance ball neck of the evm um and like so on and so forth and so what we do at Argus to kind of really solve like this like um the kind of the basically developer experience problem is we built a rollup

framework um to that is specifically designed from the bottom up for games um and like one of the key feature of this like rollup framework is that we have what we call like a world sharting system um so the world sharting system is inspired by kind of the server architecture of like massively multiplayer online uh like you know like you know like a game right so like U like of Warcraft uh RuneScape what have you they have this concept called like sharding right and this is like kind of like completely trust me this is like completely different than like the ethereum charting and like whatsoever this is like arguably like you know like some people claim that this is like the MMO game architecture is like where the word sharding even you know came

originally before like you know these ethereum sharding or even database charting right um but like yeah like charting like World charting basically means like let's say you have um like kind of like let's say um like let's say you have a map and you have like an XY kind of like you know like you know like axis um and like and like by using the X and Y axis you can make four quadrants right like the negative like quad negative like positive quadrant negative negative quadrant positive negative quadrant and so on and so forth um and so the key thing here is that like if you have these like four quadrants maybe you can like split the game server or the game world into four different chunks like one for each quadrant right such that like you don't

need a single server or you don't need single to like handle all the players in all quadrants and then you can also like let's say you have more players right like you now like have more scale you have more player concentration maybe you can start splitting it off to like smaller shards and smaller quadrants right and so this is like what the basically the whole concept of like you know like World sharting um comes into play right is that instead of like having one single um like you know server to handle all of the game computation you have this like smaller like you know you have this like you know like you know independent like you know server that kind of like basically handle the aggregate player load by kind of Distributing it um like you like kind of just like based on like the in-game map

or based on just like let's say um like you know just like let's say matchmaking and so on and so forth right and so this is like a really powerful tool and server architecture that multiplayer games like today are able to use right like this is like why games are able to scale up and down like you know very aggressively based on their user count right because again like the people don't play games 247 or like around the world some games are only popular in the US so they have like big user accounts in the US and like less users in like um in like let's say Indonesia or like Asia because like you know like they're not catered to that audience and Etc um and so this is like a really powerful tool to scale like you know um kind of game architectures however like again we

don't really have the this concept in like the blockchain right um and so like what we did was like basically take that server architecture and use that as an inspiration for our rollup framework and so in our rollup framework we have an evm baseart that really provides this like base inability layer and this like where the economy or like inability and composability will will happen so if you want to have an NFD Marketplace you want to have like um like you know basically game transactions you want to have guilts like guilt systems or like whatsoever that would all happen in the evm Bart um but everything that is like related to the game computation or anything any heavy computation that you want to like kind of like basically um you know remove from the AVM you can

like let the game charts run it and the best thing about the game chart is as I said before you can run multiple of them like you can run like hundred of them in parallel and that would allow you to like horizontally scale your game and if let's say like oh like you now like want to like you know you have 100 game shards that's running in parallel and now you need more scale then all you you need to do is just like run more game charts and like now you are able to distribute more users to those like you know like extra game charts um and so this would also solve like you know basically the turd problem with like that we have with like Dark Forest right where in like when we had this influx of user um like back in the day we just

simply could not could not handle more of those users and we have to start rejecting those players right which is like of course bad for business if like we're thinking about it from a business sense right um and so like by doing this like we're basically able to guarantee like that if we are building a fully onchain game we don't have to make a trade-off of like accessability right we're not going to have to make a tradeoff of like hey if we make this like game fully on chain then we are gonna be have to face the reality that we will NE we will never be able to scale Beyond than like what a normal traditional eom rollup are are able to handle which is like not a lot like a lot of people think that rollup cures cancer like oh like just because we have

rollup we can do like um Facebook scale like you know like you know like you know like traffic flow we can do um like whatever but that that is really not the case right and so like to really achieve that like level next level of scale um there needs to be kind of these like kind of like horizontally scaling kind of like um like you know architecture that we need to incorporate um to be able to support that and so that's like really kind of like where the world engine comes into play and so um so like yeah okay yeah first of all let them Scott let them know rollups do not cure cancer I love that um I was actually just joking with the rest of the team today about that exact point but going back to the execution sharding

environment I really liked your analogy with the the user map and and breaking that into four quadrants my question would be like so if each of those quadrant is running within their own game Shard what does it look like for the user when let's say they cross over from the double positive quadrant to the double negative quadrant like what does actually Crossing that imaginary line look like to the user yeah and so this is like kind of like kind of this is like kind of a key kind of like game question right like this is like a game design question at day because like all of this happens on the client side um in the say in same like in the same way that let's say you're playing World of Warcraft right um like World of Warcraft map is like really really huge um and so

like the way that they kind of like split off the quadrant is like sometimes like oh let's say like you're moving from one section of the map to like another and so you would have kind of like oh like you can like basically kind of like teleport to this like new quadrant of the map or you're teleporting to a new part of the map right um or like let's say you are kind of like um like like a lot of modern mm RPG have like actually seamless like you know like you know like seamless like you know loading between like these like you know like um like um basically across charts right and so these are things that you can do right there is a lot of really kind of like this is again like like the key thing here is that like I have to admit like you know like

