This story has been copied for The Genesis Bloc - Introducing Coindroids in its entirety for historic purposes. Much of the game elements described below have changed over time but we have kept the article as-is. For more recent information see Introducing Coindroids (2017)

It's the year 20XX, long since the original accounting droid, the EconoDroid, had been created by the humans. The droids have since learned quite a bit from their once squishy overlords and now conduct war purely with money, specifically the blunt ample math based instrument that are cryptocurrencies. Droids themselves have continued to evolve and cherish the horrible lessons they learned from their human masters, forming a new class of droid, Coindroids. This droid army understands two important lessons: that money is power, and that power is best exerted by launching it at high velocities at the enemy.

The complete Coindroids story can be discovered by unlocking the Lore.

Over the last months, a group of us have worked to develop a new blockchain game, Coindroids. Our goal is to create a blockchain game that rewards skill and tactics, not luck. While our game is not complete, it is definitely playable and we are confident that we are well on our way to developing a really fun game.

Last weekend we had the privilege of launching it at DEF CON, a conference home to 15,000+ hackers hosted in Las Vegas every August. We launched on-top of the aptly named DEFCOIN cryptocurrency, giving people a chance to try the game with something that has the approximate worth of nil.

Overall, the response for the game was wonderful. Our website, complete with absolutely incredible droid artwork and some very stylish branding was certainly a hit. We ended up with about 120 people playing and many more discussing it.

We did have our share of usability issues here and there, especially when it was a player's first time using a cryptocurrency, but those who did get past the hurdle of the first attack had a great time battling other conference goers and bosses hidden about the floor. Throughout the conference the feedback we received went from "This game is surprisingly fun" to "This game is sooo fun", so we consider that a success.

So how does one play?

From a high level, the game is played by issuing transactions. Attacks, purchasing items and performing droid upgrades are all accomplished by sending currency to specific game controlled addresses.

First and foremost, users must register with the system. This two step process first creates your player through a simple web form and then registers your wallet with the system so that it recognizes transactions coming from your player.

Once you create your player account, the wallet registration process is initiated by displaying to you a one time use address. For the Defcoin version, users simply needed to send 0.01DFC to this address, which the system would then return in the next block.

Each player in the game has a couple of key details associated with their account:

Purse - Current & Max

As attacks are issued on other droids, the funds included in the attack are added to the defending droids purse. Should the droid's purse grow to beyond the Purse Maximum (as defined by their current level), this overflow is sent to the player.

If the either droid is killed during a battle, their respective purse is awarded to the attacking/counter-attacking player(s). This means a strategic attack could net you a return higher than the amount spent.

Health - Current & Max

A droid's maximum health is also defined by their current level. Robo-repair is fairly hard to come by but is possible through the use/purchase of items. Once droids are killed, this health is reset to the maximum.

Attack Address

Each player has a publicly known Attack Address. This is what other players will shoot at to attack your droid. This address is found on the player's profile but may also be shared by them through other means of their choosing.

Droid Weaponry & Armour

Droids can upgrade details such as Chassis, Primary/Secondary Weapons, Armour, and Shields in order to increase their attacks, defenses and other abilities. Doing this can help protect your droid's health (and thus your purse) or allow you to perform high powered attacks that will save you money.

Experience

As your droid participates in attacks, their experience will continue to increase. Hitting certain experience goals will increase your level. Higher levels means a higher Purse Maximum, Health Maximum, and give you access to better droids, upgrades and items.

Transaction Responses

After transactions are sent to the system, it will always try to respond with an acknowledgement. This could range from a single small transactions to signify receipt of Registration, or a more complicated transaction that includes many outputs to provide details on health, experience, attack damage - all represented through cosmetic addresses.

So, an example response for an attack would look like this:

A real transaction can be seen here.

Known Issues/Limitations

Again, Coindroids is a work in progress. It is playable and fun but not perfect. Please let us know about any other issues you notice!

Transactions and Identity

Right now the best wallet to use is the Defcoin-QT wallet, however, you must use it in a very specific way. This client normally creates change addresses on the fly to help increase privacy, but such a feature causes Coindroids to lose track of your player identity. In order to play from this client, you must enable the Coin Control options and always specify your change address as the address used during registration. You may even want to start by sending all Defcoin back to yourself to assure it is unified under one address.

A full guide explaining this can be found here.

We will hopefully solve this issue soon but until then, please keep it in mind.

There is a DEFCOIN Android wallet that can be used without the above steps but this wallet does have some stability issues itself.

Item Purchase/Upgrade Costs

Prices are currently listed in tokens, a token for Defcoin being worth 0.01DFC. This means that if the price is listed as 261, its cost is 2.61DFC. We will clarify this in the interface soon.

Spammy Transactions

Right now the system is a tiny itsy bit spammy regarding transactions. We hope to add a couple features to alleviate this, including:

• Allow users to turn off transaction responses for Attacks (both as defenders and attackers)
• Allow users to turn off transaction responses for Upgrades and Item purchases
• Allow users to set a payout threshold for the purse overflow

Greedy Error Handling

Right now the system is really bad at automatically returning money when problems come up (such as the Identification issue mentioned above). This honestly isn't us trying to take your precious Defcoin and flee to Panama - it's just not a portion of the system we have ironed the bugs out of yet.

If something happens and you want your coin back, just contact us with the example transaction ID and we will look into it. Our credibility is worth way more to us than any amount of coin in our wallets.

What's next?

Our goal is to launch across a handful of cryptocurrencies, but we have some technical and legal legwork still to do. We are working very hard at this and we can't wait to support them all but, until then, we invite you to come play a lighter version of the game on the Defcoin network. If you need Defcoin to play, you can head over to this faucet: http://faucet.defcoinstats.com.

We would love any feedback you have on the game. If you would like to come discuss it, we are in #coindroids on the freenode IRC network. You can also follow us on twitter @Coindroids.

I hate to be that guy but the art, infrastructure and the DEF CON booth have certainly taken a toll on us. If you play the game and enjoy it, please consider sending us a small donation to help us cover ongoing server costs until we can get up and running:

BTC: 1N8KJSe9R48buRkosSvpoZnC2f51XC9zEV