Needless to say, fully onchain games suffer from inherently poor UX. While some projects are tested on private chain testnets, our goal is to play on the mainnet of public chains.
Contract vulnerability is a worse problem, especially as the game's logic becomes more complex. Given the current state of DeFi, which has numerous security issues, it’s unrealistic to assume games will be any safer.

To address these challenges, we propose a hybrid game model that combines onchain and offchain. This model leverages the strengths of both approaches while mitigating their weaknesses.

The hybrid game we propose records only specific data onchain: the state at the beginning of the battle, the state at the end of the game, and the random number seed.
All game logic is executed offchain, with the game intermediate state during battle also maintained offchain. The game logic should remain open and transparent to ensure fairness and verifiability.

We drew inspiration for this model from Plasma, so we named this architecture PlasmaEngine. Plasma is a concept that has gained renewed attention in the Ethereum Layer2 community. It retains only the initial and final states on Layer1, with all intermediate states managed offchain. This approach allows Ethereum to scale infinitely.

In our hybrid game system, players send transactions only twice per game—at the start and end of a battle—providing a practical and user-friendly experience, even as game logic becomes quite complex. Currently, PlasmaEngine seems to be suited for auto-battle games.

While PlasmaEngine leverages offchain components, it is not entirely secure:

Centralization Risk: The game operates under the assumption of a central entity, the Minister, which manages the game execution. If the Minister is hacked, battle results could be tampered with. However, such tampering would be limited to the most recent battle and could not alter past results. Since the initial state and random number seed are recorded onchain and the logic is open, any malpractice by the Minister can be detected.

Although there is no direct challenge function, discrepancies in results would be apparent to everyone, allowing temporary halts in the game if necessary. Adding a delay in reward claims (e.g., a 7-day period) can further reduce the incentive for fraud.

Reduced Contract Vulnerability: By minimizing the onchain processing, we can significantly lower the risk of contract vulnerabilities. The smart contract only needs to store some states, create random seeds (or obtain them from external services like Chainlink), and verify the Minister's signature.

Currently, PlasmaEngine is applicable to auto-battle games. For games requiring constant command inputs, intermediate states would also need to be stored onchain, making this approach less feasible.
Auto-battle games have a rich history and a solid standing in the gaming community today. Titles like Auto Chess, SuperAutoPets, Backpack Hero, and Unicorn Overlord exemplify this genre.

Despite its constraints, the hybrid game model offers a promising solution to the challenges of fully onchain games, balancing decentralization with practical UX and minimized risk.

We are currently developing an auto-battle hybrid game using the PlasmaEngine. Follow us on X for updates and to join us on this innovative journey.

X: https://x.com/DuelThree

The main advantage of blockchain is self-custody, the ownership of digital data. Therefore, blockchain games should be fully onchain to ensure that game assets are managed by users themselves (refer to our previous article for more details).

However, fully onchain games are very unlikely to become mainstream. In this article, we will highlight the issues with fully onchain games and predict the advent of a new Hybrid Games Era.

1. Poor UX

It is a well-known fact that fully onchain games often suffer from poor user experience. Many fully onchain game projects attempt to solve this by adopting their own chains. However, many of these chains are still in the testnet phase. Gas fees, chain security, and the labor of users having to bridge assets to the chain are still prevalent and may take considerable time to resolve. The question remains: when will we play a fully onchain game with a good UX on a public mainnet chain?

2. Contract Hacking Risks

Over the past few years, many DeFi protocols have suffered hacking incidents, highlighting the difficulty of developing secure smart contracts. Game contracts are likely to be even more complex than DeFi contracts. Although there is hope with updates in programming languages, libraries, and frameworks, fully onchain games are likely to contain significant vulnerabilities.

Is it necessary for all game logic to be onchain? The answer is "No".

In blockchain games, the important point is that your valuable assets are not stolen, ensuring self-custody. The game logic being completely onchain is not as important.

Here, we propose Hybrid Games.

Hybrid Games store only three points onchain: the initial state at the start of the game, the random number seed, and the final state. All intermediate processing is executed offchain.

This mechanism is inspired by Plasma, a concept recently gaining attention in the Ethereum core community. Plasma saves the initial and final state on Layer 1 while handling intermediate processing offchain (Layer 2). The advantage of this architecture is its infinite scalability, as intermediate processes are handled offchain regardless of their complexity. We have named this architecture PlasmaEngine.

In PlasmaEngine, there is a centralized manager called the Minister, equivalent to the Sequencer in Layer 2. Although the Minister could become a single point of vulnerability, the risk scope is minimized and does not threaten self-custody. Additionally, the transparency of the onchain random seed can make the system verifiable. By incorporating a challenge function similar to Optimistic Rollup, the centralization risk can be further mitigated.

Currently, we assume the PlasmaEngine mechanism is applicable to the auto-battle genre of games.

We foresee the advent of the Hybrid Game era, where the benefits of blockchain's self-custody are harnessed while avoiding UX and contract vulnerability issues. Leading this new era, we are set to launch an auto-battle type game utilizing PlasmaEngine.

Stay updated on the latest news about our Hybrid Game through our newsletter and X.

X: https://x.com/DuelThree

Why blockchain game?

Why blockchain game? Why should games be on the blockchain? This is the most fundamental question.

The answer is to enjoy playing with your own unique and precious assets.

Blockchain technology allows us to own digital data for the first time, as detailed by Chris Dixon, a partner at a16z, in his concept of "ReadWriteOwn."

Think back to your first rare Pokémon card, or the Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic: The Gathering cards you used to play with. The rare card you obtained was a treasure for you. Maybe you have received cards from close friends. Winning duels with your cherished cards brought the utmost joy. You might even have earned limited-edition cards from tournaments.

In essence, the fun comes from breeding and battling with assets you genuinely own and acquiring new ones.

Let's also consider Web2 games.

Web2 card games, like Hearthstone, introduced the joy of playing with people worldwide. However, unlike physical card games, the cards you own in Web2 games are fungible. These data cannot be distinguished. There’s no unique attachment to a unique character.

This leads to the rise of eSports under equal conditions.

Blockchain games combine the advantages of Web2 and physical card games. They allow safe, global card exchanges and battles worldwide.

We are developing Onchain games.

Currently, most blockchain games are Offchain games, which blend Offchain and Onchain elements. The game logic typically runs on centralized servers.

In contrast, Onchain games feature game logic embedded in smart contracts, with the entire game running on the blockchain.

Think of it like the relationship between CeFi and DeFi.

We see two main security issues with Offchain games:

1. Do users truly own their game assets?

If game assets are Offchain or even if they are Onchain, can be transferred by the game operators, then users don’t truly own their game assets. Imagine if your precious Pokémon card could be transferred by the operators suddenly. That shouldn’t happen.

2. Can the game be hacked?

Many Offchain games adopt Play2Earn, where new assets are earned based on game results. While earning assets through play is not bad, the concern is whether the game logic or results on Offchain can be hacked.

If a malicious operator within the core team could update results to award millions in tokens to non-playing users, or if the server is hacked, it’s essentially the same risk as incidents often seen in CeFi. Offchain games carry potential risks.

These reasons drive us to develop Onchain games.

We acknowledge that Onchain games currently have poor UX.

However, the DeFi boom starting around 2020 encourages us. Users can enjoy financial services while maintaining self-custody with Onchain.

We also have solutions to improve the UX of Onchain games. This will safely lead blockchain games to mass adoption. We will discuss the details in our next article.

We are ready to realize the vision of enjoying games with your own unique and precious assets.

If you're interested, follow us on X and stay tuned for our next announcement.

X: https://x.com/DuelThree