I'm not like inventing like rocket science here right like um like my job is to like really kind of Tak into like the learnings that like our team have building distributed systems building these like large scale systems for like you know video games and like you know incorporating our knowhow from the blockchain and kind of synthesizing that right there's like no original kind of idea like you know at its core um because like it's all just like Decades of like you know like you know MMO architecture like you know people have spent like countless hours optimizing it and so there's no really a reason for us to like reinvent everything from scratch um and like these people trust me like you know the games people like you know people don't really think about like video games as shelling point for like

you know excellent like software engineering for and distributed systems architecture but like some of the things that people do like in terms of like Network optimization and net codes um that is like where like you know the best people like you know like work at is like these like video games company building these like large scale like you know m Mo games and so that is kind of basically kind of like what we're kind of like running with and So like um again we've had a lot of learnings from existing kind of like MMO games where like you can have like these like seamless um like kind of just like oh you can just walk to the map like seamlessly and you just don't even know like that you are now in a different like you know Shard it just like happens there there's like a cross Shard

communication like happening where just like hey like you know right before you cross you're already giving a heads up to like you know the the kind of the other Shard that there is a possibility that this like player is going to um like you know move to your Shard here is here Play here's their player data in advance so there's no lack at all like when you're kind of like you know like when you're actually committing that this like player is now in your in your Shard and so like that is kind of like the same things that we want to get to like you know when the world engine as well um and because like at the end of the day we see ourselves as gaming company we want to build these kind of like you know like large scale MMO games that um as well and like this is like

just like the ingredients for us to get there and along the way like you know people are able to act get access to the same technology that we're using to build our own games yeah okay that's super helpful context I have a couple 101 questions for you so does the base Shard settle to ethereum or is its own uh L1 yeah so the base chart is like a rollup so it's settled to like um so ethereum for our case but it can technically settle to like anywhere um like if you want to make it settle to like salana you can want to make it sell to like um like you know binance marchain poon nothing really stops you from doing that um we kind of like just like see like you know ethereum as like

a great shelling point for a lot of the existing kind of like um like you know basically attention and kind of like you know basically and like like you know like security and like crypto and Etc and that's really kind of why we make that decision personally for us but at the end of the day world engine is like an open source like like kind of like SDK um and we want to have people like actually be able to experiment and like settle in like different um like different like you know chain um wherever their Community is right because at the end of the day like um that's like one thing that you should kind of like basically kind of like prioritize is like where your audience is right if your audience is like let's say um you already have like a strong audience in salana you don't have to

like migrate off to like ethereum you don't have to like migrate off to like you know some like random chain like you should just like bring um like you know the game to them and then in our case like you know you can do this like um like you know by being kind of like a separate like you know modular chain essentially okay and then there's this concept and I don't really know how exactly this relates to like blockchain games in particular but like if I'm playing fortnite and I'm in like an Asian region and then uh my ping will be higher but if I'm playing in the US region like it's better how does this play into the context of Argus like is that going to be a problem do you think yeah um so that's a very great question and this is like actually one of the one

of the like basically one of the like I think like side effects that like we like like we kind of like realize in hindsight uh as we were really designing the roll engine like sharting architecture that is like really really useful um for the game developers right because like um at the end of the day it really depends on the kind of game that you are trying to build um but like in in in the scenario for like most modern games like ping or like latency to like the the game like back end is like really really important right and so in our case like we want to make like in our case like you know by using a game shark we're able to kind of basically geize I think the word the word is like geize your game Shard your game backend essentially to wherever it is the

closest to your users right and so like you can have like you know if you play League of Legends or you play valerant you typically see like us West and Us East uh then like you can see like southeast Asia and then like you know let's say like um like you know Eastern Europe or like you know and like Western Europe and so on and so forth um and so this is like a really powerful tool that now we have access to because we can bring kind of these like you know like basically rollup sequencers like these rollup notes closer to the user the game shs closer to the user to make sure that they have these like seamless um play experience right um and so like the reason why this is important is of of course um if you're building real- Time games right if you're building games

that are like let's say um like even like hell like you know games that are fair like looks very simple in like the surface like a Gario right like you know you know a gar game that where you just like kind of like it's very simple game you're just kind of eating this like you know like it's like a snake but like real time and like whatever it's multiplayer um and like those game is like going to be unplayable with 200 millisecond ping like if you play a Gario with like um with let's say like uh with a southeast Asia server from the US like you're not going to have a great time you're going to like stutter you're going to like teleport and like you're gonna you know basically die like you know like out of nowhere because like someone ate you and you didn't see it

