The Space – Not a Pixel War but a Cohesion Calling

The Space 虎年新春共創 – 不是像素戰爭而是召喚凝聚之力

Have you heard of the “Place” project from US’s social network forum Reddit in 2017? While you can no longer participate in that famous 72 hours of fun, you can play a similar Web3 version game,Matters Lab’s“The Space,” instead. Matters Lab is the organization behind Matters, an open-source writing platform run on the blockchain.

This article will share my experience playing “The Space-New Year Collaboration” on Feb 4 and my observation from a social experiment perspective.

Reddit’s “Place” Project

Let me start by introducing The Space’s predecessor, “Place” from Reddit. “Place” was a Reddit game that kicked off on April Fool’s Day in 2017. The game lasted for 3 days and attracted 90,000 gamers.

Therewas a 1000 x 1000 pixels online canvas where players could change the color of pixels every 5~20 minutes with a palette of 16 colors.

Below is a timelapse video of the game. You can see how diverse the pixel image was, and you’ll probably be amazed by how total strangers on the internet could work collectively to accomplish this masterpiece.

On the one hand, Reddit users from different subreddits took over small sections to create pictures like country flags, sports clubs, games, celebrities, and so forth. But on the other hand, saboteurs tried to destroy others’ creations from time to time. Fortunately, communities usually allied and fought off these villains at last.

The devolvement of the image was like a snapshot of the modern society, where consensus was formed from chaos and communities became a force of protection. No wonder the Place project was considered a social experiment and a perfect realization of the power of online communities.

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Matter Lab’s “The Space” Game

“The Space-New Year Collaboration” I attended was the 2nd test round of the game. It was in the middle of Lunar New Year, and everyone was having a blast for 3 hours.

Although the idea of The Space came from Reddit’s Place project, the game was a more ambitious attempt in terms of both a social experiment and technological support.

Matters Lab designed the game as a dApp (decentralized application). Every pixel is a mini NFT, meaning all color-changing logs (transactions) would be automatically recorded in a decentralized platform for good.

Matters Lab designed the game to explore the applicability of Harberger Tax and Universal basic income (UBI), policies invented to eliminate the issue of economic inequality. Therefore, its rules were slightly different from the Place as listed below. (I’ll explain these two mechanisms in the last paragraph)

First of all, there was no cool-off period. You could change the pixel’s color as often as you want (as long as the platform doesn’t crash).

Second, the owner priced every pixel from a range of zero to a pre-determined cap price. So if you want to change the color of a pixel, you have to purchase it first. Then, the next player pays you to change the color of his choosing. And the game went on.

Third of all, the goals of the game could be different. For example, in the first test run in mid-Jan, the goal was to own as many pixels as possible to get a “POAP” as the reward. At the second time, participants were separated into two teams and worked on respective pixel canvases. Community members will vote for their favorite pixel NFT afterward, and the winning team will receive a special edition POAP.

Lastly, every player accessed the game via a dedicated link, an URL with players’ email at last. When you click the pixel, you can see the owner’s handle, the same as the first half of the owner’s email. This rule ultimately saved the incident in my team, which I’ll explain later.

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The Bad Apple

Below is a snapshot of the canvas of my team 30 minutes after the game started. Do you find anything particular?

Yes, I’m talking about the spreading green boxes at the bottom.

When I first logged in to the game, I was eager to buy as many pixels as possible. After successfully creating a “Year of Tiger” in the middle, I started to work on other slogans at the bottom, such as “TWFOREVER” and “We’ll Survive.” Then, suddenly, I noticed some annoying green boxes started to wipe off my hard work.

In The Space’s Discord channel, I quickly asked if our goal was to create the best picture together, rather than fighting for pixel ownership like last time. The answer was positive. But soon, other players’ also found that the green-box player was damaging their works.

We tried to identify the green-box player in the channel but in vain. Worst of all, that player reset the pixel he owned at the maximum price, so we could only recover a few pixels. Thus it seemed that we were losing the game because our canvas looked so ugly with this green-box attack.

Luckily, a clever player offered a solution. We could use the green-box player’s handle (email address) to play the game. Next, we could reset all the prices and change the color back. Yes, I know, it doesn’t sound very legit, but it seemed to be the only solution at the moment.

In the end, we were able to draw something creative and fun. We had cute tigers, spring couplets, and even Super Mario. And the green-box player finally noticed his mistake and started to create rather than sabotage. He even wrote something to express his love for a girl.

2/14/2022 Valentine’s Day Update: My team, team B got the most votes and won the game at last! Every team member will receive a super cute “Tiger of The Year” POAP as a reward. The 3 hours of hard work paid off!

Due to some technical issues, Matters Lab decided to change the POAP reward to an NFT. So I made a listing of this “Tiger of The Year” NFT on OpenSea at a lucky number 0.168. For those of you wondering, Tiger is the Chinese zodiac sign for 2022, and “168” is a homophonic number similar to “make big money along the way (一路發)” in Chinese. The combination is perfect for a Lunar New Year NFT don’t you think?

