Short Description: Substrate Asset Game Engine (SAGE) an easy-entry for (future) game devs.

Project Category/Type: Gaming/Education

Beneficiary Address: 16AjunUasoBZKWkDnHvNEALGUgGuzC92j7LJoLu9qBSUJB2e (Ajuna Network)

Funding Amount: 80,000 USDT   

To DOT Holders,

My name is Cedric from Ajuna Network, and over the past years, we as a Team and I personally have been actively building gaming infrastructure within Polkadot—open-source APIs, the Polkadot Unity SDK, and tools like the Substrate .NET API, Substrate Toolchain, and more things like first adopters of async backing with both parachains, first mobile unity game with substrate, or created Hexalem, the winner of the Polkadot Winter Hackathon. With this Treasury proposal, we’re continuing that path by introducing the Substrate Asset Game Engine (SAGE): an open-source framework that helps game developers build on-chain games with ease—from prototype to production. Our goal is to prove that even a weekend is enough to turn a creative idea into a working mobile prototype, that seamless transition to an on-chain production experience.

We believe Polkadot has the potential to be a leader in on-chain gaming. Let’s make sure we have the tools to empower small and independent game developers to push hard on prototyping and creatively building.

TL;DR

• SAGE is a developer-focused, asset-based game engine for Substrate with working prototypes and tooling available today.
• We’re requesting 80,000 USDT for core framework development and two open-source playground games.
• Full House Fury and Casino Jam demonstrate SAGE’s ability to support fun, functional, and fully on-chain game loops.
• This proposal delivers a game dev playground, two ready-to-hack playground games, and a unified entry point under Polkadot Play.
• Our goal: give game devs an easy entry point, that is frictionless and allows a seamless transition from prototype to production.

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Substrate Asset Game Engine (SAGE)

Payment Details:

• 60,000 USDT (for core framework development)
• 20,000 USDT (for two playground games)

Overview

SAGE (Substrate Asset Game Engine) is a modular and extensible game engine purpose-built for on-chain game state management, using an asset-based, state-transition model. Rather than relying on traditional game storage methods, SAGE embeds the game state directly within the assets themselves—such as cards, characters, or items—making them portable, transparent, and highly composable across multiple games and experiences.

By abstracting Substrate’s complex storage layer, SAGE enables developers to focus on designing gameplay and asset interactions—not blockchain infrastructure. Its modular design includes built-in support for tournaments, free-to-play mechanics, unlockable features, and on-chain markets. Assets in SAGE can also hold stablecoins or native tokens, allowing developers to embed utility and economic value directly into the assets themselves.

SAGE offers a clear entry point for game developers: start with rapid prototyping, then transition seamlessly to fully on-chain gameplay. It dramatically reduces the barrier to entry and makes Polkadot a compelling ecosystem for scalable, accessible, and game developer–friendly blockchain gaming.

SAGE is not a theoretical framework—developers can already begin building today. The repository is public, and functional, and demos already exist to showcase its power:

• Core C# Reference Engine: Ajuna.SAGE.Core (old ref., version LINK)
• Substrate Integration: ajuna-pallets/sage
• Developer Playground: sage-playground
• Example Playground Game: Ajuna.SAGE.Game.FullHouseFury
• Playable Prototype: PLAY

Full House Fury is one of the core playground games built on SAGE—a deck-building roguelike where players ascend a tower by battling through levels using poker-style hands drawn from a 52-card deck. The initial prototype was built by Cedric over the course of a weekend, inspired by the idea of recreating a game like Balatro fully on-chain. Within that short span, the full game loop and UI were implemented using SAGE’s C# reference engine.

Translating the prototype game into an on-chain version using the SAGE pallet took less than a day—demonstrating how fast developers can go from idea to working blockchain integration. While creating a fun game requires more than just a game loop—like progression, balancing, and polish—the technical workflow proved that SAGE dramatically shortens the prototype-to-chain cycle.

Every action in Full House Fury—drawing cards, forming hands, progressing through levels—is tracked entirely on-chain via SAGE's transition engine, showcasing its power to handle dynamic, evolving game assets and fully decentralized game logic.

And Casino Jam the second playground game, which demonstrates how powerful SAGE assets can be when designed with embedded utility and a self-sustaining on-chain economy. View README

The playground games are designed to:

• Educate developers on how to build with SAGE through complete, working examples.
• Demonstrate advanced features like on-chain randomness, evolving asset states, and conditional transitions.
• Empower Hackathons to challenge game devs to fork it, remix it, and evolve their gameplay concepts using SAGE as a foundation.