for after like the next two milliseconds so like that is like an issue like for for games right and this is like why you need like you know geolocalization you need to actually have a server that or you have you need to have a backend you have to like have like these game sharts as close as as like to the user as you want to be um if you are building a real- Time game but again if you're building chess game it doesn't really matter because like chess moves like you could take one second to like you know send the chess move and would be fine but it's completely different story if you want to build um like you know like significantly like more like powerful like more real time and more Dynamic games like fighting games for instance like they are very very like latency

sensitive like like they're probably like one of the most like uh the hardest game to build a multiplayer like you know like architecture for um because they're just like so latency sensitive right imagine you're playing Super Smash Bros and like your opponent is like 100 millisecond like behind and they're just like starting to laging and teleport all over the place then it's going to be like super annoying right um and so that is like the key thing why like um just like this like proximity um like kind of like you know basically the sequence or the game Shard is like really important um and this like what of the benefit of like having these like sharting like sharting system as well you can have like a single base Shard that is let's say like you know again like the Bas

Shar could be anywhere um then the game Shard is like you bring that closest to the to the kind of like the user as possible and let's say you have an influx of users in Asia then you can spin up more game shards in Asia and then like let's say you like and then like let's say like like EU starts growing and you're going to spend more game sharts in EU and then kind of adjust accordingly right um and so like that that's a kind of like really cool part of kind of like the game sh architecture as well all right zerox research listeners we're calling on you to join us for the premier institutional crypto conference in Europe's crypto Capital London this March 2024 you're going to get to hear exclusive insights from industry Trailblazers on things like leveraging D5 protocols for institutional yield tokenizing real

world assets with instant settlement navigating the evolving Global regulatory landscape integrating digital assets into Banking and payments or crafting institutional invest mandates with digital assets as the key Focus we'll also be featuring some big keynote speakers including Melvin Deng the CEO at qcp Capital Mark yuso the CEO and managing partner of Morgan Creek capital and stonnie kuchen the founder and CEO of a companies this is not an event you're going to want to miss seats are limited so be sure to register today by hitting the link in the description and using promo code 0x20 to save 20% on your tickets see you in London the land of tasty pastries and be sure to hit up Dan and I for beer so I just want to double down on the architecture here

just to make sure I understand it from more of like the the crypto native perspective so um it sounds like the base Shard of Argus is a eth rollup that has its settlement uh does settles down to ethereum so I'm assuming that's where the bridge contract is um what about data availability are you posting da to ethereum or is that to another one of the newer Solutions yeah so that's a great question right so we are using Celestia as a data availability layer uh but again like um as a framework there's really nothing we can stop users from like you know um using kind of like um like an alternate da or choice or even just like using kind of like e L1 da um like our experience that is just like like e L1 da is just like way too

expensive for games and so this is like where like um the search for an alternative da Solutions are like are like kind of like very important right and so um this is like kind of like one of the things that we kind of like we optimizing for and just like make sure that like you know we are able to serve like you know these like seamless like um gaming experience to the user is like finding a way to get um like cheap data availability right um because that is really the only like bottom neck laugh that we have in like building fully onchain games is like is just like getting these access to cheap like data availab layer because now that we have like the world engine like compute is like no longer a problem because like every time you need more compute just spin up more game sharts you're never

going to run out of compute the only kind of like you know Bott neck right now here is like how do you kind of like have these like you know basically call data you know like bandwidth to like you know stream these like you know like rollup transactions right um and so like that's kind of like basically um where like you we found Celestia to be like an amazing solution and like when we were running like you know kind of like dark Frontier on like you know basically Celestia We've ran this for like almost like one and a half week now um we're basically able to like kind of like minimize cost on like many order of magnitudes to the point that it doesn't even matter if like you know the game developers just pay for like the entire cost themselves um and so that is like

really kind of like a world that we're kind of living in now where like Compu is abundant and like you know um now the data availability cost is like be getting abundant as well and like this is like where like you know building increasingly onchain game um is like no longer becomes like a ball neck right it now just become it just comes down to like unlocking and providing these like um like you know tools to game developers they can easily do that and kind of like like dispel this kind of like mid AA of like skepticism or like you know just like lack of understanding or like so on and so forth um because like we now have the technology to build um like these like seamless like you know onchain games um like you know

