Overview of MuMu, an on-chain puzzle game｜Advocating a knowledge contribution model through the Solve 2 Mint system and explaining the feasibility of an ecosystem where humans and bots coexist.

gm everyone, I’m derio, ethereumnavi’s owner.

In this issue, I pick up the on-chain puzzle game “MuMu” on Starknet and introduce and explain it.

MuMu looks like a cute “on-chain puzzle game,” but I think it is a very interesting project because it seems to have “the potential to advocate a new standard of value” behind it.

For example, many NFT projects currently unilaterally determine the “scarcity of tokens” at the initiative of their management, which in a sense can be seen as “artificially” guaranteeing their value. And it is “capital contribution” by people with a certain amount of capital that allows them to benefit from early access to the tokens.

However, Topology, the developer of MuMu, argues that it should essentially be defined by “knowledge contribution. In other words, it is not a world where those who had more money at a given point in time are better off, but those who were equipped with knowledge are better off. Therefore, I’m trying to achieve a world where those people can gain an access pass.

In addition, in terms of rule design and gameplay, it could open up “the possibility of realizing an ecosystem where humans and bots can coexist,” and I decided to feature it because I believe it is a full-on chain-type project that is rich in implications.

Therefore, in this article, I will focus on Topology’s “MuMu,” which is built as an on-chain puzzle game on Starknet, and explain its overview, how to play it, and the social experimental role and potential hidden behind it, with the author’s personal view.

Let me begin by describing the structure of this article.

I hope this article will be of some help to those who are interested in understanding MuMu, its Topology philosophy, and the potential of on-chain gaming.

※This article is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to be and should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Therefore, it is not a recommendation to purchase any particular FT/NFT and should be used only as a study.

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What is MuMu

• Website
• Twitter (Topology)
• Discord
• GitHub

MuMu is a project for an on-chain puzzle game in which matter changes when conditions described by a formula are met.

Explanations of how to play MuMu and game screens are given in the next chapter.

The author believes that the game incorporates elements such as NP-hardness and the Travelling Salesman problem, and that the author is trying to create “a system in which humans have the advantage over bots in an ecosystem in which humans and bots coexist.

MuMu, which seems to be more of a social experiment than a game, is operated by Topology, an organization led by guiltygyoza. In addition to MuMu, Topology is also famous for developing other on-chain games such as Isaac and Shoshin.

Also, at the time of writing, there is no precise definition of MuMu as a game genre. The author understands it to be similar to a “simulation game” or “on-chain puzzle game” that has no goal in itself and is aimless.

MuMU players place substances in a “world where one substance can be transformed into another if the conditions are right,” and then use commands to form a sort of conveyor belt to automatically transport the substances, transforming them in the process, much like alchemy.

The details will be explained later, but to put it briefly, ‘Players replenish firewood from the entrance and use alchemy to change the substance, eventually transforming it into flames and delivering it to the exit.‘

The conditions are described by mathematical formulas:

MuMu has eight formulas, as shown in the picture above. For example, the top one, “Stir,” represents the process of ‘When the firewood and firewood emoji are side by side, they change to a clover emoji.‘

Based on the content of this process, the way the emoji move is defined by the instruction commands shown in the illustration above, and the person who can deliver the target substance to the sink in the shortest time is the winner. This is the general overview and gameplay of MuMu.

Inspired by the project “Opus Magnum

MuMu arena can be described as a realization of the simulation game “Opus Magnum” as an on-chain game on Starknet, so this demo video will help you get an idea of the overall game of MuMu.

• Opus Magnum is a programming game with puzzle elements released in 2017 and compatible with Steam Workshop.
• Players manipulate basic elements to assemble and program machines to create the required products.
• Players also compete on leaderboards to complete products in the shortest time, at the lowest cost, and in the smallest area.

In addition, MuMu’s philosophy is as follows: simply put, they are trying to create an interesting and profound on-chain game.

• MuMu must be interesting to watch.
• It must stimulate curiosity.
• And it must be profound.

Incidentally, MuMu was originally launched under the name “MovyMovy” but was renamed to its current name “MuMu” at the suggestion of Mr. Loaf of Realms.

Current Status

At the time of writing, MuMu is in the process of being rewritten to Cairo 1.0 and deployed on Starknet’s testnet.

As for the mainnet deployment, they are currently rebuilding the Cairo 1.0 project to accommodate upgrades.

For your information, you can see the web pages (front end) of the current and past seasons below:

• Season 2: mu-mu.netlify.app
• Season 1: mu-mu-s1.netlify.app
• Season 0: mu-mu-s0.netlify.app

Actually playing MuMu

At the time of writing, Season 3 is in the phase of creation, so I will be playing with the Season 2 application. Users can interact with MuMu through such as front ends.

When you access the website, you will see a screen like the one in the photo above, and click on “Arena Mode” at the top of the screen.

FYI, it is also possible to select multiple languages from “Language”.

Now let’s play. First, I will program the spirit (command) in ①. As I mentioned in the Overview part, this is positioned as a conveyor belt in the factory.

In short, the work to be done in ① is to “create and place commands on how to operate automatically.

Since the purpose of this project is to “check the basic play,” I will program the spirit to move one to the right, one up, one left, and then back to the starting position.

Initially, the position is set to (0, 0), which is the position information when the upper left corner is set to (0, 0) and the lower right corner is set to (10, 10). For now, I will proceed with the default (0, 0).

Click on the “new spirit” button, click on the plus sign, and enter d (right), s (bottom), a (left), and w (top) in that order.

