Terraforms by Mathcastles

Terraforms, by Mathcastles, are parcels of land in the Hypercastle, a structure of 20 levels that tapers to a point at each end. Each parcel is named for its address, such as Level 14 at {18, 11}. Its image is a 32 by 32 grid of text characters that maps the parcel's terrain and never stops moving. Zone sets its colors, Biome the characters, and Chroma the speed of the animation.

Mathcastles is a studio of two anonymous developers, 0x113d and xaltgeist. They released Terraforms on December 17, 2021, at 0.16 ETH each, with an early mint for Loot and mintpass holders. The castle has room for 11,104 parcels, and 9,911 were minted. The contracts draw everything themselves: the terrain comes from onchain noise, the font is stored in the contract, and the image is built on request. Owners can change their parcel. Entering Daydream wipes the terrain for good and leaves a blank grid, and a drawing committed to it makes the parcel a Terraform. Mintpass holders could instead take Origin parcels that were dreaming from the start. In 2023 Mathcastles added new renderers that owners can switch on.

The studio barely promoted the project, and in early 2022 the guides in its Discord were the community's own work. Kevin Buist, in an essay for Outland that October, set its pulsing characters beside early text games such as Rogue and NetHack, and read the work as a virtual world shown as the code it is made of. Fans have built tools of their own, such as Matt Shadetek's Hypercastle Explorers, which renders the castle in 3D. Most parcels are still untouched Terrain. The contract also carries a rule for decay that never starts once 500 parcels are dreaming, and more than 1,900 now are.