How We Built It

Architecture

The success of WWZ depends on how well it can support a growing player base. Therefore, most of our architectural design decisions favor some form of auto-scaling or serverless components.

Overview of WWZ system architecture

UX

Players interact with the game primarily through a Discord app. We made this choice because:

• most of our potential players already have access to Discord

• it works on any popular mobile device or PC

• offloading authentication and account management to Discord enables us to move faster

Knowing we wanted to build for Discord, we attempted to follow UX flows established by the most popular Discord apps such as MidJourney.

For example, many MidJourney users are conditioned to making initial requests and options through Discord application commands.

Comparison of MidJourney and WWZ requests via Discord Application Commands

And just-in-time graphics support form component choices for deeper workflows.

Comparison of MidJourney and WWZ follow-up UIs

Verification

Generally speaking, players are limited to NFTs they own when playing WWZ. However, players do not need to connect a wallet to WWZ to play.

Instead, we perform a Web3 version of a common Web1 security verification method: DNS-based Domain Validation (DNS-01 challenge). We provide players a unique code and ask them to place it in a location only the controller of an account could (ThetaDrop profile, OpenTheta profile, Magic Eden bio, etc.).

An example of this pattern in action can be seen in our guide for verifying a ThetaDrop account with WWZ.

Summer 2024 Enhancements

Most of the Summer 2024 enhancements were built on top of existing WWZ infrastructure. However, there are some notable new components.