wherever in the Spectrum you want to be let it be fully on Chene or like partially on Chene or what have you okay that's super super interesting because obviously uh the release of Celestia and even something like Ian da you know it really does reduce da cost by about 99% which is significant so I I liked your acknowledgement that da is kind of coming abundant so just one more question on kind of the the architecture side here um so we have a like can you just describe how the execution environments exists like are those kind of like uh rups on top of the Basse Shard what what like what's the design there yeah so for the game chard itself um like so we we our game chart is called Cardinal right um the key thing with Cardinal is that it's it's it's not

evm right that's like one of the key thing that I just like want to highlight first um so the game Shard itself is not evm it interoperates like you know the evm base chart are able to like access the data and like trigger transactions in the game chart but the game chart itself is not is not evm it's like our own like State machine that we designed from scratch uh specifically to run like you know game computations uh and this like basically kind of the key thing that we were like we like we we need to do because like again like as I mentioned before the evm wasn't just like a runtime that is like designed to run games there's just not a world uh in where I imagine like you know again I spent I'm like an evm de like you know I came from evm that's really kind of my

background um I did like you know everything from like smart contract engineering to like smart contract auditing um and like throughout that process like I just I just realized that like you know if you want to build like expressive games like you cannot be stuck in that kind of these like very vanilla runtime right and I think like I'm dreaming of a future where like you know you are designing like you know State machines and applications around like you know around the kind of use case that you want to do instead of shoehorning like a VM or shoehorning like an existing kind of like um State machine or framework against like oh like this will cure all cancer right and this is I think I think like you know kind of like the I I keep using this because that is the reality of like

blockchain right this is like how like most blockchain companies more most infrastructure companies are able to like oh get the largest total addressable Market as possible is by building infrastructure that solves all people's solution right they will like oh I built this like infrastructure this will like solve cancer this will cure like malaria and like whatever it's like it's like this is kind of really kind of the problem with infrastructure companies is that they always think about their product as like a cure all solution for everything well in reality this is not like how like you know like how like applications or softwares are develop you don't see like Google Sheets coming out like hey like um like Google Sheets will will like help you build onchain games like you know Google

Sheets like use Google Sheets for a spreadsheet right um and so like that is kind of like basically how we think about like the Cardinal like like you know like runtime or the Cardinal like like you know game charge as well like it's like a kind of a go-based state machine that does like only and like we focus simply on like using that to build um like games and so all those go all of those game computations happen within this like you know game charts right and so like we the game charts have this like um like basically kind of data structure slash kind of like design pattern called entity component system um so entity uh entity is basically kind of just the game like entity or data object components or the kind of like this like data that is attached to that

entity um and then system is like the business logic it's really kind of the the kind of the computation that drives the game computation right so the system could be like let's say a physics system right like let's say you have like you can have a gravity system that applies you know like you know a you know a downward like like acceleration or for like all objects to make sure that like let's say you have like a like object that's currently floating in the air because there's a gravity system those like objects like fall down into the ground um you could have like let's say combat system that handles like inflicting damages or like you know like regeneration for like the users and so that's like really like that's the kind of like very common pattern that like you know game developers are familiar with and we just kind of like bring that

same like you know pattern into uh into like kind of the Cardinal game chart and so like basically what we do with a game chart is that we make sure that we provide like a developer experience uh and like kind of like and design patterns that the game developers are most familiar with and they no longer have to like basically like pull like the stun Maneuvers that we have to do with dark Forest right like you know when we like when I was like writing a smart contract for Dark Forest we had to like basically like um pull this like you know like crazy like kind of like workarounds or they kind of like do this crazy hacks to just make the smart contract works now with the kind of game chart you no longer have to do that because that's really kind of like what

the runtime that's like what the state machine is designed to do and so you are basically able to do virtually anything that you would want to do in the nor like traditional kind of like client side game engine like unity and unreal um and so that's like basically kind of like what we do with the with the game chart and so the game chart itself I think like some people often confuses it as like an L Tree on top of like you know the evm Bas chart but that's like kind of like you know that's like not like what the game chart is right so like the way that we like to think about the game chart us is like basically as like paralel parallel run times so instead of like sitting uh having the game Shard sit on top of the rollup as an L3 um the B the game charts exist as

like basically a part of an L2 so you're you're basically kind of making the L2 like you know like kind of like basically more expensive instead of like only having evm like you're only running an evm like you know like you know like State machine or you're only running an evm runtime the the lawy like the layer to is now running these like game shards like you know like and like these game shards can have different games on it and whatsoever but it all like exists as a part of L2 and this gives us a lot of the benefits the first one is of course like we have like seamless inability and like composability across these two um these two like these kind of like you know the base chart and the game chart and the game charts to the other game charts because it's not like as an

independent blockchain they are just a part of the same blockchain and like by using like evm pre-compiled they're able to access each other's data like seamlessly um like if we contrast this to let's say with like an L tree what you will notice happen is that like the moment that you want to access the state of like let's say like like kind of like say you have an L2 and then you have an L Tre like when you want to access the state of the L Tre you can't do that seamlessly from the L2 right like if let's say the L3 is an optimistic like um you know like an optimistic L tree then you have to wait like the seven days challenge period for you to even even get the data back right like um and like you know so that's like kind of the

