Diving into Raindrops Protocol: Unleashing the Power of Interchangeable Gaming Assets

This Blog is written by Kaushik Choudhury and Harsh Ghodkar

Diving into Raindrops Protocol: Unleashing the Power of Interchangeable Gaming Assets

Hold onto your game controllers, ladies, and gentlemen! We are about to plunge into a thrilling adventure that connects gaming, blockchain, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Imagine you're a seasoned high-level wizard in your go-to fantasy RPG. You've just spent countless hours defeating mythical beasts to get the legendary Staff of Unicorn Sparkles. Now, wouldn't it be absolutely mind-blowing to whip that sparkly staff out in an entirely different cyberpunk-styled shooting game? That’s precisely what the Raindrops Protocol makes possible.

Introduction

Raindrops Protocol is aiming to be a framework that enables the portability of in-game assets across different gaming platforms. It employs set contracts, which standardize the data related to in-game items or players, allowing them to be recognized and utilized across multiple games. This creates a unified gaming ecosystem where assets are interoperable, enhancing game longevity and player engagement.

Now picture this, you've got a legendary sword, and it has the coolest superpower — teleportation, yes, you heard it right! Not only can it teleport you within one game universe but across entirely different ones.

Where Magic Actually Happens

The Raindrops Protocol is a series of five contracts that let data for players or items hop across games seamlessly. It's somewhat like teaching your beloved World of Warcraft avatar to understand the language of League of Legends.

Let's say you're a busy game developer, juggling different aspects like aesthetics, gameplay mechanics, and in-game economics from Monday to Friday. With the weekend approaching, you're dreading the imminent task of creating custom software for storing in-game assets. The Raindrops Protocol swoops in like a superhero, with these contracts, you can either pick what you specifically need or use the package deal.

Unleashing a Gaming Revolution

So, what's the big deal? Why should you care that your dragon egg from Dragon City can now hatch in Fortnite? Before Raindrops Protocol, acquiring and trading in-game assets was tough AF! — each game had its isolated databases and protocols a.k.a. a never-ending queue of bureaucracy.

With the Raindrops Protocol, it's like having a single global ledger for all your gaming transactions. So now you can see your gaming achievements, avatar progress, or magic staff acquisition reflected across different games.

Literal Game-Changing Impact (haha get it?) Across the Gaming Realm

Let's check out the potential specific case studies where the Raindrops Protocol can trigger a paradigm shift in gaming.

1. Unlocking Cross-Game Achievements: Beat a formidable boss in Game A and unlock a rare weapon in Game B. Like a software update, but it's a fun gaming achievement with added bragging rights!

2. Cross-Game Trading: Sell or trade items you've acquired/built-in one game within another game's marketplace, like turning your Runescape gold into credits for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

3. Interactive Viewing: Someone can build a dashboard using the data made available by games using Raindrops. This allows viewers to see a Legendary Sword’s complete history — from its creation, ownership changes, battles fought, and enhancements made.

4.Tokens:-The use of digital tokens is prevalent in modern gaming, where players purchase in-game characters and skins. However, each game typically has its own token system, and tokens from one game are not valid in another. Raindrops Protocol offers a solution to this fragmentation by introducing a unified token called $Rain. This token can be acquired and used across multiple games within the Raindrops ecosystem, streamlining the payment process and allowing users to utilize their tokens seamlessly across various games. This enhances convenience and provides a standardized currency for transactions within the gaming community.

5.Ownership:- of digital assets has always been a concern in online gaming, as licensing issues can lead to the removal of characters without the consent of the user. Games like Fortnite, which feature popular characters from different franchises, have encountered such issues. With Raindrops Protocol, ownership concerns can be mitigated. By leveraging blockchain technology, the protocol ensures transparent and secure ownership of in-game characters and assets. Users can have confidence that their acquired items will not be arbitrarily removed, providing a more stable and trustworthy gaming environment.

