An RTS game on Ethereum… WHAT?! That’s possible?!

That’s exactly what the Dark Forest, an innovative blockchain game named after Liu Cixin’s eponymous second novel of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, is. In fact, it is the first real-time strategy game running on Ethereum in existence.

Lucky for me, I recently had the chance to play the beta of this strange game and learn more about how it accomplished such a feat.

And I found it fascinating.

Though understandably bare-bones in gameplay features due to its beta status, Dark Forest must be the first time I can honestly call an Ethereum game fun, and this fun is made possible thanks to its interesting use of zero-knowledge proofs.

Let’s see what makes Dark Forest so special. It will teach us something about Zero-Knowledge proofs in the process.

Oh, and don’t worry, this article won’t contain any crazy mathematics. 😉

What You Don’t Know Can’t Kill You

Day 1 in the Dark Forest

My eyes scan a little planet called Bear Harm.

Home.

From this small corner of the universe, I will build a great empire.

I drag my mouse from Bear Harm to the neighbouring planet of Cure Dock. Metamask pops up in my browser to confirm the Ethereum transaction.

Like a small ant my fledgling fleet crosses the stars towards Cure Dock.

And that’s how it starts:

an adventure in the Dark Forest!

To understand what makes Dark Forest so appealing, we must first understand what kind of game it is.

Games can be categorized in two main groups.

First, we have games in which the players know everything about the game state. For example, in chess, both players know where all the pieces are. Each player has the same amount of game state knowledge as his opponent. Winning or losing depends on the computational ability of the player to calculate all the possibilities. There is no bluffing, no making decisions based on incomplete information, no wondering what the opponent is doing.

The second type of game is one in which players have incomplete knowledge of the game state. Think of the very popular (at least it used to be) real-time strategy game Starcraft. Players control units and build bases in a game map obscured by a fog of war. The fog of war is a large part of what makes that game fun since it hides each player from the other unless and keeps them guessing.

The players don’t know what lies ahead. Their minds are always on high alert as they wonder: “Where is my opponent? What is he doing? What is he building? What does he thinks I’m doing?”

This creates complexity. Tension.

FUN.

But what about blockchain games? Most of them fall into the first category. Users know everything about the game state.

And that’s understandable.

After all, Ethereum is a public blockchain and all its data is available to anybody. It is therefore very difficult to hide information. For that reason, games on Ethereum lack surprises and have a tendency to be limited to the trading of non-fungible collectibles such as playing cards.

Until Dark Forest, that is.

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