Issue 1: Da Capo
An interview with Ponderware (Quest-3), importance of clean code (reflections), the dangers of curated personas, suggested threads.
Da Capo (Italian: ‘from the beginning’) is usually abbreviated to ‘D.C.’ at the end of a section of a piece. It means to go back to the beginning and play either to the end (Da capo al fine) or to the sign, which looks like a stylised “S” (Da capo al segno).
“And so it was that all things came to be. Rising from his convalescence, at one moment in time, he knew that it was all yet nothing. Both his joy and hatred. Everything more, and all that never was. Burning through his soul’s blood, in a resurgence of energy and presence, he would begin anew.” - M.
NFTs: Quest-3
“Dear Diary, I now begin life as a full-time degen.
Week 1: Passed on an opportunity to obtain the Decentralized Idol. It felt like too much bother.
Week 2: Decided to unleash the Defenestrated Cypher.
Week 3: Declined the barkeep’s crimson ethics blaster.
Week 4: Found the mayor’s well-balanced pointy stick.
Week 5: Swore an oath to a drunken maximalist.
Week 6: Wandered onward to the goblin towns.
Week 7: Skipped on a rare atlas. Suspected spyware.
Week 8: Found a crimson grappling hook.
Week 9: Evaded the black hat who wishes to destroy the Defenestrated Cypher. They were baroque and kafkaesque.
Week 10: Encountered the dragon who covets the Defenestrated Cypher.
Week 11: Optimized my crimson grappling hook as the whitelist closed.
Week 12: Vanquished the Dragon. I have become the embodiment of the zeitgeist.”
https://openseauserdata.com/files/8dae924a01d2c21f4f92baefc83f1bd4.svg
Enter Quest-3—Ponderware’s most recent IP and NFT since MoonCats in 2017.
Consistent with the MO of technologists who brought digital cats onto Ethereum and pioneered functionality like irrevocable naming, accessories, etc., Quest-3 is the first 100% on-chain, experiential storytelling NFT.
25600 quests are available to mint with around one quadrillion story potentials based on the hundreds of bits of content Ponderware added to the algorithm (not including images).
Although each week costs a small amount of gas to finish, the metadata is locked in as a final NFT that reveals how far each player could travel in their journey. Quests are also categorised in one of two outcomes based on self-referential crypto-culture, NGI (not going to make it) or the rarer GMI (going to make it), with only a 12.5% success rate.
While collectors can buy and complete partially finished quests on secondary markets, each week is procedurally generated and placed in a queue to ensure fairness. If data congestion builds or slows down the journey, players can then choose to “do something heroic” and receive a unique visual trait to help fellow travellers on their path.
MM & Ponderware Interview
Were there any authors or artists who influenced the style and focus of the Quest-3 stories?
PW: Many plot points are remixes of NFT/crypto meme culture with a high-fantasy spin. There is no direct reference that informed a majority of the storylines.
What was the reason for this new launch?
PW: We had talked about a project similar to Quest-3 for some time but decided to push a release up and lean into an experimental version of that original idea.
Where do you see interactive storytelling and the future of Quest-3?
PW: In general, we see integrating blockchain technology with any sort of intellectual property as inevitable. The web3 space has ventured into images, music, and games, but storytelling to this point is untapped. Anyone who has minted an NFT has their own origin story for getting into web3. Tapping into that feeling of novel discovery was important to us and led to the development of what we coined an” experiential NFT.” This space is underexplored, and we've barely scratched the surface. There are cooler things to do with NFTs than promise “utility” and airdrop Fiverr art.
Is there any other functionality you'll add to the collection?
PW: Quest-3 is a finished product. Further development on this project is possible but not in the works. We have a lot of ideas for novel NFTs, so focusing on a single project would prevent us from exploring additional avenues. If there is interest, we have some ideas about how to make some of the content generation code more accessible for other projects to incorporate.
What do you believe makes Quest-3 stand out?
