P2E Games — What’s cooking?
I have a little history with web3 games from my hackathon journey. I’ve always been attracted to the web3 gaming world. It has its own challenges and risks.
EthOdyssey was our second hackathon and we wanted to do something crazy. So we tried to create a “truly decentralized” game on Ethereum. Marsmello project won a few bounties and oh we were so happy given that none of us knew game development. This led me to believe that decentralized games are quite possible and real. But while developing Shatranj I realized that the situation is a little more nuanced than that.
Blockchain games are very rarely a hundred percent decentralised. Chains that are specifically designed to host games have been able to achieve this but a general-purpose platform like Ethereum is not ideal for games. Gala games have a buttload of games out there that are run on their decentralized network. Web3 games on the other hand come in different forms. Some have centralized servers that sync the progress on the chain. Some use custodial addresses for smooth gameplay and some just store the in-game assets on-chain.
“… part of the ethos of web 3 is the idea of users being rewarded for the value that they bring to applications …”
“… while our users care about blockchain technology they are focused on the benefits it can bring, rather than decentralizing too many features.” — Axie Infinity Whitepaper
Here are three of the games that I found inspiring in my journey and learned a few tips from-
Immortal Game
I came across the Immortal Game project while building Shatranj. They were in a very early phase then. Just a bunch of NFT previews and a roadmap. But they have come a long way since last December. They have successfully gathered an active community that is beta testing the app right now. A ton of partnerships with chess grandmasters too! Here’s a quick link to check out the onboarding process.
Immortal Game is a chess game that features NFT pieces with quests and power-ups. The game doesn’t change the fundamentals of Chess. But instead, the rewarding mechanisms of the gameplay are affected by the NFTs used in that game. These pieces come in different types indicating their Purity and Material. Each piece also has a corresponding task or quest assigned to it. Like the piece with “No Queen Side Castling” will reap 102 points if the player does not castle queenside for the entire game.
Players will form teams of 1 to 4 different Immortals and strategically place them on the board before the start of the game. The composition of the team and the placement on the board will be crucial, enabling synergies or nullifying any advantage. The quests have different difficulties and completing them unlocks proportional rewards.
The team also believes in enhancing everyone’s chess skills and their ambassadors would play an important part in this task. The game remains the same but the incentives they are providing are something that can spark an interest in players. There’s a lot more planned and I am excited to try my hands on the first public version!
Town Star
I am a huge Minecraft fan. And anything that is blocky is appealing to me. Town Star was one of the games I tried when we were building Marsmello. Marsmello like Town Star had plots of land and passive income strategies. But Town Star took it to the next level by allowing players to build their towns like Simcity. I’d say the game is quite similar to the Simcity concept put on a blockchain.
They introduce workers to the gameplay. These workers can be controlled by the player to harvest and sell goods. Oh, this is so reminiscent of Farm Ville and 2015. The NFTs are plugged in in the form of power-ups for the workers and skins. TownCoin is a token that acts as a reward for playing-to-earn with Town Star NFTs. TownCoin can be earned in-game and players can profit from it.
The most intriguing part about Town Star is that it is indeed a decentralized game run on nodes. I have played it and the on-chain nature of the game does not make it snappy or sluggish! Unfortunately, I did not find a lot of technical details about how the network operates. It would have been very cool to know the inner workings of the client and nodes.
Aavegotchi
I like Aavegotchi for one, its pixelated aesthetic, and two, the blend of Defi and NFTs. Aavegotchi is one of the most played games in the web3 gaming ecosystem. The concept is inspired by the Tamagotchi digital pet toy that was quite popular in Japan around the ’90s. The Aavegotchi game has evolved into a full-blown ecosystem with a huge NFT collection and token staking along with a governance DAO!
The Gotchiverse also has a very active player base and an interesting storyline that will end with the Prophecy coming true. (The details of the Prophecy are not public knowledge apparently). Users can earn not only by trading the NFTs but by playing mini-games, passive interests from staking, and rarity farming.
A core part of the Aavegotchi experience is spending time with your Gotchis and equipping them with wearables in rarity farming. To incentivize continuous and active engagement with the game’s ecosystem, part of the revenue earned from portal sales and wearables will go towards rewarding the top rarity farmers.
There’s a ton of stuff like a mobile game and Builder SDK in their 2023 roadmap. I’m excited to see where this whole ecosystem ends up!
Starting out with the Aavegotchi ecosystem was a little intimidating for me but as it turns out it is not associated with huge risks. I had fun trying it out!
