Thank you for the valuable feedback & constructive criticism! We definitely need more comments like this.


I also grew up with UO, MUDs, and I have followed Runescape despite not actively playing it. Big influencer here has also been EVE Online, I should add. I remember unboxing my UO as a kid, which came with a cloth sheet of Bretonnia's map, a pin, and all other goodies - firing up my game to enter a vast, immersive world familiar to me from the Ultima series with Lord British himself making appearances, and myself in the world able to carve my own destiny and mold it to my liking or at least make a little dent to steer the course of Bretonnia. I can relate to your main point of criticism: making the game easily approachable so that there's low threshold fun to be had, e.g. jump into a medieval RPG and go bash some skulls in an arena, or embark on an dragon slaying adventure for some dank loot. Games are one thing, having a "2nd job to play" is an another thing.

I think how Townforge differs fundamentally from many of the other crypto-games presented also here on BCT, is that the game itself truly is crypto. Many of the platforms we've seen when scouting out crypto games are basicly bundles of games implemented centrally, with a decentralized cryptocurrency connecting the input and output of currency in said games. A bit like, the blockchain itself is not the game, it's just the poker chips that you move from table to table in a casino, where the tables reside in centralized servers functioning in real-time. Townforge instead implements the "poker table"; all the moves, actions, etc, are stored precisely in the blockchain, and the chips that go with them.

This does impose some restrictions. A game that is stored elsewhere and just interacts with the cryptocurrency interface to give people credit is much more free to implement e.g. real-time interactions. In Townforge, with a block storing all the actions in the game and a target time of 1 minute discovery rate per block, for example real time movement required for combat or seeing other player characters move around is rendered impractical. Economics-wise Townforge resembles perhaps games like Banished (resource management and overall theme) or Cities: Skylines.

I think abstraction-wise Townforge and the UO-type games do also have one big distinction: in UO you play on a "micro level", as a single character, with your character's assets and attributes. In Townforge, we're working more on a macro level, where a player is actually an aggregate of individuals and represents a set of structures, and the population that inhabits them (and e.g. has to take care of them to fight famine and cold). In this sense mentioning UO might trigger a false impression, that one embarks on an individual-level adventure, collecting loot and slowly progressing in terms of combat, spellcasting, crafts skills, etc. In reality, Townforge might resemble said city simulation games, with a mix of Minecraftian building mechanics. We're currently trying to address the issue of "individual-level immersiveness" by implementing text-based quests with choice & consequence via a custom scripting language in the near future, but I acknowledge this is a long stretch from games like UO or Runescape.

I have been trying to fondle the idea of conflict and war, which currently don't exist in the game. I've mostly been inspired by ideas stemming from games such as Travian and Planetarion, persistent web browser games genre that started popping up in early to mid 2000s. Basically you were a village chief (former) or an emperor of a galactic superpower (latter); since the games were running persistently on 24/7 basis and you could conquer new land (or solar systems), build new structures (or starbases), research tech, form alliances etc, the conflict that does draw people's interest also functioned on a macro level with time systems that could work also on blockchain level. For example, in Travian you could see that a competing clan has declared war on you, and within 48h hostilities would begin. Based on vague geographic coordinates, one could send raid parties of various composition to pillage and loot or conquer land - you could for example see an incoming warband arriving to your land in 8 hours, and a vague report of their composition given by your scouts. In Planetarion, the composition of an attacking (and defending) space fleet would be simulated by the game upon conflict, and outcome would result in e.g. solar systems being captured or other interesting consequences rising from conflict. It will remain to be seen whether we have the resources, time or creativity to implement such ideas.


Thanks once again for an important pointer. The genre you're referring to is definitely more approachable to a gaming audience, but it might be too much of a leap to go that way at this point for our two-man indie team where we both have "primary dayjobs". We definitely went a long way already prior to making this announcement, so it wasn't made lightly; currently we'd need more engagement from a community, including play-testing and balancing. There's loads of people looking for easy hand-outs, and only very few who are willing to or capable of contributing anything of practical use.

We've been trying to create a hybrid unique to our own liking, but it's always a bit risky to go our way, especially on a unique decentralized platform going with fully open source and transparency in the project has definitely also made this a long journey already, especially for Mooo who has been carrying the weight of the software implementation.