Thus, the general gameplay of MuMu is to program, combine, and place spirits (commands) to transport and change emojis while trying to reach the goal.

Let’s continue with a look at how to change emoji using mathematical formulas.

In this case, I will try the first one on the formula list. The content will be “When the firewood and firewood emoji are aligned vertically or horizontally, combine them and change them into a clover emoji.“

The method is as follows:

1. Click on “Stir” at the top of the Formula List
2. Place on the map
   • In this case, place them at (1, 0), (2, 0), and (3, 0).
3. Click the “Confirm Formula” button to complete the placement.

Now that the formulas have been placed, the process of ‘when the firewood emoji is placed horizontally at (1, 0) and (2, 0), erase them and summon the clover emoji at (3, 0)‘ is implemented.

Now, let’s create a command so that the firewood emoji are side by side in (1, 0) and (2, 0) and see that they change to clovers. As before (spirit 0), click on the “new spirit” button, click on the plus sign, and this time (spirit 1) enter the sequence ” z (+), d (right), x (x), a(left), z (+), d (right), d (right), x (x) “.

This command means that the firewood is first picked up with z (grabbed and lifted up, analogous to a UFO catcher) and dropped with x in the right (1, 0) square, and the same thing is done in the (2, 0) square, which means that the firewood in the horizontal line turns into a clover.

Thus, the goal is to deliver the flame to the S (Sink) at each end in the shortest possible time while moving and changing the firewood from the F (Faucet) in the (0, 0) square.

The above is a brief description of how to play MuMu and its rules at the time of writing.

Author’s discussion and consideration

Although MuMu appears to be an on-chain puzzle game with cute visuals, the author understands that behind the scenes it contains grand social experimental implications.

This is because Topology, the development organization, is working on building a “Solve 2 Mint (Solve-to-Mint)” system, and MuMu may be a step toward achieving this.

To learn more about the Solve 2 Mint system, please refer to guiltygyoza’s blog post Conceptualizing on-chain trial protocols for knowledge.

Here is my brief explanation of the intent of the Solve 2 Mint system. The point is that in the 10,000 NFT collections issued up to now, NFT holders have proven themselves to be innovators by making “capital contributions” such as winning auctions / minting the fastest mints, etc. In contrast, Topology argue that this should be defined by “knowledge contributions”.

In other words, Topology is attempting to build a world where users are presented with “puzzles to solve” using the Solve 2 Mint system, and NFTs are earned as rewards and recognition for their unique solutions.

And I personally believe that two major points of particular interest in this mechanism are as follows

1. Possibility to advocate new standards of value
2. Possibility to realize an ecosystem where humans and bots can coexist

Possibility to advocate new standards of value

First of all, there will be a new possibility in the future where the “scarcity of tokens” will not be unilaterally determined ‘artificially’ by management initiative, but ‘naturally’ by the number of puzzle solutions.

This mechanism is not the conventional one where an NFT becomes rare because the NFT issuer declares and implements “this is rare,” but rather, “There are only 10 people in the world who could solve the problem to mint this NFT, and therefore this NFT is rare. Therefore, this NFT will be rare.” This would appeal to a new bottom-up type of value standard.

Bottom-up culture is very important to the web3 movement, and at the same time, it is an example of a culture that is rich in implications in the sense that if you pursue web3’s unique characteristics, you will end up there.

Recently, it seems to me that many people are questioning the fact that NFT collections are measured only by indicators such as “floor price” and “total volume”. I personally hope that an extension of this trend could be the world that the Solve 2 Mint system aims to create.

MatchboxDAO, a community that builds infrastructure for on-chain games on Starknet, also plans to run the Solve 2 Mint Challenge with a variety of prizes and varying degrees of difficulty, as stated in the article Solve 2 Mint – A Framework for NFT Emission.

Possibility to realize an ecosystem where humans and bots can coexist

And one more point. In an ecosystem where humans and bots coexist, systems like Solve 2 Mint attempt to “build a mechanism that gives humans an advantage,” and that is very interesting.

The attitude of not forcibly excluding bots from the ecosystem, but accepting their existence and then trying to develop their ecosystem, has tremendous potential in terms of the flywheel effect, and at the same time matches the context and ideology of crypto.

And this is similar to the phenomenon of Nouns, which also involves non-NFT holders to increase the population involved.

The story of the possibilities in this area is interesting even when taken as a stand-alone story of on-chain games, but I feel that it is also interesting and noteworthy when viewed as a social experiment for a society in which humans and AI coexist.

As described above, I will continue to follow the progress of MuMu from two major perspectives: its potential to advocate a new standard of value, and its potential to realize an ecosystem in which humans and bots can coexist.

If this article has sparked your interest, I hope that you will play MuMu in person, and at the same time, I encourage you to investigate other on-chain game projects.

References：
What happened after-after Isaac?
MuMu is Audio Workstation
Introduction to MuMu – Part 1: Spirit Programming
Introduction to MuMu – Part 2: Formulas Placement
Introduction to MuMu – Part 3: First Complete Solution

Summary

If you wish to place an ad, please contact us here.

In this issue, I focused on Topology’s MuMu, which is built as an on-chain puzzle game on Starknet, and explained its Overview, how to play it, and the social experimental role and potential behind it.

I hope that this article has been helpful to those who are interested in understanding the Overview of MuMu, the Topology philosophy, and the potential of on-chain games.

If you found it useful, I would appreciate it if you could share it on Twitter or comment on it.

📷posted an article in English about MuMu.@guiltygyoza @topology_gg https://t.co/BBCL41TttT

— でりおてんちょー｜derio (@yutakandori) April 1, 2023