PW: There are no similar projects, which is our MO. We want to stay on the cutting edge. Developing projects for which there are already templates or expectations bore us. So many projects are myopic in their scope, thinking purely about mint price and short-lived hype. We want to be remembered for the experiences people have with our projects, not for the influencers that retweeted us. We believe those curious people who value innovation are the ones who will value projects like Quest-3.
Can you speak a little more about what else inspired the design and concept of Quest-3?
PW: The Ponderware team values decentralization and the immutability of on-chain projects, so most of our time in the “idea’’ centres around that. Our original idea was much bigger in scope, but Quest-3 was an attempt to employ the core features of this larger idea into an experimental endeavour with a more digestible timeline. The core idea was to create an on-chain, text-based adventure. The trick was in how owners of the token would progress in their journey, and how to randomize and finalize specific actions on-chain while ensuring adventures couldn’t be gamed by miners or through other attack vectors.
Will there be any overlap with MoonCats?
PW: There are some nods to the MoonCatRescue project in Quest-3, including the total number of possible journeys (25600) and PonderPals (i.e., Ponderware employees) and MoonCats as possible companions. There are no plans to integrate any of the Quest-3 projects directly into the MoonCat ecosystem, but some of the underlying mechanics of Quest-3 will be implemented into MoonCat projects like GravBall.
As a CC0 license, what advice do you have for people who want to add to this project?
PW: The real power is the combination of being both CC0 and having fully on-chain content. Provenance and durability are important reasons to put things on-chain, but more than that is the opportunity for deep interoperability. There are other CC0 and entirely on-chain projects like https://shields.build that are forming a growing palette for creators. Time to start remixing NFTs!
Anything else you'd like to mention?
PW: Quest-3 has fingerprints from every single Ponderware employee. The brainstorming, writing, and programming of this project was a blast for everyone and gives a glimpse into Ponderware's broader ambitions and the culture we aim to cultivate. We want to foster a community of people who appreciate the innovations of projects like Quest-3.
Coding: Reflections on clean code
I thought it fitting to share some words from Robert Martin (along with his contemporaries) around the value of clean code that aligns with strong literary practices. To preface this, “Uncle Bob” is an American software engineer, instructor, and author recognized for creating numerous software design principles. He’s also a founder of the influential Agile Manifesto.
So, what is clean code? “Elegant: pleasingly graceful and stylish in appearance or manner; pleasingly ingenious and simple. Reading it should make you smile the way a well-crafted music box or well-designed car would.”
“Elegant and efficient: The logic should make it straightforward to make it hard for bugs to hide, the dependencies minimal to ease maintenance, error handling complete according to an articulated strategy, and performance close to optimal so as not to tempt people to make the code messy with unprincipled optimizations. Clean code does one thing well” - Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of C++ and author of The C++ Programming Language.
“Simple and direct: Code should read like well-written prose. Clean code never obscures the designer's intent but is full of crisp abstractions and straightforward lines of control”—Grady Booch, author of Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications.
“Clean code is Crisp: brisk, decisive, and matter-of-fact, without hesitation or unnecessary detail. It should contain only what is necessary,” says Grady Booch, author of Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications.
“Clean code should make it easy for others to enhance it.”
“Cleanliness to tests. Tested methods should be applied.”
“Code should be literate: Code should be composed in such a form as to make it readable by humans.”
“Clean code always looks like it was written by someone who cares. There is nothing obvious that you can do to make it better. All of those things were thought about by the code's author, and if you try to imagine improvements, you're led back to where you are, sitting in appreciation of the code someone left for you - code left by someone who cares deeply about the craft” - Michael Feathers, author of Working Effectively with Legacy Code."
“You can call it beautiful code when the code also makes it look like the language was made for the problem. Each routine you read tunes out to be pretty much what you expected” - Ward Cunningham, inventor of Wiki, Inventor of Fit, coinventor of eXtreme Programming. The motive force behind Design Patterns. Small talk and OO thought leader. The godfather of all those who care about code.