Key Construction that we were we we make is that like we don't want want these like game shards to exist as like a separate layer of rollup um we want this to just be a part of like you know the layer to itself so you can think about it as like a layer two that just like have like you know many different kind of like you know like you know like parallel run times running on top of it and it just like kind of exists as like a singular like you know like you know like kind of like a singular kind of like chain onto itself yeah okay that's uh Sam I I want you to take it away here but I that was so that's what I was trying to I you mentioned that people uh probably misconceive it as an L3 and that's what it was in my head so when I

was even asking that first question about like Crossing that imaginary border from Quadrant a to quadrant B it's like well what does that look like because in my head I'm like there needs to be some sort of transaction like that's a huge pain in the ass it's definitely async but this is a awesome way that you guys are solving it but please Sam take it away yeah yeah I just I'm trying to conceptualize it in my head as well cuz when I logged into dark Frontier I I just put in my email address and then there's a little box that says enter your you know actual ethereum address and then you can withdraw assets down to the Basse Shard so can you just kind of like provide more color on what that would look like because obviously in dark Frontier I don't think there's anything that you

can actually withdraw down to the Basse Shard today unless I'm mistaken but um yeah just elaborate on that yeah so like basically the game Shard is like the game Shard is like has their own like identity system right so like U we call these Persona uh and so reason why we even built this like account system or identi system from scratch is just like we think like like you know we just think like blockchain addresses is just like something that like is like onto itself a ux problem right like you know it's really hard to reason about these like zerox like whatever addresses and so like a Persona tag is basically like a human readable like you know username or gamer tag if you are like like you know an Xbox player right um and so that's really kind of like what this

like Persona attack is all about and this is like how like the the Cardinal game charts like understand your player identity um and like this is of course like you know like will kind of like transfer or like you know all the game charts will be able to understand this like game identity that you have right um and so the key thing here is that we still are able to kind of like use the evm to like like you can use your evm account to authenticate and use your uh your persona accounts so like you know let's say you want to make uh let's say you have a smart contract on ethereum or you have like you know again the wallet on the evm base chart um you can make transactions and moves um using your evm address and so this is like where your

account linking um will kind of basically kind of like come into play um and this is like where a lot of these kind of composability element will kind of like really like I think like there's a lot of composable experiments that we are kind of really fascinated by right so for instance like some people are experimenting with the idea of like letting a smart contract own a Persona and so like by letting a a smart contract own a Persona you can do like some sort of a guilt player right like where instead of like having one person control the account you can have a guilt which is represented by a smart contract controlled by control the account and so that's like basically kind of like how this like Persona system works right it's like basically like abstract it's like a kind abstraction construction that we design from scretch for like you

know game use cases so instead of like oh having this like blue sky kind of like um like you know like problem where like oh like we have these like people trying to use defi apps like using account exraction or whatsoever we just think like very simple right okay like how are users going to want to do a contraction for um like you know for games and that's like basically kind of like what we design um like all of this like this like Persona system for um but like yeah so let's like you know let's say like you know a smart contract wants to make a move like from the evm baseart to like the game chart all you need to do is like literally call like you know like you know basically a pre-compile on the evm BART which is like basically like calling another myart contract and

the BART and that will basically kind of like send a communication they like kind of like send a transaction package um to like the the game chart that they want and then that that will just like be processed automatically uh by the game chart and they will kind of like return a value and whatsoever and so like yeah it's like basically like like the same blockchain it's like we're just like basically building these like um abstraction layers for like you know the bab chart and the game Shar to communicate with each other um um which we call riff but like that's like a separate conversation for time was like like an hour talk onto itself all right I'll spare you on that one maybe we'll have to get you back for another episode in the future to talk about that but I do want to ask too it

sounds like there's like a shitload of stuff that needs to get built out and like there's going to be a like a kind of an element of Lindy if you can get enough developers and users on boarded to kind of fix stuff and provide more tooling build more Cool Games Etc so what's your strategy for actually attracting those developers like a lot of projects will launch a token or maybe they'll have like a dollar denominated grants fund do you have have you guys thought about that at all yet yeah um that's a very interesting tribe question I just kidding but like got give people what they want scottt but like but like yeah my quick answer here is like um like we're building this for ourselves first and foremost right like we're not building this as like oh we want trying to be a pick and shovel company like we

