Hoard’s new year resolution is to ship more products! This is inspired by the fact that the highest level of engagement we received in 2018 came after we released the first ever application to integrate with OmiseGO’s OMG Network at DevCon, called Plasma Dog.
This was a major milestone in blockchain gaming because it was an honest proof-of-concept of True Ownership in a video games — gamers didn’t just have a blockchain tracking their assets, they had it secured effectively at the same level of decentralization as Ethereum Mainnet. This was entirely thanks to the architecture of Plasma MVP.
To celebrate our new years resolution, we have spent January advancing the scalability of True Ownership. This will soon lead to more product releases, including our SDK, which will subsequently enable the launch of new blockchain gaming titles. Our time in januaray has been spent:
- Entering the Final Alpha Stages of SDK Integrations — We opened our Private SDK Alpha Program in September and have since been testing and integrating with a handful of titles. Some are new games. Others are already live (with real users 😃). More games means more True Ownership.
- Expanding the SDK — Even after the SDK is released, we will continue to add to it. In fact, we encourage the whole community to contribute to it. It is an open source resource, after all! The bigger and better the SDK, the bigger and better the True Ownership.
- Finalizing the SDK Documentation — Documentation is critical for our SDK because it’s designed to teach game developers how to build games with True Ownership — even if they don’t have a huge background in blockchain.
- R&D on More Viable Plasma — Security and functionality of blockchain gaming infrastructure is critical. Just because a game uses blockchain, doesn’t mean it really has True Ownership. MoreVP provides the cutting edge benefits of decentralizing for gamers without sacrificing True Ownership. We’ve also added new features to MoreVP, including non-fungible token support.
SDK Alpha Program
That’s right — we’ve got real game integrations coming soon! With real users! Unfortunately, NDAs prevent us from disclosing too many specifics at this time. However, we can share the fact that they are built with Unity and that players will be able to opt-in to receiving their tokenized assets at any time — this makes the games maximally fun and playable first, and tokenized second. We strongly feel a “fun-first” strategy is how games will succeed in becoming the trojan horse for blockchain adoption.
The Alpha Program has a twofold purpose: (1) to prove and test out the SDK, and (2) actually publish some games with True Ownership. As soon as we feel comfortable with our level and extent of testing, Hoard will release the Public Beta version of the SDK. Stay tuned for more updates 🙏
Expanding the SDK
The SDK is never complete, and as we’ve begun integrating with different games and… ahem… upcoming events (🤫)… we’ve discovered more blockchain implementations that can be incorporated into our Software Development Kit. One of the key implementations we’ve begun designing this month, which will be demonstrated in February, is a peer-2-peer account (wallet) transferability handshake protocol.
We’ve already done a ton of R&D to make wallets more accessible, but this particular development enables gamers to collect and receive gaming assets ad hoc in pop up, local situations. Such as at their local barcade or from a bean bag chair in their living room or a community “chill room” 😉
SDK Documentation
As the Public Beta release of our SDK nears, we are preparing the documentation so that any game dev can begin integrating True Ownership into their games quickly and for free without any prior knowledge of blockchain. The first set of documentation will be specifically available for the Unity Engine SDK.
Because the SDK will be free and open source, we are inviting anyone from the community to join us in making this community resources as concise and useful as possible.
If anyone would like to provide feedback on some early versions of the docs, please get in touch by emailing hello@hoard.exchange.
More Viable Plasma R&D
Implementation
Hoard origianlly developed Plasma Dog using Plasma MVP, an architecture that enables fast and cheap transactions without compromising security. Throughout the month of January, we’ve been developing further upon a “next generation” of Plasma MVP, called More Viable Plasma.
The key difference between MVP and MoreVP is that MoreVP takes advantage of a security mechanism, called Youngest-Input Priority. This is in contrast to MVP’s Output-Age Priority. The initial proposal and proof for this scheme can be found on this forum post.
The reason why this is important for gamers is because it further secures their virtual assets. While Plasma MVP is certainly secure, it can technically be “gamed” if the appropriate parties do not provide confirmation signatures at the correct time. Although the economic incentives are high enough for this to not typically occur, MoreVP is probabilistically more secure and reduces this risk.
Basically, True Ownership is a spectrum. And MoreVP is further along that spectrum than MVP or anything else short of Ethereum Mainnet.
Development
While launching a plasma chain is becoming more accessible, ensuring the chain is without bugs and accomplishes all the goals of a network is still a major hurdle for any project. Hoard is developing a MoreVP implementation with gamers in mind. Specifically, Hoard is integrating MoreVP with Non-Fungible Token support — something that has not been accomplished to date.
Plasma MVP and MoreVP both utilize a UTXO transaction scheme, which is excellent for Fungible Token support. However, it hasn’t been so useful for Non-Fungible Tokens. Since a majority of in-game assets will likely be non-fungible, adding NFT support is a critical development milestone.
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