Hey all,
I’m new to this forum, but have always been a fan of IF, story-based games, and writing poetry/stories. I’ve also read up on cryptocurrencies and blockchain use-cases on the side, and have been bouncing around an idea where IF and facets of cryptocurrencies could intersect and hopefully make some neat stuff.
IMO, one of the neatest things about IF is how a person is able to make choices, and how those choices are reflected further down the narrative. With one of the cryptocurrencies called Ethereum, there’s another thing called a non-fungible token (NFT), where you can make a token and give it specific characteristics that reflect either deliberate actions or random variables. One (silly but neat) example is the app called CryptoKitties, where you are able to buy, sell, and breed cats. While it’s one company that’s issued the CryptoKitties, there are other groups of people building on top of it, in that they’re writing games/applications that give additional assets (hats, racing, combat stats for Pokemon-esque battles) to the CryptoKitties. Since blockchains are supposed to be immutable, decentralized, censorship-resistant ledgers, there are some risks but interesting rewards if things line up.
While I recognize that a lot of use cases for cryptocurrencies are arguably vaporware, I’m really interested in trying to suss out if immutable tokens reflecting player-made choices would suit IF.
With these non-fungible tokens, one could make it so that the data on the token isn’t random, and instead reflects things like player-made choices. So I see them as having the potential to act as a memory card on a blockchain How I’ve been seeing this working out is as follows:
- Author writes a narrative, with branching storylines
- Players go through the narrative, making choices and solidifying the choices at the end of a section with the minting of an NFT that reflects those choices
- Players don’t have to pay to play through the narrative, but since minting an NFT that reflects specific choices costs money on a blockchain, the Author would have the ability to make a version that’s free to navigate through, and one where you pay so that you can offset the cost of generating the NFT
- When the Author makes another installment, the Author writes the narrative such that the choices are carried over from one installment to another
- Since the choices are reflected on a blockchain that other programs/applications can read, other Authors can check to see if a specific Player has a token tied to another story, and build off of those choices as well (this is the main reason why I think this could be neat!)
With the ability to see choices that other players have made (without seeing who exactly the player is) is made available, Authors could potentially do things like chart/document how many people are making certain decisions, build out their narrative to adjust/play into that, and hopefully write stories that people love more as a result. Past that, things like voting and other forms of interactive story-telling could be built off of this.
Since I’ve done none of the work to make this possible, I’d love to hear if this idea is useful/valuable, or if anyone else is already doing it!
I’m not trying to sell a token for this, so I’m trying to gain feedback and some direction so that I can build this out, write a cool narrative that people enjoy, and give this project its own two feet to stand on.
[Thread Subject clarified by Mod]