Loot Underworld

[rsodre]

Endless Crawler & funDAOmental - LOOT UNDERWORLD

Introduction

Name or social handle of proposer: [Mataleone] + [Recipromancer]

Ethereum Mainnet Address: [0xbF6516bA27F3a26b90e11712a04767222E977FD7]

ENS name (optional): [mataleone.eth] + [recipromancer.eth]

Twitter handle: [@matalecode] + [@recipromancer]

Any relevant links/Websites:

• Endless Crawler Client
• Ethereum mainnet contract
• OpenSea
• Endless Quest
• Hyperspace

Project Detail

We propose to build Loot Underworld, a multiplayer underworld of subterranean dungeons which extend below each Loot Realm.

Each Loot Realm will have its own unique dungeon underworld, made up of many chambers and levels which can be used as a composable substrate to build other experiences on top of.

Loot Underworld is a joint venture between Endless Crawler (Mataleone) and funDAOmental (Recipromancer), and will build on the work of Endless Crawler, and funDAOmental's Hyperbox, is a joint venture

This proposal aims to bring Endless Crawler into the Lootverse, and consolidate Endless Crawler Chambers (currently deployed on the Ethereum mainnet) as a new place in the Lootverse, accessible via Realms, and the Endless Crawler Autonomous World based on Dojo.

The integration possibilities are endless, and can easily go beyond the scope of one Frontinus House round, so this proposal focusses upon the first phase of work. We describe both the planned work for phase 1, and some information about further intended work.

Phase 1

Phase 1 is all about foundations. Our objective is to create a new permissionless, composable layer to the Loot & Realms ecosystem, allowing the extension of realms for different kinds of experiences.

We will port the Endless Crawler chamber generator into Cairo, allowing new chambers for each realm to be minted. Each Realm's underworld will have the same geographic proportions as the realm, and there are multiple entrances into a Realm's underworld from that realm.

In phase 1 the underworld for each Realm will only be one level deep, but we will later extend this to support multiple levels that increase in difficulty the deeper you go (defined by composable metadata), and we will add additional secret entrances distributed through each realm to various points in its underworld, which will be accessible via mechanisms such as moon gates that only open at the correct time, or with the correct words spoken or reagents.

Goals:

• Port the Endless Crawler chamber generator from Solidity to Cairo.
• Realm Lords can mint Chambers freely, attached to their Realms.
• The Underworld is a new layer under each Realm.
• The Underworld can grow indefinitely to the Realm boundaries, just by exploring it.
• The Underworld is in scale with Realms, creating secret connections and shortcuts between places in each Realm.
• Add Underworlds to the Crawler SDK.
• Enable a custom Eternum interface/plugin to mint and explore Realms Underworld.
• Enable new games to be created by anyone, using the Underworlds.

Endless Crawler chambers

Further Intended Work

We have been collaborating to build out the Hyperbox protocol and Hyperspace, a local-first, collaborative tile-based metaverse that supports both 2D and 3D, built on Hyperbox. Subsequent to phase 1 we intend to leverage Hyperbox in Loot Underworld as a layer of tooling that will allow the ecosystem to easily build new spacial, 2D/3D experiences that are integrated with Loot Underworld and/or Realms.

Hyperspace prototype

We are working on generative AI art tooling that will make it easy to generate conceptual and functional art assets for our gaming environments, including tilesets, sprites, and character art.

Bratonborn.mp4

Speaking of spatial experiences, we're interested in making a game in the style of Eye of the Beholder, building on top of Loot Underworld Phase 1 and Hyperspace and integrated with Loot Survivor. The player builds a party of 1-4 adventures, equipped with loot, who explore an infinite, generative dungeon crawler where they fight deadly monsters, solve dastardly puzzles, meet intriguing beings, and avoid dangerous traps. We intend to use our generative AI art & narrative systems, prototyped in our Endless Quest hack to populate the world and drive unique but thematically consistent experiences, building on our work in Endless Quest and Endless Crawler.

Eye of the Beholder, 1991

Further Intended Work - Endless Crawler

We intend to establish Endless Crawler Chambers in Loot Underworld as a new permissionless place in the Lootverse.

• Create a passage between Endless Crawler Chambers and Realms. These links will be established on-chain by Realms Owners.
• The connection allows shortcut navigation from Realm to Realm by Endless Crawler, with access controlled by Realms owners and/or the Realms Order.
• The same can be done for other Loot tokens, making the Ethereum Endless Crawler geography as a hub connecting all existing Loot places.
• Multiplayer presence and chat using the Hyperbox Protocol.
• Release Endless Crawler Class Cards for Adventurers and Lords, claimable by Loot and Realms owners, respectively.
• Upgrade the current Endless Crawler mainnet token to Chapter 2, introducing token binding (for the Realms link) and the new classes.
• Enable the inclusion of the mainnet Endless Crawler Chambers into the BibliothecaDAO Atlas, attached to their respective Realms.

Further Intended Work - Underworld Survivor

• Add one deterministic Loot Survivor Encounter to each mainnet Endless Crawler Chamber and Realms Underworld Chambers, based on its seed and properties.
• Create Loot Survivor scoreboards for each Chamber encounter, and for completed matches.
• Players can navigate from mainnet to Realms Underworlds from the connection made in Phase II
• Cross-chain gaming, from Ethereum to Starknet!
• One match could be something like...
  • Navigate to the starting Chamber
  • Start the match by challenging the Chamber's Beast
  • Kill the Beast!
  • Choose one of the four doors to the next Chamber/Beast
  • Continue until you die or the end match condition is met (TDB)
• Even with deterministic beasts, this gameplay allows for endless encounter combinations, based on the path players choose to take.
• Requires Loot Survivor V2, currently in development.

Character

Please give a brief outline of who you are, what you have built before or what makes you specifically right to tackle the challenge you propose.

Mataleone aka Roger Sodré, is the Endless Crawler project fonder & software engineer. Started making games at an early age, with LOGO and BASIC on a ZX Spectrum. After a Computer Sciences degree and some IT years, shifted to full-time game development, also making 3D tools, video applications, immersive installations, and video projection mapping. Since 2021, fucused on generative art and on-chain games.

Recipromancer aka Rob Morris, is a veteran entrepreneur, technologist, investor & advisor who has been building emerging tech startups and technology since the 90s, and crypto since 2008. He is the founder of Prismatik, Skogarmaor and funDAOmental, and has been involved in building innumerable businesses and tech for startups, corporations and governments globally. His primary focus currently is upon cooperative coordination & the metacrisis, the death of machiavelli, and building out Hyperbox. He is an active member of the autonomous worlds and fully on-chain games community, both because he has an avid interest in games, and because autonomous worlds have a lot of parallels to metacrisis, governance & coordination work.

Timeline

We intend to start work immediately and expect phase 1 to take approximately 3 months and should be ready by December or earlier. We will be working iteratively and will continue to build out and expand Loot Underworld: Phase 1 is just the beginning.

Objectives

Objective	Contributor	Estimated deadline
Port to Cairo	Mataleone	15/10/2023
Client / SDK integration	Mataleone	15/11/2023
Documentation	Mataleone	15/12/2023

Grant Request

100,000 $LORDS. This will not cover the entire cost of Phase 1, but we are interested in pursuing this work and will fund the remainder of the work to complete Phase 1 ourselves.