Original title: "Parallel's AI Crypto Gaming Moonshot"

Author: William M. Peaster

Compiled by: Elvin, ChainCatcher

Parallel is a science fiction trading card battle game that is one of the leading games in the cryptocurrency space and the flagship game in the cryptocurrency space. The highly anticipated second game in the Echelon Prime gaming ecosystem is also about to launch: Parallel Colony.

Parallel Colony is an AI-driven survival simulation game that will center on humans working together with AI avatars who can learn, adapt, and automatically trade over time to accumulate resources and compete with other players leading position.​

Developer Parallel Studios has just released the official whitepaper for Colony and Wayfinder, the latter of which is a new AI protocol that will help power Colony’s gameplay.

There’s a lot to take in in these white papers, so let’s bring you up to speed on everything you need to know in today’s post!

Learn about the new Parallel Colony update

Parallel Colony Basics

101: Parallel Colony will be in public alpha as early as Q4 2024, centered around Colony Avatars, which will be deployed on Solana. Powered by Large Language Model (LLM) technology, these AI avatars will be semi-autonomous AI agents that operate on general instructions from players rather than direct control.

Why this matters: Colony’s AI setup will allow avatars to retain memories, learn from experience, and influence each other through conversation. At times, avatars will even ignore the advice of human players based on their unique personalities and the experience they’ve accumulated over time. As a result, Colony is the first game to fully venture into the crossroads of generative AI and blockchain gaming.

Money Machines: Each Money Machine is tied to a dedicated Solana wallet, and colony avatars will conduct their own transactions around purchasing and crafting resources, a dynamic that will enable a real economy in the game. Commerce and war will cause tides to change and resources to shift, and the colonies that have accumulated the most wealth at any given time will become greater targets for trade and warfare.

Avatar Expansion: While there will be a free-to-play model, the main gameplay will be players creating colony avatars by paying with Parallel’s native currency, PRIME. At first, the creation process will require holding Parallel avatar NFTs on Ethereum, but may eventually introduce Parallel’s universal avatar series on Solana with a breeding mechanic. This update will make the game more accessible and will expand the number of avatars, with the total number far exceeding the existing 11,000 unique NFTs.

What Happens Next: Colony's core gameplay involves taking on quests to enhance the avatar's skills and the overall wealth of the colony. As colonies thrive, they can build defenses against incoming attacks or launch attacks on neighboring colonies. A typical game session begins with the player consulting with their avatar and deciding on goals to pursue, from accumulating valuable items to running for political office, after which their avatar will begin pursuing those goals. As with most Parallel games, Colony players can also earn PRIME rewards through in-game achievements.

The rise of Wayfinder

AI On-Chain Maps: Built on Solana and underpinning Parallel Colony’s AI gameplay, Wayfinder is a new protocol designed to bring the power of AI agents on-chain. In short, the system allows artificially intelligent agents (called “Shells”) to navigate blockchain environments, perform transactions, and interact with decentralized applications.

Essentially, Wayfinder is like a map and toolkit for AI agents to use as they move around the blockchain. Just like you might use a map app on your phone to find the best route to a new restaurant, Wayfinder provides AI agents with “pathfinding paths.” These paths are a set of instructions that help agents find ways to achieve specific goals on-chain, like trading on a decentralized exchange or minting an NFT.

Full-chain tooling: While Solana will be home to Wayfinder, its architecture and “pathfinding pathways” have been developed to enable it to work seamlessly on a wide range of blockchains. The protocol will initially support the most popular chains like Ethereum, Solana, and Base, but more networks are expected to be added through governance over time.

A New AI Token: The Wayfinder whitepaper proposes PROMPT as a utility and governance token in the Wayfinder ecosystem. Its role is multifaceted, including facilitating governance, paying for the creation of AI agents, and paying gas fees for transactions around the Wayfinder ecosystem. New pathfinding paths can also be proposed by staking PROMPT, and stakers receive a portion of the transaction fees generated when their paths are used.

PROMPT Distribution: The maximum supply of PROMPT is set at 1 billion. Once the distribution strategy is officially approved, tokens will be distributed to various stakeholders, including the Wayfinder Foundation, developers, and users. Notably, 40% of all PROMPT tokens will be distributed as rewards over 3 years to those who “cache” or stake their PRIME in Wayfinder. As a result, not only will Parallel Colony become a powerful new deflationary pool for PRIME tokens, but PROMPT rewards will undoubtedly drive up demand for PRIME for the foreseeable future.

The Big Vision: Wayfinder was created to power Parallel Colony, but the infrastructure will be open for a variety of different use cases in both gaming and non-gaming environments. For example, on-chain games could use Wayfinder to launch their own autonomous AI agents or manage the discovery and allocation of scarce in-game resources. The protocol could be used to create smart trading or NFT minting bots, or even AI customer service agents. The possibilities for the future are limited primarily by our imaginations, and any project interested in on-chain AI capabilities should take note.

personal opinion

Personally, it’s hard to explain how optimistic I am about the Parallel ecosystem, and Parallel Colony is a huge building block in that ecosystem. I’m truly an avid gamer of all genres myself, and Colony represents new frontiers in terms of the intersection of AI x gaming. Count me in, I love the prospects opening up here!

Beyond what excites me, I think Colony is designed very smartly and will yield great results for gamers and the broader Parallel ecosystem. If nothing else, this is one of the biggest gaming experiments going on, not just in crypto but in all of gaming, and you should track it accordingly. That’s the bottom line.

As a PRIME holder, one of the reasons I like Colony from a narrative perspective is how it now exposes the Parallel ecosystem to all of the dominant chains in the crypto economy. The main Parallel TCG covers Ethereum and Base, Colony covers Solana, and Wayfinder covers any chain you can think of, from Cosmos app chains to Ethereum L2 and everything in between.

More importantly, the Wayfinder protocol is not just the engine for Colony, but for the broader crypto AI scene. Soon, various projects will be able to leverage the Wayfinder system to bring artificial intelligence into their on-chain processes. I believe this will bring huge benefits to PRIME and the broader Parallel ecosystem, not to mention the entire AI x crypto project!