Townforge is an open source economy planning game built on top of a Monero fork, where every in-game event is contained in a public transaction, ensuring full history preservation and cheating prevention. Players can optionally build voxel based representations of their buildings on a procedurally generated 3D landscape, and engage in a number of ways to earn on-chain gold.Mainnet starts on the 3rd of JulyLaunch has been delayed to address consensus issues identified with the influx of new players.
Source code:
https://git.townforge.net/Precompiled binaries (Linux, Windows, Mac):
https://townforge.net/downloadQuick linksSocial media
Basic gameplayThe basic Townforge gameplay is about buying land in a town (some places are better than others, so looking around for nice spots is a good idea), creating various types of buildings on that land, and managing income from those. Other gameplay styles are also possible, typically based on complex economic interactions leading to emergent strategies, with no pre-defined player career archetypes - basically you are free to choose your own destiny and ambitions.
EconomicsTownforge is a PoW blockchain, with an emission schedule similar to Monero's, but with faster block times for smoother gameplay. Additionally, in-game DAOs also receive regular emission (about 9% of the total emission), to be automatically distributed to game players based on their gameplay performance. As in Monero, a tail emission exists to ensure long term playability.
DAOThe town treasuries are automated game accounts controlled solely by consensus rules, ie Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. They receive regular new emission as per consensus rules, as well as income from player economic activity (buying land, purchasing building materials, etc). Four times a day, the DAO pays players based on their buildings' performance, as well as a measure of their in-game prestige.
NFTsAnyone can create new in-game Non Fungible Tokens with custom designs stored on IPFS (Interplanetary File System). The game can display that data if they're images. Items are not limited to NFTs, and can be integrated into gameplay. Player designed items can also embed gold, which can be redeemed
at any later point. These gilded items contribute to a player's prestige and income.
Decentralized marketplaceTownforge items (construction materials, gemstones, NFTs, food, etc) can be traded in the in-game marketplace, where bids and offers are transactions which can be matched and mined by any miner, thereby executing the sale/purchase.
PrestigeCollecting gold coins and gemstones boost your prestige score, which leads to extra regular income to the twenty most prestigious players. Optimize your collection to become one of the Townforge elite. Gold coins and gemstones can be traded on the open market, and coins may be redeemed for their gold content at any time.
Monetary instrumentsYou can raise money by mortgaging buildings (automated repayments, and the building will be automatically auctioned if you default on repayments). You can auction building and items. You can create an in-game company and issue freely tradable shares on the market. You can issue dividends in money and items.
Merge miningTownforge is merge mined with Monero (at the miner's option). This works for both solo mining and pool mining. Merge mining affords Townforge some of Monero's network security while avoiding extra energy expenditure. Mine Townforge, and you also mine Monero with no additional cost. A PoW/PoS hybrid may be added in the future.
Circular economyThe in game economy is based around the city treasury DAOs, which fill up with the money players spend on land, building construction and maintenance as well as the regular coin emission, and provides players with income based on how well they perform in the game. This means that money players spend playing the game will ultimately flow back to them, leading to a circular economy not unlike the real world economy.
In game decentralized chatIn game chat is based on transactions that get to the txpool but never get mined, therefore allowing completely decentralized chat while avoiding blockchain bloat. Supports custom chat colors and built-in emojis, with new unlockable styles based on player achievements.
Fair launchThere is no ICO, no premine, but Sigrid is mayor of the first town needed to bootstrap the game. Townforge is PoW mined. About 9% of the total emission goes to the in-game DAOs. 0.25% of those 9% go to a game account, controlled by the devs. Some of this will be used as prizes for in game competitions, but for the purposes of fair launch, you can assume it all goes to the devs, since they can theoretically take all of it. The rest of that DAO money will automatically trickle down to players according to the game rules, allowing every node to verify all the money goes exactly where it's meant to.
BadgesBadges are obtained by meeting a number of milestones. More badges and higher level badges increase your level, which unlocks new building materials, chat colors and give a prestige boost, as well as allow you to increase RPG attributes used in storyline scripts and live events.
Mortgages and raising fundsA player may mortgage any building to get a cash infusion. Like everything else, this is fully decentralized and rules bound: the player selects a building, how many repayments and for how much, and the game creates new items representing that mortgage, which the player can then sell on the decentralized market. Should the player not be able to meet repayments, the mortgaged building will be automatically sold in auction and proceeds paid to creditors.
Survival aspectsLife in Townforge requires food and warmth. If you can't get these, your buildings will deactivate until those needs are fulfilled. Food can be obtained from others in the marketplace or created by farming. Warmth is ensured by keeping stocks of wood. Farming is season based (a game year lasts a real life week), and winters are colder, requiring more firewood. Manage your food stocks well and make a profit on the markets selling any surplus.
Tech treeVarious discoveries are waiting to be found, providing various bonuses to the discoverer, who can elect to licence the rights to the discovery on the decentralized market.
Found your own townYou can become the mayor of your own town by founding a new town. The more the game grows, the cheaper it becomes to found a new town. As mayor of your town, you can attract new settlers by specializing your town with a choice of bonuses. Mayors get 0.1% of their town's DAO treasury. Choose your random seed to customize your new town's surroundings and bonuses. Players may have buildings in as many towns as they choose.
Complex economic interactionsBuildings' performance is based not only on their intrinsic properties such as their size and type, but also on where they're placed (different locations in the world offer varying bonuses for different building types) and on what other buildings are around it. An influence system allows buildings to help each other out.
CollectiblesGold coins are the main in game collectible, and various designs are created automatically as the game reaches certain milestones. A better coin collection gives prestige, which in turn make players eligible for extra income. Gemstones (found randomly by stonecutters) give bonuses in building performance as well as prestige. Players may also create their own freeform collectible items, including NFTs.
Scripted storylineAn optional storyline and similar game events will be implemented, in the form of scripts added to the chain, allowing new events to unfold without software updates, just by getting new data off the blockchain. The game theme is loosely based on old Norse culture, around 950 CE.
Full API accessThere is JSON RPC for pretty much everything, allowing new clients to be made, focusing on whatever part of the game (or cryptocurrency) they like. For instance a separate web based marketplace trading client could be made. A NFT viewer is in the process of being made, and it might acquire buy/sell functionality later.
FutureSeveral features are planned after the mainnet launch, including feasts (providing bonuses to participating players and based on inter city competition), possible PoW/PoS hybrid system from inside the game world, art patronage for cultural buildings, as well as private messaging. More aesthetic items will also be added, to be sold by the game. Consensus/balance tweaks may also happen at some point.