SAGE is not a commercial endeavor—it’s an open-source framework built to accelerate adoption within the Polkadot gaming vertical.

Why Funding?

SAGE is a framework that allows developers to build and prototype blockchain-integrated games quickly—often in just a few days. It’s designed to reduce the complexity of working with Substrate and provide a practical starting point for developers exploring on-chain game mechanics.

SAGE is an open-source framework aimed at removing technical entry barriers and improving the developer experience within the Polkadot gaming ecosystem.

Why should the Treasury fund this?

1. Developer Onboarding – SAGE provides accessible tooling for Unity and Web developers to get started with Substrate-based game development.
2. On-Chain Game Logic – It supports full asset lifecycle management directly on-chain, including transitions, progression, and ownership.
3. Modular System – Developers can reuse existing modules such as trading, tournaments, and free-to-play mechanics, without having to build from scratch.
4. Hackathon Support – Playground games are designed for experimentation and learning, making them suitable for hackathons, workshops, and tutorials.
5. Project Maturity – Development began in mid-2024. SAGE is already functional, tested, and actively evolving.

Why doesn’t Ajuna finish this without Treasury support?

1. Recognition – SAGE needs recognition from the Polkadot community to be seen and adopted as a valuable piece of infrastructure.
2. Acceptance – SAGE was submitted for verification through the W3F Grants Program but Ajuna is not eligible to apply.
3. Merit – SAGE is the result of years of trying to onboard game developers and studios to Substrate, Polkadot, and Ajuna—usually without financial incentives. In reality, most developers don’t engage without support: the learning curve is steep, and the tooling isn’t familiar to their workflows. SAGE was built to address this gap—by reducing friction, offering reusable components, and providing a fast path from prototype to on-chain logic.

We believe that lasting games are built by passionate creators, not speculation, and that the real secret sauce of games is creativity and passion—not tokenomics.

What does the Polkadot gaming ecosystem gain?

1. A ready-to-use local playground, including a Substrate chain, backend, and frontend for hands-on development.
2. Two open-source games—Full House Fury and Casino Jam—that can be explored, forked, or extended by other teams.
3. A Unity prototyping engine to iterate quickly on gameplay mechanics without any blockchain knowledge.
4. Full integration with the Polkadot SDK for Unity for mobile, and for web, a fully functional game flow powered with PAPI (Polkadot API).

For further technical details on SAGE to be found here.

Development Roadmap

Funding Breakdown

• 60,000 USDT → Core SAGE Engine Development (Rust Pallets, SDKs, API, Playground, Developer Portal).
• 20,000 USDT → Development of two playground games to support game dev onboarding hackathons & education.
  • Full House Fury (10,000 USDT) → A roguelike, deck-building game demonstrating on-chain asset states & game logic transitions. (Unity)
  • Casino Jam (10,000 USDT) → A casino-style game highlighting asset ownership, utiltiy & economics. (Web)

Milestone 1 – Reference Implementation & Developer Playground

• Estimated Duration: 1 months, to finish
• % Progress per end of March'25: 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜ (80%) (mostly missing on bug fixing, testing & documentation)
• FTE: 2
• Funding: 15,000 USDT
• Deliverables: LINK

Milestone 2 – Rust Implementation & Game Framework Development

• Estimated Duration: 2 months, to finish
• % Progress per end of March'25: 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ (60%)
• FTE: 2
• Funding: 30,000 USDT
• Deliverables: LINK

Milestone 3 – UI, JavaScript SDK, Unity Integration

• Estimated Duration: 2 months, to finish
• % Progress per end of March'25: 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ (40%)
• FTE: 1
• Funding: 15,000 USDT
• Deliverables: LINK

Milestone 4 – Playground Games

• Estimated Duration: 2 months
• % Progress per end of March'25: 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ (40%)
• FTE: 2
• Funding: 20,000 USDT
• Deliverables:
  • Full House Fury – A deck-building roguelike showcasing real-time on-chain asset progression. (Mobile Unity Game, multiplatform)
  • Casino Jam – A casino-style, multi-player experience demonstrating ownership, and assets holding intrinsic tokens. (Terminal UI, Typescript with PAPI)
  • Hackathon & Community Engagement → These games will be used as hackathon templates to onboard new game developers to Polkadot.
  • Polkadot SDK for Unity - Full House Fury is added as a ready to hack & play, to the repo, incl. a google app store deployment documentation.
  • Migration - All repos properly migrated to Polkadot Play, with proper open-source licenses.

