Lately I’ve been thinking about MUD. Not the stuff that squishes between your toes when you go outside in the rain and realize you forgot to put your shoes on, but Multi-User Dungeons, one of the earliest forms of multiplayer online gaming.

MUDs are online text-based roleplaying games similar to text adventure games and are still popular among certain segments of gamers. If you enjoy reading and you enjoy adventure games you really should give one a try.

I’ve been thinking about how interesting it would be to incorporate cryptocurrency into a MUD, where when you adventure around and open chests, complete quests and do other tasks, you’re rewarded with some cryptocurrency. These coins would then belong to you and in addition to being traded outside of the game could also be used in-game to purchase special items.

While I’ve done some programming and development before and have recently started working on some game ideas, I’m not a blockchain developer so I’m not familiar with all the technical aspects that would need to go into such a thing to make it work, but I can still think about it in broad, general terms.

For one, such a project would need to be easy to enter and easy to play. That means it would have to have a built-in wallet system so that new users and those unfamiliar with cryptocurrency could start playing without having to setup any extra software. Of course for advanced users there should be a standalone wallet that they could withdraw their coins to, or perhaps even setup in-game so that when they receive coins they’re deposited directly to their standalone wallet instead of their in-game wallet.

Second, it would need to be free. Many cryptocurrency games require players to spend coins just to start playing the game, and often to spend coins for many of the actions they take, with the explanation that it helps to cover the transaction fees associated with whatever currency is being used. The MUD game would need to use a coin without any transaction fees so that new players could get right in and start playing, and to allow for a smooth gaming experience without the need to pause and approve payment for all the little actions they could take.

Of course the game would need some way to make some money and to keep its economy viable. If the games coins were to have real value outside of the game and not just as a basic replacement for in-game gold then something would need to be done to add value to the coin so that the game wasn’t simply trying to print out money and hand it out to everyone.

I suppose part of the value of the coin would be based on what you could do with it, and what you could buy with it as far as in-game items are concerned. Of course then you have the issue of the coin only being usable in the game, so that it would only have value for those playing the game, and needint to figure out a way for the coin to have value outside of the game as well.

It would take a lot of careful thought and consideration to figure out how to make the coin work and there would need to be opportunities for people to invest in the coin and in the game. Perhaps there could be a staking system where by investing in the game directly using some of the coin you find in-game your stake could earn interest, like the staking systems of some other cryptocurrencies.

While it would take some work to figure out I think it could be a very interesting thing for a game to do. As most of the current cryptocurrency games require investment to even play, if a system like this could be figured out and added to a game, it could provide a model for more cyptocurrency games in the future.