What to Expect at Autonomous Worlds

ETHGlobal
4 min readMay 9, 2023

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Explore the future of onchain gaming in ETHGlobal x Lattice & 0xPARC’s new virtual hackathon.

We invite you to join the first virtual Autonomous Worlds hackathon and collaborate with developers, creatives and game designers worldwide to build worlds and tooling with us in a 5 day online hackathon. Put what you see as the fullest possible expression of an Autonomous World to the test!

🟤 Autonomous Worlds at a glance:

What is Autonomous Worlds?

New forms of computation enable fundamentally new kinds of virtual Worlds. Autonomous Worlds are not just Worlds that happen to exist onchain, but Worlds that could not exist otherwise. The unique affordances of Autonomous Worlds can be glimpsed in early experiments with onchain games, but their full potential remains to be realised…

👨‍💻 Early game developers could create single-player worlds with personal computing, enabling individuals to immerse themselves in text adventures or pixel-based games.

📠 Networked computing allowed for these private interactive experiences to be expanded into multiplayer Worlds.

🌐 The arrival of on-chain computing brings with it the possibility of Autonomous Worlds: multi-author, maximally persistent Worlds that can not only be experienced by multiple inhabitants, but also expanded by them.

Participants will explore the potential of multi-author Worlds by developing onchain games, worlds, and art projects. Leverage the power of MUD, a new framework designed for ambitious Ethereum applications, and follow in the footsteps of dozens of teams that have already built unique projects with it, including OPCraft — an onchain voxel world, EVM Factorio, real-time strategy games, and more.

The MUD Framework

The MUD framework has made it significantly easier to build complex systems on top of Ethereum and develop Autonomous Worlds. It solves the challenges of building on-chain games by addressing three main problems:

  • keeping the client and contract state in sync
  • architecting the game to make it easy to add more content later
  • ensuring interoperability with other games.

“It is now possible to rapidly prototype and build out an AW idea in the span of a hackathon.”

MUD is built around an architecture pattern called entity component system (ECS), which is a popular pattern in the traditional gaming industry. With ECS, entities are just a collection of components, and systems implement the logic. MUD handles the state sync automatically, and adding content is trivial. Any MUD world is by default interoperable with any other MUD world.

Still not sure what to build? Don’t worry — we have a day of informative workshops, Technical Mentors, Brainstorming, and Project Feedback Sessions to let you push the boundaries of web3 with confidence!

What is this hackathon about?

Take your chance to explore new technologies for onchain gaming this May and unfold the potential of Autonomous Worlds by pushing the boundaries of on-chain gaming with the best developers and designers in the ecosystem. We want you to be there!

Our goal is to enable people to build incredible things on top of Ethereum — Virtual Worlds whose rules run on the EVM and whose state is secured by Ethereum. Although these are generally referred to as on-chain games, we prefer to call them Autonomous Worlds because we believe it extends beyond gaming and is about granting autonomy and sovereignty to complex systems. However, building large on-chain projects can be challenging.

That is why we are thrilled to be joining forces with the dedicated teams of 0xParc and Lattice , two organizations at the frontier of onchain worlds. 0xPARC incubated Dark Forest, the first onchain game; and Lattice is stewarding MUD: a framework for ambitious onchain applications. With the help of MUD, Lattice and Optimism recently collaborated on OPCraft: a onchain voxel world.

Thanks to these tools, you can now prototype and bring your AW idea to life! We want introduce more developers and creatives to the ideas of Autonomous Worlds, the MUD framework, and this burgeoning AW community.

So be playful, brave and build something crazy!

🙋‍♂️Getting Help

Online hackathons are made to be fun and challenging! If you’re running into trouble during the event, we encourage you to reach out to our Technical Mentors. We also have Discord channels for Autonomous Worlds where you can ask any questions you have.

Helpful Tips:

  • Need to talk to a Partner team member? → #sponsor-name
  • Can’t remember when a workshop starts? → #⏰event-schedule
  • Need help with your application/dashboard? → #🛟Support channel

Resources:

📕 [Pre-release] MUD2 Documentation

📺 An introduction to MUD

👾 OPCraft in Review

🛠️ How we built OPCraft

→ Apply now to hack: https://ethglobal.com/events/autonomous

We’re thrilled to host the Autonomous Worlds Hackathon this May, and we can’t wait to see what incredible ideas and projects our participants will bring to life. So, gather your team, bring your creativity and innovation, and build something amazing! See you there!

Submit your application by Tuesday, May 16 at 11:59pm ET to save your spot, and get ready to make your mark on web3 history.

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ETHGlobal
ETHGlobal

Written by ETHGlobal

Onboarding thousands of developers to the Ethereum ecosystem. Supported by L4, SV Angel, and the Ethereum Foundation.

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