Video games have always been pioneers of technological innovation. From the simple, pixelated joy of Pong to sprawling, open-world masterpieces like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, each leap forward has brought new possibilities for storytelling, creativity, and human connection. And yet, gaming has often relied on tools of the past, tethering its evolution to the same centralized systems that define most digital media. What happens when a new medium—one built on blockchain technology—arrives to fundamentally reshape not just the games we play, but what a “game” can be?
For most people, blockchain still conjures images of cryptocurrencies or NFTs: speculative assets, traded for profit, promising ownership but often feeling far removed from the everyday joys of gaming. Yet this understanding barely scratches the surface of what blockchain is capable of. Beyond tokens and collectibles lies the potential for blockchain to become a medium—a foundation for creating new kinds of experiences that feel alive, autonomous, and enduring.
Consider the pioneering project Terraforms, a fully onchain experiment that transcends the notion of static art. Terraforms is a world composed of virtual land parcels, each encoded directly on the blockchain, where owners can interact with and reshape their parcels to reveal deeper layers of data encoded in its structure. These parcels aren’t just passive collectibles—they’re living, evolving canvases that exist independently of centralized servers or creators. Terraforms invites its owners to co-create a world, offering a glimpse into what happens when art, technology, and autonomy collide.
Now, imagine applying this philosophy to a game as iconic as Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario needs no introduction. For decades, it has been the cornerstone of gaming, a symbol of nostalgia and joy. You can almost feel the weight of the cartridge in your hand, the satisfying click as it slots into the console. The process was simple: plug it into the TV, press start, and guide Mario through a series of meticulously designed levels. Every player followed the same journey—jumping over Goombas, collecting coins, and facing Bowser at the end. But for all its magic, Mario’s world was static. The levels never changed. The coins respawned. The pipes were always in perfect condition, no matter how many times you used them.
But what if Mario’s world could change? What if it was more than a series of levels, more than a game you played and finished? What if it was a living, breathing, autonomous world, where every jump, every stomp, and every decision left a permanent mark? What if Super Mario wasn’t just a game—it was a world to inhabit?
The Living, Evolving World of Onchain Mario
In this reimagined Super Mario, the game exists entirely onchain, encoded into the blockchain as an autonomous, evolving world. Every level—be it the iconic “1-1” or a brand-new creation—is its own parcel within a vast, interconnected landscape. These parcels are not static challenges to be overcome but persistent environments, shaped by the players who traverse them.
Imagine starting in “1-1.” You collect a coin, but unlike the Mario of old, that coin doesn’t magically reappear when you restart the level. It’s gone—a finite resource permanently removed from the world. The ground begins to wear under your repeated jumps, showing cracks where you’ve landed too many times. The once-bright Question Blocks dim as their contents are depleted. Over time, the level evolves: pipes weaken from overuse, platforms crumble, and even the enemies adapt to player patterns, growing smarter and more resilient.
This isn’t a game that resets when you turn it off. It’s a living ecosystem that remembers every player’s journey. The terrain itself tells a story—a history of victories, failures, and explorations etched into the world. A hole in the ground might mark where a player once fell, while a well-worn path could reveal the most popular route through the level. Each parcel becomes a digital artifact, carrying the weight of its history for future players to uncover.
A Multiverse of Interoperability
The magic of blockchain lies in its interoperability—the ability for assets to move freely between systems. In this onchain Mario world, everything is encoded as onchain assets: coins, power-ups, enemies, and even terrain. These assets are not confined to this one game. A coin collected in “1-1” could carry metadata that allows it to be traded or used in another game entirely. A Fire Flower might be transplanted into a completely different context, where its powers take on new meaning.
This interoperability opens the door to collaboration on a massive scale. Developers around the world could create new games, levels, or experiences using the same onchain assets. Imagine stepping through a pipe in “1-2” and finding yourself in a player-created sci-fi world, where Mario’s abilities have been reimagined to fit an entirely different narrative. The blockchain acts as the connective tissue, enabling a multiverse of games and stories, all built on the same foundation.
Autonomy and Permissionless Play
Unlike traditional games, which rely on centralized servers and corporate oversight, this Mario would be autonomous. It would live entirely on the blockchain, immune to shutdowns or interference. Its rules and mechanics would be encoded in smart contracts, transparent for anyone to audit or extend.
This autonomy creates a world that is permissionless. Players could engage with the game directly through their wallets, owning not just their progress but their place in the world. Levels could be bought, sold, or even rented out, giving players a direct stake in the game’s evolution. Anyone with the skills could create new levels, remix existing ones, or fork the entire game to create their own version. This is gaming without gatekeepers, where creativity and collaboration flourish.
Decay, Growth, and Emergent Storytelling
At the heart of this onchain Mario is a cycle of decay and growth. The world isn’t static; it evolves over time. Terrain erodes, structures collapse, and levels transform based on the passage of time and player interaction. But decay also makes room for growth. Players could collaborate to repair pipes, rebuild platforms, or even terraform entire levels, leaving their mark on the world for future adventurers.
This cycle creates a new kind of storytelling. Levels tell the story of the players who’ve passed through them—a cracked pipe might whisper of a thousand failed jumps, while an overgrown platform could hint at an area long abandoned. These stories are emergent, not scripted. They are shaped by the collective actions of players, turning the world into a digital archaeology where every block, enemy, and platform carries the weight of its history.
Rethinking Play
This thought experiment—a fully onchain Super Mario—is an invitation to rethink what it means to “play” or what a “game” or “game world” can be altogether.
Today, many blockchain games function as little more than marketing mechanisms for their tokens, reducing play to a means of speculation. But what if we aimed higher? What if we used blockchain not as a gimmick but as a medium to create games that are autonomous, living, and unbounded? Games where every interaction matters, where worlds grow and decay, where players are co-creators rather than mere consumers.
A game like Super Mario as an onchain game would not just be a leap forward in technology—it would be a leap into the unknown, a step toward a future where games are no longer static, disposable products but living worlds that evolve with their players. It challenges us to imagine: what might we create if we let go of old paradigms and embraced the true potential of this new medium?
