Zero-Sum-Pact is a project that brings together art, history, and strategy into an collabratvie on-chain experience.
We are building a fully on-chain, correspondance-style board game that allows hundres of player to all play together on the same set of "boards".
Crafted by half-Japanese artist @K.Nami, this collection is an reflection on the long lasting scars of war. Each trait is carefuly crafted facet of war: shattered childhood, seperated family, inflation, greed and gluttony.
Our design process began with the Shape Network's minimalistic black circle logo. After realizing it resembled a Pac-Man with a closed mouth, the concept evolved into a Pac-like figure, symbolizing the insatiable appetite for resources which is the root of conflicts.
Inspired by the Go, Pac-Man, and Diplomacy, this is an original multi-player "board game" designed by @ubinhash, allowing hundreds of players to compete asynchronously. It puts up players in a battle for scarce resources. The decision to compete, or collaborate, is in the player's hand.
We're building a browser-based collaborative strategy board game (ZeroSumPact), inspired by Go, Pacman and Dipomacy. Where hundred of player can compete in the same game asynchronously.
We want this game to mimic a mini-society where resources act as a double-edged sword— it's is something that brings people together something that sparks conflict.
The game is token-gated by our NFT collection for now. Players can play to earn reward as such 1/1 NFT, rare traits, mint fund for this season.
In future season, we would like to invite other nft community on shape to join the game together with us.
Player will compete for limited resource (dots) that is scattered around in a set of mazes. Player may "eat" others to obtain portions of their dots from lower level players. Lower level players may collaborate to "surround" a higher level player to rob and split its dots.
• In the initial phase of game, player have limited move per day, they can hop across the mazes with some limitation, do some path-planning and collect dots from the maze efficiently.
• At the later stage of game when "dots" are getting depleted, that's where the competitive - collaborative play come in. Player will have the tendency to form "alliances" with other players, collaborate to rob the dots from other player and vote for governers.
• At higher level player may unlock shield, and they may extend shield time by burning OTOM. To ensure they game doesn't become stagnant, their shield will of turned off for a short period whenever they move.
• Elimination mode will begin when all the dots are depleted, but the game may end before that happens 🤔️
There will be different ending conditions & reward such as 1/1 NFT from our collection, percentage mint fund will be distributed to players depending on the ending condition they triggered. People at different level will have So player may form alliance to work toward that goal collectively based on what they are aiming form.
Shapecraft key and eye will give player an advantage in game.
The key will unlock a special maze.
The eye will give you +1 stride. (allows player to move two step ahead or diagonal)
The game ends when players from a level dominates the resource.
There are different rewards distribution for different endings, so players might be aiming for different endings based on their current standing.
Please check out the https://www.zerosumpact.xyz/rules page for details
Game Contract: 0xfbc78eb3Da5daeaB4C7919d9C86b4e73EA48ad3F
Game-Equip Contract: 0x029475695b3A94C7ca6508d189592A558DEfF186
Maze Contract: 0xBA9d8dEa3C034787A1c34879b3A1514de7c7319F
Reward Contract: 0x7e3023d80035d74616094cf60F05E158aFe2bbbe
NFT Contract: 0x27b9FC734E9cA7C27988a857391b7EdfCE7e979f
Game Contract: 0xF1015Df39007C7b2A44bB4EF8B88ED8f0534B251
Game-Equip Contract:0xD723E4733667F065a455b284a36f327fBc483506
Maze Contract: 0xb7f9a13d62ac6148538662D55A1b3E8e158A0e9e
Reward Contract:0xacEaF91EdE0bD82f619732ebF1d9c31cCdd8B252
NFT Contract:0x254A5096467131D39da35E6064BBa351558F441D
We are using shape-sepolia for demo.
We have deployed our contract on shape-mainnet but we are not fully ready to launch the NFT collection. Since the game is token-gated we think it's would be the best to demo this on shape-sepolia.
