Townforge: open source and free crypto-MMO with BSD licenseTHE GAME IS CURRENTLY IN A TESTNET AND TESTNET CURRENCY WILL NOT TRANSITION TO THE MAINNET.Please note that due to recent developments in Freenode, we have transitioned to using #townforge in libera.chat instead
Name: Townforge
Currency: gold
Type: Game built on a unique blockchain, with its own accompanying cryptocurrency
Base: Monero fork (heavily modified)
Mineable: Yes
PoW algorithm: RandomX (can be merged mined with monero), and possibly later hybrid RandomX + proof of stake style mining
Emission: Infinite (same system as monero, with a tail emission)
Hey all,
tl;dr: Townforge is a persistent blockchain game of emergent economics and unleashed creativity, where you build a town on a voxel based 3D procedular landscape, competing with other players for income.
It's a "play a bit every day, building up your economic empire" style of game. For others, it can also be a creative outlet.
You can create buildings, research new technology, farm, collect gold coins for prestige income, create companies, loan money for interest to entrepreneurs, play the in-game markets, or just chat in game.
Townforge is a blockchain-based persistent crypto-MMO, Nordic settlers arrive to Greenland during the Medieval Warm Era and scheme to establish a player-driven society with complex economics and react to in-game events stemming from the lore.
All in-game actions are stored in the blockchain with a decentralized consensus driving the game logic, with the core of the blockchain coming from a heavily modified Monero fork.
In-game player account creation is done by depositing some gold from out-of-game wallet (with a 1 gold fee for anti spam purposes), and currency can then be freely deposited and withdrawn from inside the game.
Most game functionality happens with deposited gold.
Players can build impressive buildings using Minecraftian creative-mode like mechanics (though this 3D building facet of the game is optional).
All construction materials are obtained from the decentralized markets along with food, labour, and other necessary goods for creating and upkeeping the buildings.
The game offers an infinite last resort supply of building materials at a high price.
The intention is that players start producing said goods (such as stone via stonecutters and wood via sawmills) and compete to undercut this baseline as well as compete with each other.
Players can research new tech that gives them an edge, found new cities and become their mayor, specialize cities to attract certain types of settlers, buy land from towns, trade items and land, create custom items, hunt, sow and harvest crops, obtain levels via badges (="achievements"), raise roleplay attributes via leveling, upkeep buildings by supplying food and repairs, pay land taxes to city treasuries, et cetera.
The economic side of the game relies on two main ways to get income: producing items and treasury payouts.
Some key buildings earn a share of the treasury coffers. The larger the land and the higher the building's economic power (a measure of complexity of the building built on that land), the larger a share the building will earn.
Various bonuses apply, such as placing a building on land best suited for a given role or for close proximity to supporting building types.
A fixed percentage of the town treasury is allocated to buildings of a certain type, and then divided between all buildings of that type based on their relative size/economic power.
Other buildings do not receive treasury payouts, but produce materials or food instead. The player can then sell these products via the built-in peer to peer marketplace.
Town treasuries are automated consensus driven accounts which cannot be manually withdrawn from, and form the basis of the game's circular economy: player activity causes treasuries to grow, and this money is then redistributed to players based on how well their buildings do.
This redistribution gives an incentive to play the economical game well. However, we also intend to encourage aesthetical gameplay, such as building pretty and complex buildings that go above the limits of minimum required cubes per building. Terrain is generated procedurally and it is practically endless.
The block target is 1 minute. All player actions such as 3D building or resolving trade orders are embedded in special transactions and are mined in every block, and checked by every other game player for adherence to game rules.
Every 6 hours (360 blocks) a game "tick" occurs, during which heavier game update logic is resolved, such as: inactivation/activation of buildings, consumption of food, building decay, awarding new badges, etc.
The game has a GM-account which takes a 0.1% cut of the Townforge gold going into the towns' treasuries.
This money is intended to be used for creating roleplay events and award players as an incentive, as well as compensate the devs along the way for their efforts in developing and upkeeping the game.
The GMs do not have god-like powers, althought they have the following privileges: they may push new quests to the chain for players to participate in (work in progress), create new badges as rewards for interactive roleplay sessions, define new roleplay attributes, and as a form of moderating flag buildings and players to be ignored by the default client (for example, due to harrassment/phishing) - however, these ignore flags can be turned off manually in the client.
The game has been designed to be exit scam proof: gold deposited into a player's account can only be touched by that player (ie, withdrawals are automated and do not depend on approval for a central party) or by game consensus rules (ie, land tax at game ticks, or another player filling a market order).
The in-game currency - gold - can be obtained via mining or trading it from miners. There will be no ICO nor premine, but moneromooo will be mayor of the first town to bootstrap the game.
Other towns may be founded by other players. Certain in-game badges will be awarded on mainnet to people who contributed, helped out, or participated in testing on Townforge's testnet(s).
The game is open source and free, with its source available via Git. Further, we also offer pre-compiled binaries made by trusted members of the Townforge community.
Communication happens mainly via the main IRC channel (#townforge on libera.chat), in-game chat, as well as social media (townforge.net with a forum, along with Reddit, Twitter, Discord, as well as this BCT thread).
The testnet may reset from time to time, and is intended to fix bugs as well as to check various aspects of the game's balance with many players. Mainnet will start when we deem it ready.
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Some interesting facts of Townforge in no particular order:
- decentralized chat (based on txpool transactions that never get mined)
- decentralized marketplace
- tiny in-game transactions (~100 bytes is typical)
- pseudonymous in game transactions are separate from out private of game transactions (and thus do not affect the currency side's anonymity pool)
- merge mining with Monero
- complex voxel based world building connected to the player levels and attributes
Welcome to Townforge, fellow settlers! enjoy your journey, live long and prosper.
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Team:
Moneromooo (implementation, design) (Please note that the 'moneromooo' BitCoinTalk account is no longer in his control)
Syksy (design)
URLs:
Home: https://www.townforge.net
Git: https://git.townforge.net
Binaries: https://townforge.net/download
Forums: https://forum.townforge.net/
Blockchain explorer: https://explorer.townforge.net/
Extensive gameplay manual: https://www.townforge.net/manual/
FAQ: https://www.townforge.net/faq/
IRC:
##townforge @ freenode.net (accessible e.g. https://webchat.freenode.net)
#townforge @ libera.chat
Social media:
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Townforge/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Townforge
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/ygxGkfA
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Screenshots
An earlier build, v0.19 with a walled city prior to heightmaps:
Sculpting and larger buildings in v0.23 with heightmaps:
Multiple materials utilized as pixel art in v0.23:
Latest v0.27.0.5 build at the time of writing, with some researched tech:
Videos of gameplay & sculpting:
Windmill (v0.20.0.0), 2min 29s:
https://youtu.be/Bav4bB5T8K4
Early gameplay teaser (v0.19 - v0.20), 4min 44s:
https://youtu.be/lRyLFlPGptc
Syysville entrance (v0.20.0.0), 7min 16s:
https://youtu.be/ZVGpGfEzB54
Pegasus sculpting (v0.21.1.1), 4min 38s:
https://youtu.be/6DcvsUn99_k
Founding of a new City, Syystadt (v0.23.1.4), 8min 57s:
https://youtu.be/JcHqrkY8tEA
Importing buildings as VOX files from previous testnet to a new Syystadt, 21seconds of mining:
https://youtu.be/iB4_MidLGl8
Game tick heavy logic and city showcasing in v0.23.1.4, 19min 23s:
https://youtu.be/e3UCLVGj2Ts
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No set date for mainnet as of now. The game will be ready for deployment when we feel it's ready.