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Author ewq.eth
Website link is here
Dark Forest, the world's first decentralized real-time strategy game. Built on Ethereum with zkSNARKs.
In 2021, we explored the dark.
In 2025, I found a way back.
I built a time machine for Dark Forest
not a recording, but something living.
✨
It’s alive.
✨
August 2021.
Ethereum was chaos in motion.
NFTs were exploding into culture.
DeFi felt infinite, every protocol a frontier.
✨
And somewhere beyond the noise,
a small group of explorers entered a different kind of space.
A world not hosted, but emerged.
✨
Planets, artifacts, portals — all onchain, all alive.
It wasn’t just a game.
It was the first glimpse of a new kind of universe.
✨
That world would end nine days later,
on August 22, 2021,
the final hour of Dark Forest v0.6 Round 3: “Grape Extra-Small.”
✨
But for many of us, it never really ended.
Because we were there
friends, rivals, wanderers in the fog
Fighting for space, building stories no block explorer could ever show.
✨
Now, years later, I’ve done something I once thought impossible.
✨
I built a Replay Time Machine
A complete reconstruction of that round
every tick, every planet, every heartbeat of the chain.
✨
This isn’t a video
It’s a temporal simulation
Time itself rebuilt.
✨
Two realities: real-time and simulated-time
You can reverse, accelerate, or pause the universe
Speed, direction, state — all under control
And when you hit Enter
you return to that exact moment
08/22/2021 — the last hour before the darkness
It wasn’t easy
Time systems are fragile; one misstep and the world could collapse
UI, logic, contracts — each rebuilt piece by piece
Weeks blurred into work
And somewhere, between the world we know and the world I was recreating
time started to move again
But it wasn’t just a system coming to life
It was a memory returning, quietly unfolding
reviving what I thought I had lost
And when it did, I realized
what I missed most wasn’t only the game
It was the people
Those who shared that strange, beautiful silence of the Dark Forest
both enemies and friends
and sometimes, both at once
This replay isn’t just a technical artifact
It’s a way to remember
A way to return
A way to feel it all again
To the devs and dreamers of @darkforest_eth
to the exceptional explorers who have carried the legacy forward @DFArchon
to everyone who ever got lost in the fog
thank you
Some rounds are too beautiful to fade
Now that we can replay the past
maybe it’s time to imagine new worlds again
Because the past isn’t gone
It’s just waiting to be rediscovered
Welcome back to Dark Forest
And forward — to whatever comes next
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” — William Faulkner
Author ewq.eth
Website link is here
Dark Forest, the world's first decentralized real-time strategy game. Built on Ethereum with zkSNARKs.
In 2021, we explored the dark.
In 2025, I found a way back.
I built a time machine for Dark Forest
not a recording, but something living.
✨
It’s alive.
✨
August 2021.
Ethereum was chaos in motion.
NFTs were exploding into culture.
DeFi felt infinite, every protocol a frontier.
✨
And somewhere beyond the noise,
a small group of explorers entered a different kind of space.
A world not hosted, but emerged.
✨
Planets, artifacts, portals — all onchain, all alive.
It wasn’t just a game.
It was the first glimpse of a new kind of universe.
✨
That world would end nine days later,
on August 22, 2021,
the final hour of Dark Forest v0.6 Round 3: “Grape Extra-Small.”
✨
But for many of us, it never really ended.
Because we were there
friends, rivals, wanderers in the fog
Fighting for space, building stories no block explorer could ever show.
✨
Now, years later, I’ve done something I once thought impossible.
✨
I built a Replay Time Machine
A complete reconstruction of that round
every tick, every planet, every heartbeat of the chain.
✨
This isn’t a video
It’s a temporal simulation
Time itself rebuilt.
✨
Two realities: real-time and simulated-time
You can reverse, accelerate, or pause the universe
Speed, direction, state — all under control
And when you hit Enter
you return to that exact moment
08/22/2021 — the last hour before the darkness
It wasn’t easy
Time systems are fragile; one misstep and the world could collapse
UI, logic, contracts — each rebuilt piece by piece
Weeks blurred into work
And somewhere, between the world we know and the world I was recreating
time started to move again
But it wasn’t just a system coming to life
It was a memory returning, quietly unfolding
reviving what I thought I had lost
And when it did, I realized
what I missed most wasn’t only the game
It was the people
Those who shared that strange, beautiful silence of the Dark Forest
both enemies and friends
and sometimes, both at once
This replay isn’t just a technical artifact
It’s a way to remember
A way to return
A way to feel it all again
To the devs and dreamers of @darkforest_eth
to the exceptional explorers who have carried the legacy forward @DFArchon
to everyone who ever got lost in the fog
thank you
Some rounds are too beautiful to fade
Now that we can replay the past
maybe it’s time to imagine new worlds again
Because the past isn’t gone
It’s just waiting to be rediscovered
Welcome back to Dark Forest
And forward — to whatever comes next
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” — William Faulkner
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