Expected Impact & Justification

SAGE will significantly lower the barriers for game developers entering the Polkadot ecosystem by providing out-of-the-box game mechanics, on-chain asset management, and modular transition logic.

Key Ecosystem Benefits:

✅ Developer Growth: Game developers can build without learning Rust or Substrate storage models.
✅ Cross-Game Composability: Game logic modules can be reused seamlessly across multiple games—build once, use everywhere.
✅ Fully Open-Source: All tools, SDKs, and templates are open-source and usable.
✅ No Proprietary: You choose your path within Polkadot—deploy on any parachain or roll your own when you're ready for production.
✅ Hackathons & Community Growth: The playground is a perfect setup, to launch hackathons and create with the C# ref. games in a matter of hours, including a playable Unity implementation, see Full House Fury commit history.
✅ Blockchain-Native or Hybrid Gaming with Substrate: Games can decide, on the integration type, full on-chain, including the whole game logic on the asset, or solely the asset progression logic, and an off-chain utility, utilizing SAGE as an on-chain asset database.

Final Thoughts

SAGE is not just another gaming project—it is an open-source engine designed to bring game developers to Polkadot. By funding this Treasury proposal, we enable any team, developer, or community member to build blockchain-powered games effortlessly.

If you have any feedback, or suggestions, or wish to collaborate, feel free to reach out to Cedric Decoster, Telegram, or Discord.

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Polkadot Treasury Proposal submitted by Ajuna Network. All code will be open-source under one of those licenses Apache 2.0 / GPLv3 / MIT.

Motivation

As a developer and founder deeply committed to Polkadot, I've invested the past four years in pushing the gaming vertical in Polkadot, through open-source APIs, Unity SDKs, or other early adoptions like async backing, to thrive blockchain gaming in Polkadot. Throughout this journey, I've frequently encountered frustration—not due to a lack of passion or ideas, but because of persistent technical and community hurdles that have slowed meaningful adoption.

I've personally experienced the struggle of onboarding game developers onto Polkadot, Substrate, and Ajuna. Constantly witnessing how complex blockchain technology becomes a barrier rather than an enabler. SAGE emerged directly from this frustration; it is actually a product evolving from the learnings of trying to onboard game devs and studios onto Polkadots tech stack to create a fully or hybrid on-chain experience. Its mission is clear: to remove these barriers and enable game creators to spend their energy where it matters most—on creativity, storytelling, and player engagement—not grappling with blockchain complexities.

I developed SAGE because I passionately believe in the potential of Polkadot as a technically advanced framework for gaming compared to other ecosystems. It can, and should, be a thriving hub for creative, vibrant, and community-driven games in the future. Yet, the past year has shown me the significant hurdles developers face when trying to build within the ecosystem. Despite substantial efforts—like the Polkadot SDK for Unity and early technical adoption in challenging areas like TEE and async backing—we've repeatedly hit obstacles, often without clear feedback or recognition from the broader community.

This Treasury proposal isn't just about funding a framework. It's about getting feedback on whether this is actually wanted at all. I believe that SAGE can be a playground for hackathons, offering an easy onboarding and hack & play style game dev experience, but in the end, I'm just a dev. SAGE has a lot of unknown features that could inspire new, innovative use cases.

Note: As someone actively involved in the early stages of DOT Play—handing over the Games Bounty and maintaining regular syncs with Nicholas (co-founder)—I’ve had a direct view into its development and priorities. While tooling was supposed to be a significant part of DOT Play’s first milestone, none of the outlined tooling funds were released or even considered—except for the Unity contract for 2025, which I independently negotiated and prepared before handing it over for payment.
Given my role as a technical advisor and my close working relationship with Nicholas, I’m also familiar with the internal challenges DOT Play is currently facing. Based on this experience, I do not consider DOT Play a viable option to support or facilitate this proposal.

Note: While we are migrating all of our games to SAGE, including games such as DOT Gravity, Awesome Ajuna Avatars, Big Ballz of Bajun, Hexalem, and Battle Mogs, these are not part of this Treasury proposal. Although open-source and potentially useful for educational purposes, they were originally developed as part of our broader onboarding and ecosystem engagement strategy—not as dedicated playground games. Therefore, they are excluded from the scope and funding of this proposal.