Let’s talk Code

There are 5 contracts in Raindrops. Let’s break down each one and the potential use cases for it.
Let’s checkout one of the contract which is Item

Item Contract:

The Item contract in the Raindrops Protocol defines an artifact with limited state primarily for tracking usage details like the number of times it has been used, the last time it was used, cooldowns and more. Item artifacts can be categorizable as Consumables or Wearables, or both, containing data for the effects they suppose to have when interacted with. The Item contract is segmented into Item Class Definitions, Item Recipe Creation, and Item Activation.

1. Item Class Definitions: This segment involves the definition of permissions related to various functionalities, how an item instance can be used, and the components required to build the item instance.

2. Item Recipe Creation: This segment covers the components needed to form an instance of the Item class.

3. Item Activation: This segment caters to the preparation and validation of an item for use.

Additional details such as Merkle trees for data proof storage, various structs for creating an ItemClass, and the functionalities of the Item contract have also been detailed.

Use Cases of Raindrop Protocol in Existing Games:

1. In-game Item Crafting: The Item contract in the Raindrop Protocol can be leveraged to create unique game items. For instance, in a RPG game, a player can gather or earn various components that are compatible with the game's ItemClass to create a unique weapon with special abilities.Such as health portions in Elden Ring

2. Player Reward System: The Item the contract can be used to handle player rewards and achievements. For instance, a special wearable item can be created as a reward for achieving a specific milestone in the game.

3. Inventory Management: The Item contract can also be used to handle a player’s inventory. It has a detailed description of the ItemClass which can be used to categorize and manage a player’s inventory in terms of what items they possess and how they can be utilized.

4. Customized Skins:- The item contract can also be used to have particular cameo's that unique or common to each user. Each user can either buy it or earn it based on the in-built reward system. Such as in Call of Duty.

Player Contract:-

Player Class Defination:-The Player class stores player-specific information, such as equipped items, statistics, and other stateful data, while referencing the parent PlayerClass for shared information and definitions.

The player class also defines Player Body parts and Player Basic Stats:-

Player body parts:- various anatomical features that contribute to the physical appearance and characteristics of a player character in a game or virtual environment. These body parts are designed to enhance the realism and immersion of the player's virtual representation.

Player basic stats:- let's take an example of Elden Ring, players can choose from different character classes. Some focus on strength, excelling in melee combat and wielding heavy weapons, while others specialize in magic, casting powerful spells, and manipulating the elements. These choices allow players to customize their playstyle and adapt to the challenges of the game world. This contributes to the stats.

Player LifeCycle:- the player class not only determines the character's abilities and strengths but also influences their progression and development throughout the game. Each class has its unique skill tree, allowing players to shape their character's growth and playstyle, making strategic choices that define their character's lifecycle and ultimate destiny in the game world.

Match Contract:- The Matches contract is designed as an escrow contract that facilitates multiplayer gaming by allowing an independent oracle to redistribute tokens added to the match.

Match Lifecycle:- The match lifecycle represents the complete journey or playthrough that a player undertakes, starting from the initial stage at level 0 and progressing through the game's content until reaching the final level or completing the main objectives. It encompasses all the stages, challenges, and experiences that players encounter throughout their gameplay.

Staking:-

The Staking contract is a program that enables users to stake their items and players in order to gamify artifacts on-chain. By staking items and players, users can perform actions such as upgrading item levels or game character levels.

The Staking contract provides the necessary infrastructure to enable game-related interactions and mechanics on the blockchain, enhancing the gaming experience by incorporating on-chain elements.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Raindrops Protocol is a giant stride in using blockchain technology to enhance our gaming experiences, efficiently revolutionizing game data management. Through this innovation, games can become an interconnected universe, creating a more cohesive gaming community, with players moving assets seamlessly across games.

Whether you're a game developer keen on making your gaming creation more immersive or an avid gamer yearning for an intertwined gaming experience, the Raindrops Protocol hails— or rather, "rains" — opportunities.

One thing's for certain — with the Raindrops Protocol in action, the next game you play may start feeling uncannily familiar like you've lived in it all along! In the gaming world, the quote stands true- "Not all those who wander are lost", they are just happily party-hopping in the Raindrops universe!

Now, go out there, and let's make some rain!