The Application of zk-SNARKs in On-Chain Games: Taking Elimination Games as an Example

In the development process of on-chain games, balancing game experience with blockchain features has always been a challenge. Taking a certain on-chain elimination game as an example, players need to eliminate all elements on the board within 4 minutes to earn token rewards. However, due to the requirement of interacting with the blockchain for each operation, the game experience is significantly diminished.

To address this issue, developers are considering introducing zk-SNARKs technology (ZKP). The core idea is to decouple the game process while ensuring no risk of cheating. The specific plan is to generate a ZKP for each operation in the game, with each subsequent step forming a self-contained ZKP chain based on the previous step, and finally sending the ZKP of the last step to the chain for verification.

However, this plan faces many challenges in the process of actual implementation:

1. Integrity verification of the game process: It is necessary to not only generate zk-SNARKs for the results but also to verify the entire game process.

2. Technical difficulties in the gradual generation of ZKP: Each step of ZKP relies on the previous step, and there is uncertainty in how to ensure continuity and correctness.

3. Public Data Processing: The data of this game is public, and using zk-SNARKs for information hiding seems unnecessary.

4. Game item consumption issue: It remains a challenge to handle the Token transfer under the ZKP framework.

5. The data hiding feature of zk-SNARKs: For game scenarios where data does not need to be hidden, it actually increases implementation complexity.

After in-depth analysis, we found that ZKP technology may not be the best choice in such games. Instead, the key lies in finding a way to ensure that every step from the start to the end of the game is free from cheating, while only verifying the final result on-chain.

Currently, it seems that ZKP technology is more suitable for application in two types of scenarios in the gaming field:

1. Information hiding in incomplete information games, such as certain strategy card games.

2. Proof of single-step game results, such as lotteries, guessing numbers, and other simple games.

For blockchain game developers, when considering the introduction of zk-SNARKs technology, it is necessary to weigh the advantages it brings against the potential increased complexity. In some cases, seeking other optimization solutions may be more appropriate. With the continuous development of technology, it is believed that more innovative solutions will emerge in the future, providing a better experience for blockchain games.