5 NFT Games To Watch (That Aren't Splinterlands)

in Hive Gaming2 years ago

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The cursor blinked in front of me, casting a digital glow across my face.

I was on the edge of a new world, and all I had to do was type ‘NFT game’ into the search bar and hit enter.

But I hesitated.

Gamers have been investing insane amounts of money in ‘virtual possessions’ for decades. A quick google of World Of Warcraft’s, Second Life’s, or Entropia’s real-money traders turns up some true-yet-jaw-dropping stories.

Now, with blockchain technology’s rapid-growth and adoption, and a huge influx of NFT-based games, this trend looks to blossom even more.

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This is interesting to me because a) gaming is practically ‘in my blood’, b) I love money (who doesn't), and c) my joining Hive has increased my passion for blockchain tech.

Despite all this, I’ve yet to play a single crypto- or blockchain-based game, and that struck me as odd. Why was I hesitating? What’s the big deal? It’s just a search away, right?

Well, I believe in ‘going-all-in.’ I believe that if I’m going to do something, that I do it ‘whole-heartedly.’ I don’t believe in ‘half-assing’ stuff. For example, when I decided to dive into Hive, I ended up writing a 2-part mega-guide even though I had zero crypto- or blockchain- knowledge whatsoever. Or when my foray into Splinterlands ended up with me writing ~10,000 words about a game I’ve still never even played. These are not ‘normal’ decisions for most people. What all this means is that if I decide to explore a new field or area of life, it tends to be a significant time/energy/resource investment.

This has pros and cons, because it means when I explore something, I become pretty adept, pretty quickly. But it also means I have to be extremely choosy about what I say ‘yes’ to, and what I say ‘no’ to, otherwise I’ll spread myself thin and risk not bringing the level of quality and depth I prefer to something.

But life kept popping up NFT-game-related stuff in my feed, social circles, and so on, so recently… I took the plunge and began exploring the arena more. In doing so I’ve dug pretty deep already (as per usual), and I’ve looked through nearly a hundred on-chain games now.

Of course I already knew about Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, and Splinterlands because they’re each hyped enough to approach ‘mass-adoption,’ but that doesn’t mean there aren’t tons of crypto-based games out there, waiting to be discovered. Many of them may be fun and ready to explode, without people even realizing it.

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So I’m going to dig into why these 5 games are so intriguing to me.

And I'm gonna bring you along with me on this on-chain game exploration. Hopefully we’ll both come out with some fun and/or profitable leads on games.

Before we dive in, please note that some game-developers actively dislike NFT-based gaming, blame blockchain-games for shortages of microchips and graphics processors, and see NFTs as a scam, and while I may dig deeper into this later, for now I’ll just point out that it’s not a factor in what on-chain games I’m looking at.

Ready? Let’s go.

1. Spider Tanks

Genre: MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)
Market Cap: Untraded
Main Token(s): GALA
Website: spidertanks.game
Blockchain: Gala
Status: Playable Beta

I believe this is the first high-quality MOBA in the blockchain space. It looks like fast-paced, fun, 3v3 real-time action similar to my favourite League Of Legends game mode, ‘Twisted Treeline’, from back in the day. And although I play League much less lately, I’d still say it’s my favorite game of all time. Will Spider Tanks have a similar appeal? Perhaps.

Spider Tanks does look quite polished and engaging, and some people may enjoy the short average match-time, but I’m not sure if short matches allow the ‘getting strong,’ ‘power-fantasies’ that MOBAs typically provide. Regardless, this looks like an NFT game to watch.

2. Upland

Genre: Virtual Real-Estate Metaverse
Market Cap: Untraded, to avoid becoming a ‘security.’
Main Token(s): UPX (Utility Token)
Website: upland.me
Blockchain: EOS
Status: Released

The trailer says the game is “By llamas, for llamas,” which made me laugh and adds a playful tone to what could be a pretty lucrative digital (& physical) real-estate game. It takes place in a llama-run world very similar to earth, and it maps to real-life addresses. Want to own a penthouse in New York? In Upland, you can. Want to rent it out or sell it and make crypto or USD? You can do that too. Want to meet other players in digital cafes, or form a ‘squad?’ That’s also on the menu in Upland. It’s kind of like an elevated, crypto-based version of Monopoly or Sim City or something.

The idea of real-estate investing & land-ownership interests me, I always had fun playing Monopoly as a kid, and this game looks to require minimal attention for potentially big gains, so I can see the appeal. Plus it’s playable on mobile (Android & iOS), as well as the web.