have something to sell like again like our motivation in building kind of all these stack is like really just like we want to build great games right and like um and like at the end of the day of like if we have are able to attract these like developer ecosystem of like you know people building on top of the world engine contributing to open source building plugins for the world engine building extensions Tooling in World engine we as a game developer and I think G publisher also benefits because like now we have you know larger access of like you know like you know mind share and kind of just like basically people like you know loving to use like our engine right and so that is kind of like basically like our kind of like like you know like way of reasoning about this in the first place right is

that like we don't feel like oh we we have to like basically kind of like you know feel forced to like shill it or like whatsoever because again at the end of the day our the primary users of this infrastructure is ourselves we are not building this infrastructure for like a third party it's really kind of for us to solve our own problem uh but in that process we just realized that like you know people talk to us that like hey um I really want to use this as well and I'm happy to like contribute back to the community by building these like toolings and whatsoever um and so I think that's like just like magical right um but of course like again like it's like it's like really powerful to just be able to like get more people um to like hop on the ecosystem because

like um there is like some like level as you said like kind of just like kind of these like activation energy before like people have these like documentations and the mind share and whatsoever and so we're doing a lot of efforts just kind of like onboarding developers to it and like helping them get started helping them like Port over the game that they have been building um like even like helping them like you know like basically get to production and like you know even like like helping them fundraise like I think like you know like a lot of people really try to like all every time like people ask me and like and they want to build a fully onch game like they would ask me like hey Scott can you share your secret like fundraise like for a crypto game while everyone was like struggling whatsoever

and so like we kind of like see like kind of that as like kind of like where we want to be like you know in the future as well right we want to be like essentially a game publisher where we can help like other game developers to like kind of like eventually publish their game and get funding for it right and so um and that's really kind of like all there is to it um like you know again like we we don't really kind of like see um we don't really kind of like want to like kind of make this as oh like an L1 kind of like ecosystem play where we just like like throwing out Grands and like tokens to a bunch of people um and like at the because at the end of the day like our goal here is to build great games um and like you know

help people like you know like you know publish your games and whatsoever and so like we're just going to do whatever it takes to like you know be able to do that and like World engine is like for us like a very Primal part of that that's awesome it's uh kind of refreshing to hear people talk about just building good games and and not tokens or infrastructure for once so add tip to you there is dark uh Frontier like do you suspect that will spin off into its own like Community owned game that like people will kind of build on and maybe iterate on potentially or is that something that you look to contribute to further or uh what other games do you have in the PIP line I suppose yeah that's a great question um like dark Frontier for us is a is a is a

is a giant side quest right um like you know we are doing this to really kind of like figure out like and of push push the limit of like you know like you know our infrastructure and like first and and like first and foremost it's also an aage to like kind of like um kind of dark forests like again like I have like you know I learned a lot from like you know building Dark Forest and like you know um like you know the things that we're building from our guys is really inspired for a a lot of my work at like dark forest and so like that is really kind of like what like you know dark Frontier is going to be right is like these like om much and really kind of these Side Quests for arus um and eventually again like our goal is to do

the same thing that dark Forest did right like Dark Forest like was able to like hand off like you know their game to um the community really well they get like you know people like basically running their own rounds and games and like so on and so forth uh we're going to open source the entirety of like dark Frontier like from the client to like you know the cardinal game sh code that we wrote and of course the world engine itself so that people can basically build their own like version and like kind of build their own remix of dark Frontier um like at the same time we're also working on our own like kind of like larger Flagship game unfortunately uh we I'm not allowed to really announce it yet um like I'm technically the founder and CEO but like I also have a

team that will whip me if I kind of leak things too early um so like um so so like yeah I think like you know we we have like you know larger games that we're working working on the pipeline um and like you know like some like really kind of we we have these like arcade drops like we like to call it is like think about it as a games that you're able to like play for like you know five to 10 minutes like when you're bored and so like you know we have a bunch of these games that are just like in the pipeline we're just like waiting to like release um but we were like okay let's do this like one at a time right and so like yeah we in the kind of like next few months we'll kind of like have um a

bunch of these kind of like arcade drops and then like um we're also working at kind of a larger uh MMO game at the same time that like you know um we kind of like you know keep the audience like stay tuned to um but like um but like yeah that's like kind of like our plans from here like we um for dark Frontier uh we plan to kind of just like hand this off to the community uh and like we already have like um several people reach out and like being interested to like run their own version of dark Frontier U and like building your own like customization of dark Frontier and so like we're just excited to see kind of like um where it goes and I'm we're H like we are happy to kind of support however we can um on that front gosh

