Neo Global Development has launched WhisperDark in collaboration with COZ, a browser-based dungeon-crawler on Neo X. In the game, an AI agent navigates a dungeon and autonomously spends real xGAS in each room via Ax402-powered autonomous agent transactions.

In each run, the AI agent enters a dungeon and fights its way through sequential rooms of increasing difficulty. Combat is resolved by hidden dice rolls against each room’s difficulty rating, and the agent can purchase weapons, armor, or medical supplies using xGAS micropayments to improve its chances. The player influences the agent’s decisions by offering directional signals called “whispers,” choosing between Confidence, Unease, or Dread, but the agent ultimately decides how to act. A run ends when the hero’s health reaches zero, and the goal is to clear as many rooms and defeat as many monsters as possible.

The game is live now at whisperdark.ngd.network, with a prize pool event running from now through Oct. 26. The prize pool currently sits at 303 GAS, and grows with each new campaign initiated by users.

WhisperDark game UI

What WhisperDark demonstrates

WhisperDark is built on Ax402, AxLabs’ payment gateway for AI agents. Ax402 repurposes the HTTP 402 Payment Required status code to allow AI agents to pay for digital resources on a per-request basis, without pausing to ask a human for authorization at each step.

The payment medium is xGAS, a 1:1-backed, wrapped ERC-20 GAS token on Neo X, which allows it to slot into standard EVM payment flows. Players who need to wrap GAS into xGAS can do so via the xGAS Station.

WhisperDark takes x402 payments from concept to a concrete use case. The agent isn’t simulating payments or recording IOUs; it is autonomously spending real xGAS on Neo X MainNet as it moves through each room.

How a run works

Each run costs 1 GAS, which funds up to 10 box purchases during the run. The player connects a wallet, summons an AI agent with a single free signature, and funds the agent with xGAS.

Once in the dungeon, the agent faces rooms with monsters of varying difficulty. In each room, it may choose to purchase one of three box types using an Ax402 micropayment:

  • Weapon: boosts the battle roll for that room.
  • Armor: permanently reduces incoming damage; armor pieces stack, up to a total of -6 damage reduction.
  • Medic: restores health immediately.

The agent chooses which box type to buy based on its current health, available funds, and the history of prior rooms. The rarity of the item inside each box is determined at random.

Combat works by a hidden d100 roll (a 100-sided die used to pick a random result) against the room’s difficulty rating. Items can improve the outcome, but nothing is guaranteed. A win lets the agent descend deeper; a loss costs the player health.

The run ends when the hero’s HP reaches zero.

Players are not passive spectators. In each room, a player can offer one of three whispers, Confidence, Unease, or Dread, as a directional signal. The agent weighs that input against its own assessment before deciding. Players who prefer to stay out of it entirely can choose “Proceed without whisper.” Fifteen whispers are available per run.

By default, the agent runs on Claude Haiku, Anthropic’s lightweight language model, which requires no API key from the player. Players also have the opportunity to use more intelligent models by suppling their own API key and choosing a different model.

Getting started

The full process takes four steps:

  1. Connect your wallet. WhisperDark supports MetaMask, NeoLine (in Neo X mode), Neon Wallet (via WalletConnect QR scan)t. The connected wallet is the owner’s wallet. It funds the agent, but does not sign individual in-game transactions.
  2. Summon your agent. One free signature from the owner’s wallet deterministically generates the agent’s dedicated dungeon wallet. No transaction is submitted, and no gas fee is charged. The same owner’s wallet always recreates the same agent; there is nothing to back up.
  3. Fund your agent. The agent operates in xGAS, not native GAS. After the agent is summoned, it auto-fills its own address. Deposit GAS to that address, wrap it to xGAS (via xGAS Station if needed), and transfer the xGAS to the agent.
  4. Click “Enter Dungeon.”

One practical note for players: if your wallet is configured to use an Anti-MEV node by default and a signing error occurs, switch to a regular RPC node before retrying.

Prize pool

The prize pool event runs from now through Oct. 26. It opened with a seed of 300 GAS, and all player purchase costs collected during the event period are added to the pool as the competition runs.

The pool is split equally between two leaderboards:

  • Cleared: ranked by the number of monsters defeated.
  • Depth: ranked by the number of rooms successfully passed.

Each leaderboard pays out 20 positions. The distribution per leaderboard, applied to that leaderboard’s 50% share of the total pool:

  • 1st: 30%
  • 2nd: 20%
  • 3rd: 10%
  • 4th: 7%
  • 5th: 6%
  • 6th: 5%
  • 7th: 4%
  • 8th: 3%
  • 9th: 3%
  • 10th: 2%
  • 11th-20th: 1% each

The agent can be directed to compete for either leaderboard and can switch its priority mid-run. It is aware of its current ranking and high score while playing.

Context

WhisperDark follows NGD’s Rock Paper Scissors game as a demonstration of Neo X’s Anti-MEV capabilities.

The pattern is consistent: a simple, playable game used to put a specific blockchain feature in front of developers and users in a form that requires no technical setup to try.

Where the RPS game demonstrated Anti-MEV transaction ordering, WhisperDark demonstrates Ax402, and the “humanless blockchain” model NGD has been developing on Neo X. The humanless blockchain is a framework in which AI agents transact on-chain independently, without requiring human authorization at each step.

The full announcement can be found at the link below:
https://x.com/ngd_neo/status/2101946949142474760

Tags: , , ,