3. Star Atlas

Genre: Grand Space Strategy MMO
Market Cap: $233,779,211
Main Token(s): ATLAS, POLIS
Website: staratlas.com
Blockchain: Solana
Status: Playable Mini-Demo

Star Atlas is new. Like, built-on-Unreal 5’s-engine new. It has bleeding-edge real-time nanite graphics and looks incredible. You can choose factions, mine space ore, sell and stake in a space economy, travel deep space, manage fleets, control territories, wage battles, own assets, and more. They even allow players to ‘buy insurance’ for ‘dangerous missions’ in case they fear losing their precious NFT-assets.

“There are very few items in the game that aren't owned by players,” - Mike Wagner, Star Atlas CEO

Now, ‘insurance’ may be ‘too real’ for me personally, but Star Atlas has huge potential as a complete ‘space metaverse’ and is one of the most ‘Triple-A’ NFT games I’ve come across, so it’s hard not to put it on my watchlist of on-chain games to keep an eye on. Their demo / mini-game / first portion of the game released December 16th, and I believe it’s ‘playable’, but the full game won’t release for some time. If this speaks to you, it may be worth a shot and a way to get in on the ground floor of one of the more ambitious NFT projects.

4. Farming Tales

Genre: Cozy 3D Farmer
Market Cap: Unknown
Main Token(s): SEST, CBIT
Website: farmingtales.io
Blockchain: Wax, Hive
Status: Just-Launched Beta

This one just moved from alpha to a beta release, and it’s especially interesting to me for a few reasons: A) I’m part-foodie, and some of my best friends are farmers, B) There’s a lack of ‘cozy’ games like Stardew Valley or Spiritfarer on blockchain, and C) They’re aiming to integrate with the Hive blockchain as I write. Hive already has Splinterlands of course, but I’m thrilled to see new, fresh games making a splash here.

Made with Unity, Farming Tales is a fun-looking farm-game where NFTs map to real products on farms (mostly in Italy, expanding). As you build your farmland & crops, you’re supporting real farmers & beekeepers. Let’s say you invest in some ‘Honey’ NFTs in-game… this entitles you to be sent a tub of farm-fresh honey, or you can have your honey sold on the marketplace instead for a quick return. Same goes for saffron and other crops.

5. Lost Relics

Genre: Action RPG
Market Cap: Same as Enjin
Main Token(s): ENJ, JENJ
Website: lostrelics.io
Blockchain: Enjin
Status: Released

I love me some ARPG Diablo-clones. I’ve played loads: Path Of Exile, Lost Ark, Wolcen, Last Epoch, etc. I've played all those and more, and one thing’s for sure, games like these almost always have a heavy loot-grinding aspect to them. Basically, you spend a lot of time ploughing through hordes of monsters, to earn in-game currency or items.

The thing is, in ‘regular games’ most of this time is ‘wasted.’ Lost Relics (Unity) does have the loot-grinding vibe of most ARPGs, but since it’s an on-chain game, you’re actually earning items easily exchangeable for crypto and valued highly in the marketplace.

It sounds like this is one of the highest-earning Play-To-Earn games, and can technically get started ‘free-to-play’, but may cost a good chunk to get the ball rolling. It’s been around longer than most of the other games mentioned here, I believe, and is made by a solo-developer, one-man-army style. If you like Diablo-likes, this may be worth a shot.

I’m also gonna cover one more game as a bonus. It’s an upcoming release from Gala Games (the Spider Tanks people). Out of all the games I’ve looked at so far, I believe they have the ‘most solid’ dev team, because Gala has the founder of MySpace/Zynga, Peter Molyneux (Fallout 2, Fable), and Will Wright (Sim City) behind it, and the game –though unfinished– looks impressive so far.

Bonus: Mirandus

Genre: Openworld MMORPG
Market Cap: Untraded
Main Token(s): Materium, GALA
Website: mirandus.game
Blockchain: Gala
Status: In Development

No maps, no quests, and a totally open-world ruled by 5 Player-Monarchs… Mirandus is an MMORPG that aims to offer unprecedented player-freedom, letting you do almost anything that you'd want from battling through monster-filled dungeons, to serving as a knight in another Player’s court, to founding entire cities.

Mirandus is a dangerous land where your NFTs are on the line, but it’s also rich in the arcane substance Materium, which allows players to cast spells, craft the sublimely powerful items, and even raise a slain hero from the dead.