Our Website: https://www.zerosumpact.xyz/
You will need to get some testnet sepolia token to get started:
Faucet: https://docs.shape.network/documentation/tools/faucets
To build shield, you will need to get to lv3 and get some testnet molecule (combine otom to form molecule) from golid's project. feel free to tag me on discord (@ubinhash) or send me an email if the judges would like want me to adjust any game parameters to test out these features.
Step1: Mint NFT
Step2: Head to the game page
Step3: Select a NFT from the upper right, and click "Enter Game" to join
Step4: Move around to eat dots. You may select other NFT to join the game and try out attacking each other.
Step5: Vote governer. Invite other friends to join. You will need to level up to unlock shield
This is designed to be a large scale multi-player correspondance game , where you take a few minute to make a few moves everyday and all the players are playing on a shared "board". so it might be a bit bland to play it by yourself when the board isn't filled with other players yet.
Due to contract size constraint and for re-usability concern, we broke up the game into modules and link them together.
Contains main game configuration and most logistics of the game such as ending conditions etc.
Below are some main functions that player will interact with
enterGame : Enters the game by registering their Pac NFT. No transfer required.
(We are open to co-host future season with other nft communities in the future to jointly offer reward. We will be able to whitelist their nft to enter the game along with our Pacs.)
movePlayerTo : Move a player to a certain location. This will interact with maze contract to check what specific event it trigger such consuming a dot, eating other players, switching maze.
rob: Rob a player for dots when it's surrounded on four sides.
buy_shield: Buy Shield with eth.
forfeit: Exit and game and transfer all dots to another active player.
lockin : Exit the game and preserve all dots. (Available after lvl 3)
This is a helper contract of game for storing the maze info and player locations, contains helper functions for making movement in the maze.
Game contract will interact with maze contract to query and upate the maze state when making moves.
NFT contract will interact with the maze contract to unlock maze, when certain mint count is triggered, new mazes are unlocked.
Player do not make write action to this contract directly.
This is a helper contract of game for letting players "equip" other NFTs, such as the eyes, the keys and OTOM.
equipEyes: player can equip eyes to one Pac(nft character) to increase their max stride. No transfer required.
unequipEyes: to prevent player from abusing the system, player may unequip eyes after 24 hours.
equipKeys: player can equip a shapecraft key to appoint one Pac(nft character) to enter a speicial maze. One time use only for each season. No transfer required.
shield: player have to transfer their OTOM molecule to contract to increase shield time. The amount of time added is related to molecule's hardness.
We added a owner-only transfer-out function in case someone accidentally transfered precious OTOMs to contract without calling shield, but theoractically OTOM molecules will stay forever in the contract.
There's an additional component in GameEquip that is related to a unique mechanism in our game.
In most of the game out there, the laws of physics of the world a.k.a the parameters is controlled by the game creator.
Here we're adding this little experiment to see what if we give user the right to play with some major parameter that will affect every player in game.
voteForGoverner: players in the game can vote for a governer. The highest voted player wil automatically become the govener at UTC 0:00.
setEat: The governer will have one chance to set the EAT_PERCENTAGE parameter anywhere between 0% - 100% for that day. This will determine how much dot a player lose when it's eaten by another player(the player eaten must be the same or lower level).
The middle-class will probably pray hope for a governer that will set EAT_PERCENTAGE to a low value, and player with no dots will pray for the opposite. As for the highest level player, it depends on their relationship with other high-level players.
Things can turn upside down overnight when a new "governer" got elected and make drastic change to the parameter. We're excited to see what to come.
This is a contract to store nft reward and for user to claim nft rewards. Game contract will call this contract to add user to add trait, or add user to the claim whitelist when condition is triggered.
For this very first season of the game, we have prepared the following level reward.
Lv 3 Player: Special NFT Trait
Lv 4 Player: 1/1 NFT (Max 10)
Lv 5 Player: Custom NFT (Our artist will craft it upon request)
For details please check out the rules page.
