GridPlace - Blockchain Game
I am proud to announce the official main network launch of the GridPlace blockchain game running on the Gridcoin blockchain!
GridPlace is a game inspired by Reddit's r/place where people from all over the internet collaboratively and destructively created an art piece. However, in order to place a pixel on the GridPlace canvas, you must send a small amount of currency to a particular address (in the case of the current implementation, all transactions are donations).
How it works
A canvas first starts out blank and is made up of pixels like a regular digital image.
People around the world then change pixels one-by-one by sending a small amount of Gridcoin to the associated address along with a message in the transaction that specifies which pixel is to be changed and what colour it is to be changed to.
This transaction is then broadcast to the chain for everyone to see and changes the particular pixel it was assigned to. Using the web interface, you can see the details of a particular pixel edit including who changed it, what transaction ID it corresponds to and how much the pixel costs now.
Pricing
It costs a very insignificant price to place a pixel, only 0.025 GRC (about 0.01 US cents at current prices) so it is very easy to get started. However as the canvas becomes more populated, pixel prices increase exponentially according to a function defined in the official documentation.
The effect of exponential pricing is that eventually the game board will reach a "frozen" state where no more pixels are changed, thus reaching a naturally finished state without centralised interference.
The Power of the Blockchain
GridPlace is dependent on blockchain technology to function correctly and uses it to create publicly available and immutable pieces of internet art.
This means that whatever you create while playing the game will be available to everyone globally and theoretically exist forever... So long as there are at least two computers holding the blockchain and are networked with each other.
Future Additions
Web domain:
Currently the site is running on my VPS which also runs another set of web applications so it is hard to assign it two separate domains without some sort of virtualisation which I plan to introduce in the future so that it is much more user-friendly and easy to access.
Discord Wallet Bot Implementation
An update has been released for my Discord Wallet Bot which adds easy to access commands that let you view active boards and allow you to place pixels from the bot itself. I'm just currently waiting on this issue to be solved and this update will be sent to the bot for all to use!
Further Information
Homepage (includes a guide to getting started)