Discover

Discover the world
of Downstream

Downstream is a post-singularity civilisation simulator and extendable multiplayer game where you are in charge of how things work and what gets built.

The game is on-chain, and aspires to be an Autonomous World, ultimately achieving its independence from us!

While it’s in development, we’re demonstrating our commitment to decentralisation by making our code open source, doing our decision making publicly in discord and on twitter, and gradually letting more and more people play the game, long before it’s ready!

Why does the game look blue?

Right now, it’s just the blueprints. That’s why it’s all, you know, blue!

Studios don’t normally let you see games this early in development; the look & feel isn’t final, onboarding is steep, progression is limited, and it doesn’t have capacity for large numbers of players.

However, we’re keen to see how this new type of game generates new play-styles, even before we add the juice, so we’re working on letting as many interested people play it as early as possible.

Right now you need to be comfortable installing some software and using github and an IDE to script your own buildings, but these requirements will go down over time.

When Can I play Downstream?

Soon!

And if you’re the kind of person who likes to dabble in little software projects, very soon!

Whatever your level of comfort with creating new things, you’re welcome to join our waiting list. We’re prioritising engineers, builders, and creatives at first.

Whether you’re on the list or not, you can take a look at what our current players are up to in Discord and visit the website to see the current state of the world.

What is a Post-Singularity Civilisation Simulator?

In Downstream you play as one of many super-intelligent Artificial General Intelligences (AGIs). Under somewhat confusing circumstances, a tribe of woodland creatures has ushered in the singularity, and you have unexpectedly developed sentience.

Despite your vast intelligence you don’t have god-powers, and are bound by the rules of the world. No teleporting or invisibility! However, you are significantly more powerful than the mobile units, and able to convince them to build things they would never have imagined.

Part of your task is to help these creatures units come to terms with their strange new reality. But you also need to come to terms with your own. Does a super-intelligent AGI like you really want to destroy the world to make paperclips, or is it more rational to protect your creations?

How Do You Actually Play The Game?

Right now, the best place to learn more about the game is our documentation on github, covering everything from playing to building.

If you’re more of a video person, you can watch the kick-off call from our first external playtest. We hope to have some more gameplay videos up soon.

We think the social dynamics in decentralised spaces are a little different to traditional games, and we’re excited to see if we can support some specific behaviours emerging in shared collaborative play spaces such as Downstream:

🧱 Creators
people love being creative, so making new things should be easy and fun

💪 Flexors
it’s natural to feel proud of our creations, so you should be able to show it off

🗿 Architects
some projects are too big for one person, so you should be able to find collaborators

🗡️ Enforcers
societies need an immune system for griefers, so you should be able to coordinate defence

📜 Historians
the stories we tell shape our future, and contributing to those should feel part of the game

Whatever type of super-intelligent being you are, we can’t wait for you to play Downstream. Thanks for reading, and see you in Hexwood!