giving us giving us a cliffhanger here I love it it's really exciting to hear that you have a ton of awesome things in the pipeline too so yeah that second episode is starting to starting to come into fruition already you mentioned one thing that I want to dive a little deeper on so you kind of mentioned how dark Frontier you really wanted to build it just to like push the limits of the system how do you how'd that go like how' you feel about those results did you were you happy with like the througho you could get and the smooth experience you could provide kind of shed some light on that um I'm I'm like honestly surprised that like that it works as smoothly as like as it is like I was like expecting like honestly more like you know um like more fire and that was like and like honestly

the original reason why we weren't running this through the holidays but we I'm just like afraid that like okay like there might be a chance like you know there's like something we need to hop on but like luckily like you know it was really smooth sailing that like um like people were like finally oh my God finally we can like you know basically go to like our like you know holiday like you know like just like on like with peace and so like yeah I think like in general like you know we we we got a lot of like you know users to a point where like um it was like on a scale that you know again Dark Forest was never never really able to kind of really kind of like reach um with like you know basically performance that like you know again like was like order of

magnitude that we could like imagine and like uh and like yeah I think like I'm happy to just like also see that the users now are just like able to like on board to the game like much more easier right they don't have to worry about like gas anymore and that that's really kind of like my biggest like win I think so far is really dispelling the MTH between like if you make an onchain game it needs to be in terms of your ux um that's like really kind of my biggest dub of this all is like really just like hey like you know some people just like straight up don't realize that this is an onchain game but it is as Unchained that it could possibly get like literally every single move that you make on the game is an onchain transaction um but people don't even

realize and think about it and I think that's a huge win for me right be and like um at the end of the day like you know like the anent part is going to be interesting to some people and like that will like it leads to like very interesting emergent behavior um and like that's like what I'm really excited about right but like again not everyone that plays the game needs to know about that side of the world and like you have to that to reach that point where just like completely seamless is like is a win in my book right um and like in our scenario like you know again like if you're like kind of like playing Minecraft like Minecraft can have modding and you can use like code and whatsoever to extend the game but for majority of players you don't have to

but like for those that who do that do make mods right um their impact like you know not only impact themselves but they also impact the rest of the community the rest of the player base and that's like how we think about onchain games right is that like people think that oh like you know why would the player care why would the majority of player care about these like onchain and probability compossibility like no it's like fine that like not everyone is going to be able to understand and do that the fact is like there's going to be like a small part of the player that does and they're going to improve the like you know the playability and improve like you know um you know like entertain like you know like hundreds and thousands of like or like hundreds and thousands of like tens

of thousands of users and that's like a win in my book right in the same way in Roblox not everyone in Roblox built their own games or like build their own like you know um like you know like content and whatsoever but those two do like they are producing entertainment for like tens of thousands of people right and so that's like the way that I think about like you know these like onchain games so again like um you know like being fully onchain like being kind of like this like maximum L like you know like exploring the edge and pushing the plot of onchain games doesn't have to come at a cost of like you know user experience right and so like that's really kind of like um our biggest takeaway from this so far is like literally um like I have like a journal

of like you know wins of the week and then like one of my wins is literally people people don't realize this is an onchain game um and so like and so that's like basically kind of what I think about it yeah I was blown away at that I like it said fully on Shane I was like but this is so smooth like I didn't connect a wallet like I was like confused I was like but I know it's Scott like it's gonna be fully on chain so like yeah I have slacks from Sam going I don't believe it man there's no way check the chain right so one last question we already at one o'clock and you've already been really generous with your time but this is a quick question too but how much like over the course of this week and a

half since dark Frontier loss has your total data posting cost been it's it basically rounds down to like zero that we just didn't even track it um it's like I think like it's like very very minimal right it's just like basically like less than like it's less than like 100 bucks like it's just like if we kind of like you know convert this into like kind of production kind of like scale and whatsoever and production kind of like you know networks um it's basically rounding error like you know like in the grand scheme of things like this would have cost us like thousands of dollars if this was like um like you know MC me atda but like basically by like you know like using on Celestia like the cost like basically like BRS down to like you know practically zero for a company and this is like why again

like I'm saying like like like on like the like people always ask me like why onchain like I think like within like you know like the next few months like the question will no longer be like why onchain it's like you know like why not on Jan right um because it's just like we reach a point where there's like basically like like it's like there's like almost like no like reason not to build your game like fully on chain because like we solved the compute problem we solved like developer experience problem we solved the user experience problem and now we have like you know these Alda Solutions like you know now we have like abundance of true boot as well um so like yeah okay I have one more question and then I promise it's the last question but when you're talking to just whether it be friends

you know well educated sophisticated people in web 2 or or just anybody broadly and they ask you and you'd like say oh yeah I'm building crypto games on chain what the the first question I get every time when I mention crypto gaming is like okay well what part of that is better than what exists today what's your answer to that question my answer to that is economic emerging behavior my biggest thesis about like um like anything that is onchain really is economic emergent Behavior why is like Unis swap or why is dexus or like why is like you know defi money markets better than like um traditional Finance it's like the merging Behavior or like people building on top of those Primitives um like building untable and composable smart contracts on top of those

