On-Chain Dungeon Crawler Ethernal Closed

The development team behind the on-chain dungeon crawler Ethernal has decided to no longer work on the game and closed the doors to the dungeon. Without going deep into the reasoning behind their decision, the developers posted a farewell blog. The smart contract will remain on the Matic Mumbai testnet, while they will make the codebase open-source ‘for anyone who would be interested to build on the idea’.

It already had been very silent surrounding the dungeon crawler. In August the project migrated to the Matic Network, and after that there was hardly any communication.

We have spent some time exploring different options. But we agreed that this is the right thing for us.

Lead developer Jia, Ethernal blog

Ethernal was running completely on-chain, meaning that all the game rules, game world, game assets and player actions were stored on the blockchain. Because this requires many transactions, Ethernal had to move to the Matic Network. The result was a top-down dungeon crawler that was created through player-actions. The dungeon grew as players discovered more and more. The element of permadeath, also gave the game a sense of excitement.

Ethernal artworks

Even though the game won’t be supported anymore, it could still live on. Perhaps some enthusiasts in the community want to collaborate. If not, we still have the artworks. Ethernal has been selling gorgeous pixelated artworks made by Komiya “Hermippe” Ma. The designer now owns the remaining artworks, and those interested can probably bid on the artworks.

There’s also a special NFT (non-fungible token) to commemorate the history of Ethernal. There are different versions of the ‘History of Ethernal Alpha Mumbai’ NFT. For example the mage one comes with 82 editions, while the warrior one only has 62 and the explorer version 42.

The first artwork they ever released, was called ‘the entrance‘. In my personal opinion it’s the best one (see the header of this article). It’s a pity that Ethernal closed the doors to its dungeon.

On-chain gaming

Ethernal stood out from the crowd, because the game was working completely on-chain. In addition the game only required users to have a web browser. This made playing the game very easy and open for everyone. Because the game was on the blockchain, all the game rules can be checked. As a result this made the game provably fair.

Those who are looking for decentralized games, still have some other projects to dive into. Xaya is working on both Taurion, a completely decentralized online strategy game, and of course Soccer Manager Elite. Both games require users to install the game on their computer, but all game mechanics and gameplay is running on the custom Xaya blockchain. Soccer Manager Elite will even come to mobile devices, which is a very interesting development.

In addition there’s a relatively new project called Dark Forest. This grand strategy game in space is all about exploration, expansion and domination. However, in some case it could be a good idea to work together. There are also NFTs to find by exploring the universe, and there’s a prize pool for the best players. However, Dark Forest is far from finished and the game has not been audited. However, it’s cool to see a game being completely on-chain and it has already generated quite some hype. Ultimately this could be a truly persistent game world that will never ever go offline as long as Ethereum exists. We added this game to our list of blockchain games to watch in 2021.