When the Dino hopped Onchain

The ETHIndia 2024 team reimagined the classic Chrome Dino Game as an onchain experience, aligning with the hackathon’s “Infinite Games” theme, which celebrates persistence, creativity, and the ethos of building systems for the long term. Inspired by an internet outage, the team chose the Dino Game for its endless gameplay and nostalgic appeal, deciding to make high scores verifiable and tamper-proof on the blockchain. The project replaced the dino with an onchain bunny (a nod to Vitalik Buterin) and swapped cacti for banks, symbolizing crypto’s challenge to traditional finance. The initiative became a showcase of technical problem-solving and community engagement at ETHIndia 2024.

Key Ideas

Technical Innovation and Challenges: The team’s initial plan to verify high scores by replaying gameplay on a server proved too complex due to browser dependencies and non-deterministic game logic. They pivoted to using Merkle Trees, which allowed them to cryptographically verify gameplay data and scores efficiently, ensuring integrity without server-side replays.
Open Source and Community Impact: The modernized, React-compatible version of the Dino Game was open-sourced, encouraging developers to experiment and build upon it. The game resonated with the ETHIndia community, with over 25,000 NFTs minted and widespread participation, turning a simple Easter egg into a vibrant, onchain gaming experience.