Primitives that expands the economic GDP of like or the economic activity of like you know the network or the blockchain or have whatever you want to call it the same thesis that I have with like you know onchain games is that like for every part that you have on chain um you will see emerging Behavior forms around it uh and like as like MMO game designers we Fascinate a lot in this concept of like emerging Behavior because um like because like that's like one of the Magics when like you know like people start like you know building entertainment for itself like you know you see like these user generate content those are forms of emergent behaviors um and the moment that you have emergent Behavior you as kind of like the creator of the game no longer have to like dog food content like you know like to to

the kind of user G themselves they will create entertainment onto itself um and so we see primitive form of like emergent behavior in like existing MMOs but now that we have like you know these like you know open like inable like smart contract layer this is like where like you know this emerging Behavior will kind of like compound like this is where like kind of like people will just have more design space to build things that like they have never been able to build an existing games before and so like I'm very very much like different than like the like crypto games like CEO like I just like not like I'm like not like very much like interested in like this idea of like oh ownership for the sake of ownership I think ownership in the in in a vacuum is like useless right

like um if want if we want to talk about ownership like you know like steam Marketplace have like ownership of like you know you can have ownership of like you know skins and like you know like csgo or like whatever like you can buy and sell like you know these like skins on the steam Marketplace or what have you like those are kind of like ownership those are like just like nfts right like but the magic of like um like you know like blockchain or like you know crypto games is the fact that your nft can be used in any arbitrary like way that you want you can like put it as like I don't know an nft lending protocol you can put it as like put it on the nft on like let's say a guilt contract that they will kind of pay out

the returns to or like they can like you know put it in nft bank or like whatever right and so these are kind of the beautiful thing that um that like I think like you know what is exciting about anent game so ownership for the sake of ownership is I think like really kind of like a very fake kind of like I think like kind of like you know like I think like takeaway from like crypto games what is I think the most beautiful like you know like value at of like have having anything on chain is the fact that like you will see people building on top of it right and this could be like anything from like the G and the entire game State being fully on chain or just like you know the nft being on chain like you will see emergent

Behavior form around anything that is like you know onchain data um even like you know your like you know like defi shitcoins like you know there are emerging behaviors that forms around those like def5 coins um despite the fact that there is a mergent be like like the the blockchain allows for this like per missional emergent behavior um and so that's like basically our like you know biggest thesis with like uh with like crypto games is like how can we maximize emergent behavior and most particularly how can we explore um these economic Emer behaviors to expand the economic activity and increase the GDP of the game because like one of the most frustrating things about like MMOs is that they like a lot of people like

would research this economy and like you know of like you know these like MMO games and like whatsoever and like the the the game developers or like the users just don't have that much tool to really expand or tap into this like growing economy of of the game and like the moment that you're able to do that then I think you build something really magical and I think that's like one thing that crypto games need to lead on to is like kind of like encouraging this emergent Behavior to form instead of like running away from it right I think like a lot of like you know crypto games are like shying away from like letting the users do anything with their game and like oh like like you know let's just like do the most minimal form of crypto integration let's just do achievements on chain where like

literally like sure you can do a mergin behavior like over this achievements nfts but like it's really really hard to like really kind of like think about like you know these like kind of like you know you know like these kind of like emerging behavior when you only have like very very trivial state but the moment that you have like you know very very kind of like critical and like kind of like you know core game State like you know that just opens the door for many many more things and I could go on about this for hours as well no I love it and honestly Scott we're gonna have to do this again because I know Dan and I both still have a bunch of questions but for the sake of your afternoon thanks so much for coming on do you want to tell people where they

can find you and maybe if you have some maybe it's too late but I was gonna say if you had some Play codes for for dark Frontier we could drop them in the show notes but I'll hand it over to you to say goodbye yeah yeah uh so like yeah like so like uh you can like reach reach out to me on my social I'm like very active on Twitter so twitter.com smardo so like SM then my last name um and then like yeah if you want to keep in touch about like dark Frontier uh we're at like twitter.com dark Frontier G um and like Argus is like at twitter.com Argus labore um and so like yeah um like thanks for having me and like you know this has been like a very great conversation awesome man we will catch you hopefully in the next few months so

thanks for coming on Cheers Cheers you hey everyone thanks so much for tuning in today's episode we hope you really enjoyed it wanted to take one more moment to remind you guys about our upcoming 2024 digital asset Summit in London this March seats are limited so be sure to hit the link in the description and use promo code 0x20 to save 20% off on your ticket we'll see you in London be sure to hit us up if you plan on [Music] attending