We expect to make adjustment to this contract everytime we run a new season based on the prize we/future collaborator plans to offer.
mintAndStoreNFT (owner only): we will invoke this when contract is deployed to store special nft in this contract for future reward.
GiveReward (only allowed operator): game contract will invoke this function when player reached a levl with reward. Player will be added to corresponding whitelist or give special trait depending on their level.
ClaimNFTOneOne: eligible players will be able to claim 1/1 NFT
ClaimNFTSpecial: Max 1 eligible players will be able to claim the god-tier nft.
This is the contract for our collection. This collection is designed specifically for this hackathon.
It will interact with maze contract to unlock new mazes when mint surpass certain threshold.
publicMint/whitelistMint : allows user to mint the nft. The contract will automatically send rewardPercentage of fund to the reward contract. It will also check with maze contract to trigger maze unlock when threshold is met.
setSpecial (only allowed operaters): the game contract will interact with this via the reward contract function to set certain nft to special as a in-game reward for locking-in at lv3.
The Game.js file in ignition folder contains relevant setup for deployement to link the set of contracts together.
Create a hardhat.config.js file with relevant network configand priviate key to deploy.
We're using Next.js + wagmi + rainbowkit to for frontend.
Install relevant npm packages, npm run dev to test it out on locally.
edit frontend components/config/config.js to set backend api url if needed.
We are using express.js for backend to call relevant alchemy api(nft.js), read from contract (gamesetting.js), or parse the indexed events from database (gamestate.js).
Install relevant npm packages, set the following variables in .env
ALCHEMY_API_KEY : Your Alchemy API Key
RPC_SEPOLIA/RPC_MAINNET : RPC URL
GAME_SEPOLIA/GAME_MAINNET : Game Contract
GAME_EQUIP_SEPOLIA/GAME_EQUIP_MAINNET : Game-Equip Contract
MAZE_SEPOLIA : Maze Contract
ZSP_SEPOLIA : Our Zero-Sum-Pact Nft Contract
With additional parameters to connect to our database server .
DB_CONNECTION_STRING : database connection string
DB_NAME: defined in gamesate.js for now, please edit this based on how you deploy your goldsky pipeline
You need node.js version 18+. You may need to modify the cors setting based on your frontend if you're not testing on localhost, please add your domain to allowed origin andremember to generate ssl certificate for your domain for api and open relevant ports on your server.
Then use node index.js to run the backend server on localhost or use pm2 start index.js --name "my-backend"
Generate SSL Cert files in /etc/letsencrypt/live/api.zerosumpact.xyz/
Put relevant NGINX config in /etc/nginx/sites-available/api.zerosumpact.xyz
Start NGINX to serve it over https
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/api.zerosumpact.xyz /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Displaying a large "board/maze" with all player position in real time requires indexing all the movement events.
We're using goldsky's mirror pipeline to stream event log directly to our database server and parse it from there, it's probably more straightforward and cost-effective solution compare to subgraph as we will expect very frequent queries of board status.
Use goldsky pipeline apply config(3).yaml to deploy a pipeline. (you will need to create a secret base on your database connection string first)
You will need to setup a database server with relevant ports open to allow external connection.
- Alchemy api
- Hardhat
- Wagmi + Rainbowkit library for wallet connection
- Express.js for backend
- Goldsky for indexing
- Postgres for database
- Next.js for frontend
- Nginx & pm2 for backend deployment
- Vercel for frontend deployment
- GCP
- OTOM by golid
- The "eyes" and the "keys" NFT
The contracts are live are mainnet but the nft sale is not live yet so the game is not playable on mainnet yet. You may try out testnet version for now, the code are exactly the same except for some parameters.
We plan to publicly launch the NFT on mainnet ideally later in January after further polishing and testing. We will take some time to curate the generated art, potentially add more traits, and do some edit on frontend and adjust game parameter.