Whew, there we go! 5 (+1) intriguing blockchain titles that I’ve put on my radar and am likely to try. I’ll mention I’ve yet to play any of these games. They might not live up to the hype, they might be heavily pay-to-win, they might be swarmed with bots or abusable, but they could also be flawlessly executed gaming experiences, I truly don’t know.

The NFT-Gaming space is an extremely new field.

And like most new fields, we may have to sort through a lot of bandwagon-jumpers getting onboard aiming for a quick buck, before we figure out the real ‘players’ in the game who are in it to create quality art. (Or quality games.) So here, I’ve done my best to cover ones that have such potential.

The games I’ve looked at here seem to be by passionate developers who are aiming to make a real impact, and it’s actually a pretty tough choice for me as to where I’d start, because they all look pretty appealing.

But Jay, what about Splinterlands?

Well, Splinterlands is blowing up, and has tons of coverage already, especially here on Hive, so I wanted to draw people’s attention to some other noteworthy games. Not to mention, my aesthetic sensibilities prevent me from playing Splinterlands. On top of that, I’ve already wrote a huge piece dedicated just to Splinterlands:

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Click Here To Read This Guide

So we’ll see, I may revisit it another time.

Anyway, of the games that are on my radar, which one would you start with? Or do you have another recommendation? I’d love to know in the comments.

Either way, thanks so much for reading, commenting, sharing, and even skimming. I appreciate you and wish you a fantastic day.

#KeepRyzing !


Want more from me on gaming? Check these out:

Stock images courtesy of epic stock site, Envato.com

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Excellent guide as usual, man! I'm interested in a couple of these. I had my bout with Axie and managed to get some value out of it, but it's a dull, repetitive game that promotes no learning, socialization or anything even remotely entertaining after all, plus it's nigh impossible to remain productive no matter how much time one wastes on it. Splinterlands is cool but despite my sincerest efforts at getting the hang of it, I just don't find motivation enough to play it regularly. Spider Tanks looks fun and I've had my eyes on Mirandus since I first learned about it, but as usual, the "free-to-play" part is merely a PR hook, none of these games are truly FTP.

Thanks again!

Ayyy, great to see you hear, and thanks for your fantastic comment! I love hearing about your experiences with Axie, because I had a feeling that might be the case, but wasn't sure. I appreciate the confirmation. I'm glad you like the looks of Spider Tanks & Mirandus, and you're totally right, most F2P games aren't truly so. I trust you're enjoying this Holiday Season so far, and wishing you lots of good vibes! 🙏

Thanks for the kind wishes, may they return to you a hundredfold!

🙏🙏🙏

How dare you. Everyone knows there are no NFT games that aren't splinterlands! ;0)

Hahahahah... I know you're joking around, but I was honestly getting that impression for a while, lol. 🙏

It's an easy impression to get on this chain!

🤣🤣🤣

I have the games from GALA on my radar and I'm really curious to check them out, I do forget lots of stuff and end up never doing it and this is one of them lol I'm really curious to see how they will implement the play to earn mechanics in all of their games, apparently the guy in GALA is the same behind ZYNGA so he knows his shit when it comes to fun games to be played by everyone, every age! Interesting times, interesting times...

I am playing a bit at Gods Unchained now to be honest, I used to play Hearthstone for ages so it reminds me of those fun times ahaha

I will check out the games you listed, I am meant to check farming tales today and see if jump in now that's in beta and not yet cross-chain connected to Hive (I was about to write that I read that they want to add Hive to it but I read it from this post of yours LOLOL monkey brain ahahah)

Big props to you my friend, take care! 🙏😎

Yes, you're right GALA has a lot of potential and an experienced team behind them. I've heard a lot about Gods Unchained but I'm pretty picky about my 'aesthetics' for card games (avoided Hearthstone & Splinterlands 'cause of the look, managed to play MTG:A, Gwent, and Legends Of Runterra though.) Maybe I'll give it a shot anyway, we'll see.

All good, I'm glad people are mentioning that Farming Tales is about to integrate with Hive's chain, it's really interesting and exciting to me. I haven't played it yet, and am not even sure how to join up, so if you know how, I'd really appreciate a helping hand. Either way, maybe I'll see you in the farm world ;)

Props to you as well, thanks for the well-crafted comment, wishing you a great day! 🙏

(avoided Hearthstone & Splinterlands 'cause of the look, managed to play MTG:A, Gwent, and Legends Of Runterra though.)