You can access the“Tiger of The Year” NFT here on OpenSea.

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A Social Experiment

Remember I said The Space is a social experiment? The result was promising; a community without a leader could still accomplish something positive. And that’s my favorite part of the game, the power of cohesion.

What we did to the green-box player may be a bit unethical, but in a way, we were also doing vigilante work. Eventually, we made the player realize the game’s real goal, so I guess it was a successful intervention?

Moreover, in the last hour of the game, people started to ask around in Discord if anyone needed extra coloring but didn’t have enough money to do so. It proved that when there’s a common goal, people are willing to help each other, even at the expense of their own pockets.

I also had a materialistic observation about the pixel price, which mimicked the crazy housing market in this hyperinflation and unlimited-QE world.

There was a massive gap between the initial pixel price of 100 and the cap at 10,000. If an early player purchases as many pixels as he wants and reset all at the cap price, other players would have to pay a substantial fee. Meanwhile, the early player could continue to use the profit to buy new pixels almost indefinitely. Look familiar?

When the official version of The Space goes live, it will introduce Harberger Tax and Universal Basic Income to avoid the above situation. The two policies will force sellers to pay taxes and ultimately distribute to the community to ensure every member’s basic survival.

The Space was such a fun game, even for a newbie like me. I can’t wait to play the final version, and I hope to see more game variations in the future.

Finally, check out below timelapse video of The Space-New Year Collaboration and tell me which one you like.

Are you interested in The Space too? Please give me a shout-out below, or drop me an email to hear your thoughts. Subscribe to my newsletter so that you won’t miss the latest update, or you can check out my other observer sharing here.

Last but not least, if you like what you read, welcome to support me by clicking the icon below so that I can continue to create high-quality content on this website without ads.

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你聽過美國著名社群論壇 Reddit 2017 年發布的史詩級遊戲「Place」嗎？若你沒能趕上那歷史留名的 72 小時，現在機會來了！你可以玩 Matters Lab 開發的類似 Web3 版遊戲「The Space」。Matters Lab 是區塊鏈架構的開源寫作平台 Matters 幕後推手。

本文將分享我在 2/4 這天玩了 3 小時的「The Space 新春共創」遊戲跟從社會實驗角度的觀察。

Reddit 史詩級遊戲 Place

讓我先來介紹 The Space 的靈感來源- Reddit 的「Place」遊戲，Place 在 2017 年愚人節當天上線，歷時 3 天，總計有 9 萬名玩家參與。遊戲玩法是先有一個 1000 x 1000 的大型空白像素畫布，玩家每 5～20 分鐘可以為像素上色一次，透過 16 種色號構成各種不同的像素圖案。

下方有一個遊戲當時的縮時影片，你可以看到整個畫布的組成相當多元，而且神奇的是這個史詩級作品全由網路上的陌生人共同創作而成。

活動當下 Reddit 上不同的子論壇 (subreddit) 盡可能地佔領一小塊一小塊的畫布，畫出國旗、運動俱樂部、遊戲、名人等圖案。但同時也有破壞者三番兩次想蓋過別人的創作，幸好論壇的成員通常都能合力擊退這些搗蛋鬼。

整個作品推進過程像是現代社會的縮影，人們從混亂中找到共識，然後社群凝聚成保護的力量。難怪評論家說 Place 事件是一場社會實驗，更是線上社群力量的完美體現。

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Matter Lab 版 The Space 新春共創遊戲

我參加的「The Space 新春共創」是遊戲的第二場公測活動，當天正值農曆初四，大家在 3 小時的遊戲過程中玩得不亦樂乎。

The Space 的靈感雖然來自 Reddit 的 Place，從社會實驗跟技術架構的角度來看前者卻是一個更大膽的嘗試。

Matters Lab 用 dApp (decentralized application, 去中心化應用程式) 的架構開發遊戲，每個像素都是一小塊NFT，亦即每次上色的動作 (交易) 都會被系統自動記錄下來，在鏈上永久保存。這個遊戲創作目的之一是探索旨在消除貧富不均的哈柏格稅(Harberger Tax) 和全民基本收入 (Universal basic income, UBI) 兩項政策的可行性，因此和 Place 的遊戲規則稍有不同，請見下面幾點 (我會在最後一段另外說明這兩項機制的運作方式)。

第一，The Space 沒有時間間隔的限制，你想要幫多少像素上色都可以，只要你自認是個快手人跟系統不會過載。

第二，像素所有者有訂價的權利，價格從 0 到 10,000 不等，如果你想幫該像素變色，你就必須先出錢買下它；接著下一個想變色的玩家需要再付錢給上一個擁有者，以此類推。

第三，遊戲的目的可以不同。如一月中旬的第一場試玩，遊戲玩法是盡可能佔領越多像素，拿到最多像素的前幾名玩家就可以得到活動POAP 當獎勵。第二場遊戲則是將玩家分成兩隊，每隊負責為自己的像素畫布上色，最後社群會投票選出他們最喜歡的像素 NFT，而贏家隊伍同樣可以拿到一枚限定版 POAP。