Our current plan is to launch ~500 NFT at ~0.015 eth.
We are open for feedback and suggestions regarding the mint price and quantity and the game. Our goal is to avoid a single player owning an excessive number of NFT characters while ensuring that the mint price is balanced—neither too low (to maintain a meaningful reward pool and fund our team) nor too high (to remain accessible).
We might need to adjust some game parameter if we edit the total quantity to ensure the game is balanced.
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Accessibility Tools
- Built in chatroom
- Mobile friendly version
- Reward claim frontend (currently only available via direct contract interaction)
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More advanced game mechanics
- Formal Alliances Feature
- Introduction of weapons, guild
- Adding items onto the maze which can trigger special effects
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Future NFT collections + Alternative game version
- We might introduce "ghost" characters . Player holding the "ghost" nft will player a very different role in the game and will have different winning condition.
We hope to collaborate with other NFT projects on shape for future seasons. (eg: Deeple, Shapet). It will work like this in ideal case
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Both communities agree to add something to the reward pool (eg, special item, whitelist spot, airdrop)
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Based on the number of reward, adjust the ending condition parameters and level parameters.
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Set up reward contract to store the reward for claiming (if it's nft) or to track recipient of a reward to be sent later.
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Based on the max number of players (total number of nft that may enter the game), we may adjust the number of mazes.
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We may (or may not) add some minor special mechanics that's related to our partner's project.
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Announce the rules, Deploy a new season.
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Browser Accessible
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Fully On-Chain for Transparency
In addition, we will be able to add the Gasback from previous season to future reward pot.
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Asynchronous Play for Maximum Flexibility
No grinding required, players are expected to spend ~10 minute per day on the game and a season may last for weeks before ending condition is met. A simple way to make interacting with project on shape part of people's daily routine.
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Novelty in Reward Distribution (multi-ending)
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Experimentation with user-controlled game rule
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Cheat-proof design It is challenging to design a fully-on chain, perfect information board game that is resilient to AI and botting.
In our game it's designed such that if everyone is a perfect playing selfish-actor, it will naturally converge toward an average distribution of dots, which is much less than the minium level to obtain reward.(At lower level shield is not unlocked) Even if a few player break from the equilibirum, they can't end the game by themselves unless they control 50% of the the players.
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Modular design to allow future integration with other projects We are interested in inviting other nft holders to our game for future season. With that in mind the game contract is already designed such that we can easily add and remove allowed nft contracts to enter the game and it requires minimal change in frontend/backend as well. In the future season we just have to write a new reward contract for each season to customize the reward.
We've already integrated with shapecraft key, eyes and otom, these unlocks certain features in game.
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Original art collection The collection is created for this hackathon by our artist, we've included a few 1/1 (shown on our website) that pays tribute to existing projects on shape as well.
This game is designed like a mini social experiment to allow hundres of player to participate asynchonously. If all player are "selfish actors" and all traverse locally optimal path, they won't be able to break free from the "equilibirum" state where all player basically gets the average amount of dots -- this is less than what's required to get to a level with reward. In order level up, player will realize they have to collaborate with others, make deals/sacrifices, collaborate to surround other "prey" that out there alone , and the first set of players to realize that will level up and unlock shield which gives them a huge advantage in game.
People on web3 have limited time and attention, I don't want to build a game that requires too much grinding. I want this game to fit into those little pockets of free time in a day -- easy to pick up, easy to put down. And this will help the game become part of people's daily routine.
It's a less action-packed game where players have limited moves per day. The fact that the game itself is not so action-packed actually encourages player to chat and connect with one another while they're waiting for others to move. we hope our game and art works in sychrony to bring the community together and help people reflect on the increasingly divided world we are living in.
In the end, we hope the players will have fun at what we built, there're lot of potential strategy that player can try out for the game and we're excited to see what ending will the world come to!