“We are authors. And one thing about authors is that they have readers. Indeed, the authors are responsible for communicating well with their readers. The next time you write a line of code, remember you are an author, writing for readers who will judge your effort”—Uncle Bob.
“Leave the campground cleaner than you found it. The difference between a smart programmer and a professional programmer is that the professional understands that clarity is king. Write code that others can understand” - Uncle Bob.
“Great software is something to marvel at: powerful, elegant, functional, a pleasure to work with as both a developer and a user. Great software isn’t written by machines. It is written by professionals with an unshakable commitment to craftsmanship. More importantly, it is written by people who care about what they're doing. And that care, or attention to detail, will always reveal itself.” -
Lessons
The dangers of curated profiles and personas. A wake-up call to use truth as a North Star.
The word “person” comes from the Latin persona (from the Greek prosopon), meaning mask, as in the mask worn by actors on the classical stage. A person, then, in its original meaning, is not the player, not the living human being, but rather the role played” - https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2012/01/13/145150919/faces-and-masks
As I scrolled through the comments of Jonwu’s tweet, I couldn't help but reflect on the dangers of hero worship. It may seem trivial, but I find it relevant because it reminds me of all the time I spent doing the same—desperately seeking validation from anyone other than myself.
Whether it was pursuing art, Chinese, and later my (continued) involvement in web3, my incessant yearning to be praised by others only left me drained and borderline depressed. Because none of them (as I learned during conflict) were authentic. The charming allure of my idols and supposed confidants collapsed in the reveal of manipulators, narcissists, psychopaths, and hypocrites. Insecure and dangerous power junkies.
In hindsight, my naivety caused me to err in a way that a more patient, self-assured, pragmatic person wouldn’t have. Or maybe, as I've since realised, as a past people pleaser, I was looking to repeat my trauma (and subconscious comfort) of giving to the emotionally unavailable. And I gave a lot. While I'll save the details of experiences that had me ruin government contracts, not to mention endless amounts of empty promises, etc., I don't regret it. Although there are more lessons on the horizon, healing from my past has taught me not to fall for the illusory tricks and curated images of the elite and influential.
I was forced to ground myself in the only reliable source - my inner world. And hopefully, by reading these words, you can save yourself some undue suffering. Especially by understanding that those who curate a polished persona do it to distract you and offset the guilt of what haunts them - a deafening echo of truth endlessly reverberating in the reflections of their mind. I'm not advocating that you shouldn't trust anyone. What I'm espousing is to trust yourself first. Being internally secure strengthens your stillness, patience, and resilience. It makes you free of corrupt presumptions and assumptions. Moreover, you set yourself up for the long game in relationships to see enough patterns that consciously or unconsciously reveal who you're surrounded by.
It isn’t always easy to perceive ourselves as we perceive our heroes. But it is the only way to see who is genuine. And this isn’t to regurgitate shallow motivational junkie content. Quite the opposite. You should develop such a strong inner knowing to the extent that you see your fellow human beings' evil, atrocities, and flaws as a real potential in yourself. As it’s only in choosing not to express those darker aspects, do you remain sincere and honest. Furthermore, by recognising these flaws and darker potential in others, you never place them in a position of God-like reverence.
To paraphrase Jordan Peterson, this is the basis on which we should all aspire to live: to follow truth and live with the ability and capacity to be cruel but choose not to. For it’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. Those who have swords but keep them sheathed shall inherit the earth.
In short, don’t conflate intellectually influential with intellectually honest. Don’t fall for the tricks of the hucksters and the illusions of a platform that adorns our idols with layers of masks.
When it comes to crypto, perhaps we should be looking to those who aren’t afraid to state what needs to be said, no matter how unpopular. Or, at the very least, help make their followers think and adopt contrarian views so that they are challenged rather than grooming mindless sheep.
Suggested Threads