最後，每個玩家需透過一個專屬連結進入遊戲，該連結以自己的 email 結尾。遊戲過程中每當你點擊一個像素，你就可以看到該像素擁有者的用戶名，亦即其 email 使用者名稱。這個規則最後幫了我所屬的小隊一個大忙，容我待會解釋。

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打敗綠框框

下圖是我所屬的 B 隊在遊戲開始後 30 分鐘的樣子，有沒有覺得哪裡怪怪的？

是的，我在說畫布下方那惱人的綠框框。

一開始登入遊戲後，我先忙著買下很多的像素，成功在畫布中間留下一個「Year of Tiger」字樣後，我轉移陣地到下方區塊繼續努力寫字，像「TWFOREVER」、「We’ll Survive」，沒辦法，本人是畫畫苦手。突然間，我發現有一堆綠色框框迅雷不及掩耳地把我的創作蓋過去。

我趕緊在 Discord 頻道確認這次遊戲目標是一起創作一個好看的 NFT，而不是跟上回一樣的像素戰爭，我得到的答覆是肯定的，然而其他玩家也開始發現綠框框在破壞他們的作品了。

我們試圖在頻道裡對綠框框玩家喊話，但是情況完全沒有改善；更糟的是，那名玩家會重新幫自己的像素訂最高價，所以其他人想要買回自己的像素也有困難，當時我心想我們這隊是不是要輸了，因為我們這對的畫布被這些病毒似的綠框框弄的慘不忍睹。

幸好，有一位機警的玩家發現了一個漏洞，我們可以用綠框框玩家的帳號 (email) 登入遊戲，然後再重新把價格歸零跟把顏色改回來。是是是，我知道這聽起來有點不合法，但是當時看起來似乎也沒別的辦法了。

最後，我們成功奪回畫布，創作了一些有趣的東西，像是可愛的老虎、春聯，甚至還有超級瑪莉。而綠框框玩家好像也終於發現自己弄錯遊戲玩法開始專心創作，他最後還寫了一句話告白呢。

2022/2/14 情人節更新：我所在的 B 組大獲全勝！每個組員都會得到超可愛的「Tiger of The Year」POAP 一枚，3 小時綠框框大作戰的辛苦果然是值得的！

因為遇到一些技術問題，Matters Lab 決定把 POAP 獎品改成以 NFT 的形式發送，所以我決定把其中一枚 NFT 用「0.168」這個數字出售，因為，你不覺得「老虎」 配上「168 (一路發)」超適合這個虎年遊戲的紀念 NFT 嗎？

你可以透過這個連結在 OpenSea 上購買這個 NFT。

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社會實驗

還記得我說過 The Space 是一場社會實驗嗎？最終的實驗結果顯然是正面的，即便是沒有領導人的社群也能集體創作出一些美好的事物，這也是我喜歡這個遊戲的地方，凝聚的力量是最迷人的。

我們對綠框框玩家的抵制或許有些道德疑慮，但這不也是一種義警除暴為民的體現嗎？何況最後我們也讓那名玩家了解活動的真正目的，可以說是綠框框作戰大成功！

在遊戲最後一小時，有些好心的玩家開始在 Discord 頻道裡詢問有沒有人需要幫忙上色但是不夠錢買像素，這又證明了只要有共同目標，人們還是願意極盡所能幫助他人的 (我是人性本善的信奉者)。

此外，我也有一個關於像素價格的現實體悟，其實這跟現在因高通膨和無限制 QE 引發的房市熱潮有些 déjà vu 呢！

遊戲規則將像素的起始價格和天花板價格設定了 0 到 1 萬的巨大差距，若早期玩家先買到很多像素又將它們全部以最高價出售，其他玩家根本沒什麼進入空間，接著早期玩家又可以看似無止盡地瘋狂買地再度高價出售，看到這裡你應該也懂了？

還好，遊戲正式版聽說會加入哈柏格税跟全民基本收入兩項政策，這樣玩家就必須盡繳稅義務，再將稅收平均分給所有玩家以確保每位玩家都能繼續玩下去。

The Space 真的是很有趣的遊戲，新手如我也玩得欲罷不能，好希望正式版本趕快上線，並推出更多不同玩法。

最後來瞧瞧 The Space 新春共創版的遊戲縮時影片，你喜歡哪一組的作品呢？

你也想玩 The Space 嗎？歡迎在下方留言或透過 email 跟我分享心得。也別忘了訂閱我的電子報才能收到最新文章，你也可以在這裡閱讀我的其他觀察報告。

最後，如果你喜歡我的文章，歡迎透過以下綠界 QR Code 或讚賞公民 Liker 幫我拍手 5 下支持我後續的寫作計畫，也讓這個網站能以無廣告的方式走得更遠，謝謝。

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