- Authors
Designing State of Outerspace
Three Pillars That Built a World
A vast universe. Countless rounds of ideation.
When designing Outerspace, the first question we asked wasn't about features. It was about experience. What would a user discover when they first entered this space? Where would they belong? What would they actually do here?
The universe we wanted to build was one with the widest possible room for imagination. And the one filling that space wouldn't be us — it would be the users. To make that possible, we needed the most fundamental framework. The things that absolutely had to exist inside this universe.
Core, Square, Backspace. These three became the pillars on which Outerspace was designed.
"The vastness of the universe becomes its freedom."
Core — The Heart of This Universe
The first thing a user sees when entering this vast universe. The largest, brightest sphere visible from a distance. That was Core.
The first creative challenge was figuring out how to build Core visually. Outerspace is a 3D space — but the way we chose to present it to users is through a front-facing camera, making it feel almost like a flat 2D plane. Most people would assume this product was built in 2D. In reality, the depth of a 3D environment is all there. The Spaceship rolls as it flies, moves at different angles, reveals the space around it. A small detail now, but a deliberate choice made with a more evolved future environment in mind.
Core's visual presence was intentional. No matter how wide the universe gets, users orient themselves around Core. A compass and a plaza. The starting point for everything this universe connects.
Designing the inside of Core required its own research. We started by asking what users needed most within this State. The answer was a visible ecosystem — at a glance. That's why we built in a multi-level Zoom In & Out while flying through the space. Up close, each portal reveals its detail. Pulled back, the entire structure of Core comes into view at once.
The various dApps placed inside Core were grouped by character — DeFi, Trading, AI, NFT, Gaming. Each category separated, each portal given its own distinct feel without becoming visually overwhelming. At the center of Core sits the native token price of the State, alongside portals leading directly to the user's Square and Backspace. The logic was simple: the universe should feel like it's centered around me.
And what appears inside Core isn't decided by us alone. Which projects get featured in each category is voted on by users who find the Keys hidden throughout the universe. The heart of this world is shaped by the community that lives in it.
"Core is the space we built — but what fills it is decided by the community."
Square — The Future of Community
Square becomes the space where community dreams.
Outerspace is built for simultaneous multi-user presence across every space. Core, Square, the open universe between them — it's all one continuous world. Users fly freely between spaces, interacting as they move. Compared to the previous two versions, we wanted to express a far more open and expansive universe. Outerspace is, in the end, one space shared by everyone.
Unlike Core, Square isn't a space we designed and placed. It's a space that forms naturally as users gather. So we made a deliberate choice not to impose a hard visual boundary. Instead, the boundary of each Square is defined by the personal portals — each one a gateway to a user's Backspace — that cluster around it organically.
This wasn't just a visual decision. It meant that the users surrounding a Square could be directly encountered and visited. Community becomes something you can physically feel. The interior of Square opens up as a result — a freer, more efficient space for the community to inhabit together.
Shared direction, diversity, and everything a community can build together — all of it was imagined to live within the boundary of a Square.
"Square isn't the space it is today. It's the seed of the community that's yet to be built."
Backspace — Spacebar's Personalized Hub
If Core is the heart of the universe, Backspace is mine.
Backspace started from a simple idea: a space that belongs entirely to the user. While flying through the vast world of Outerspace — exploring, competing, building — there needed to be a place to come back to. Rather than fitting that space inside the universe itself, we separated it into its own dedicated web page. The goal was to carry a level of variety and detail that the universe environment couldn't hold.
The pace of Outerspace is fast — immediate, reactive, spatial. Backspace has a different tempo. Quieter. More detailed. A space that unfolds entirely around the individual user.
Inside Backspace, multiple layers of information come together. At the most basic level: the user's profile — username, wallet address, connected social accounts, and the current value of their assets. Beneath that, a record of everything they've done in this universe. $fAIR mined, rewards claimed from Keys, scores recorded in Star Sweepers, the percentage of the universe explored. Everything that makes up who this user is in this world, accumulated over time.
The reward inventory lives here too. Rewards waiting to be claimed, items approaching expiration, things not yet opened. But it goes further than simply showing information — Backspace is designed to be the space where a user can understand what to do next, and build a strategy for how to move through this universe. Favorite projects can be curated here. The voting page is a tap away. And a wormhole back to Core is always available, no matter where in the universe the user has traveled.
For now, it's still being built — categories organized page by page, features placed one by one. We weren't trying to pack everything in at once. As time passes, as users grow, as the community matures — how Backspace evolves remains open. Keeping that possibility open is the best design decision we can make right now.
"The more the universe expands, the more specific my space needed to become."
And So the Universe Continues
Outerspace, as it exists now, is a beginning.
Core, Square, Backspace — three pillars have been built. But none of them are finished. They exist right now in their most fundamental form, and they will evolve — shaped by what users do inside this space, what they want, and how they move through it.
Mining through the universe, breaking Capsules to find rewards, discovering Keys to participate in governance, competing individually and as Squares through games — these are the things being built into Outerspace right now. But this is only the start. As the community grows, as new chains are added, as more dApps and games enter this universe — Outerspace will be a world that looks nothing like it does today.
What we built was a foundation. The size of the universe, the value of its spaces, the direction of its community — in the end, all of it will be made by the people who come inside.