Gotcha, I liked HS graphics, the gameplay was really cool, a bit copied from MTG, GU on the other hand is the complete ripoff of HS 🤣 so that's mainly why I play it, I feel at home and I do not have to "learn" anything new, just the meta and the cards but that comes along with playing the game for a bit.

Had some fun in Gwent too while playing The Witcher 3.

I tried Legends of Runterra but I was fed up with TCG games at that time so never put much time into it.
Why I'm back on TCG with GU? Fuck knows man, it just happened and I'm actually having fun playing it so why not, lol, obviously the P2E is a factor 💰🤣

I have a bit of love & hate relationship with TCG games, I also bought 5 crates of each type for this game few months ago https://synergyofserra.com/ looked decent and you know TCG+NFTs+Blockchain that's the shit that makes us APEs crazy, so I'm looking forward for when that goes live to see if it's any good and maybe the crates will yield me something good 🤞

You know spreading as many eggs in as many basket as I can, eventually one of them will make me bank, cmon 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Thanks for your comment! Always a pleasure to chat with you 💪

PS: I didn't like Splinterlands either, neither the look nor the gameplay 😅

Yeah, your TCG story makes a lot of sense, and my avoiding Hearthstone kind of fits with my hesitating on Gods Unchained too I guess, lol.

Anyway, as long as you're following your flow and happy with your gaming/crypto decisions, that's what matters.

Synergy Of Serra looks very interesting, and I'm wishing you tons of success with it. Definitely fun chatting with you as well, and interesting that you weren't able to get into Splinterlands either. :) 🙏

Great list! I try to find Play2Earn games that are genres that I find myself always reinstalling, if there is a way to earn on genres I enjoy I am all for it! Spider Tanks could fill the 'DOTA/MOBA' slot, I already have lost relics to fit that ARPG/Diablo II slot. Mirandus looks interesting enough to fill the MMO/RPG slot. I'll do my research but thank you for highlighting these and giving info about them!

I'm glad you liked the list, and I love your enthusiasm for Play2Earn. I also do my best to find P2E games that fit certain genres, so it's great that you do similar. Spider Tanks does work for MOBA and Mirandus does work for MMORPG. Perhaps I'll do a sequel for other genres, woooo! Thanks for your comment, and wishing you a great day! 🙏

Certainly some cool options springing up. Appreciate the update.

Cheers mate! I trust all is well in your world? Wishing you a great day! 🙏

Hey we're here too!

Yes you are here! Yay! I wrote about you on the list, you're #4 in my post! :) 🙏

 2 years ago  

I'm not really into NFT games, personally... but that Star Atlas looks amazing! Lost Relics looks good too...

See, the main thing keeping me away from NFT games was because I was under the belief that they were all browser-based monstrosities. Or idle things where you barely do anything. Like Splinterlands, it's great and all but it's just a card game on a browser and I had no real interest in it. dCity... I don't consider it a "game." We had that Drug Wars thing a while back, but it was just a browser based "Facebook" game.

What I've always wanted is a blockchain based, play to earn, PROPER!!!!! game.

And it looks like they're here and I've just been ignorant. xD

Ay, glad you're liking the look of a few titles, I agree Star Atlas looks insanely good so far. I agree with you, the thing that kept me away from NFT-games as similar: They all seemed to be 'browser-based monstrosities', lol. I was happy to find that once I started digging, there are actually some 'proper' games out there. Looks like we both became a bit less ignorant through this post, lol, xD - thanks so much for stopping by and weighing in. Gamers unite, #KeepRyzing :) 🙏

Some pretty awesome picks. Star Atlas was already on my list. I am part of a vetting platform called shillit.app, and lately we have been vetting some pretty fun games.
For sure the gaming trend and NFT/Gaming in particular will pick up as a trend even more.

I'm glad you liked some of my picks. Star Atlas is really drawing a lot of people's eyes. I'm not familiar with shillit, but any platform that introduces fun games sounds good to me. I'm glad you see NFT-Gaming picking up, and thanks so much for commenting. Wishing you a great day! 🙏

There is so many nft games already and there are even more to come. Its great to see that its going Mainstream.

Yes, it's really gaining a lot of momentum, and seems to have a bright future. That said, there are a lot of 'bad' blockchain games out there, so I had to kind of 'dig' for the ones that had more potential. Wishing you a great day! 🙏

I got into Lost Relics a little over a month ago , and I have really Loved it since . Has a really good Community to go along with it . Best part about it for me , is when I am playing , I am not thinking about the money or specifically looking for a rare item (Even went as far as Keeping myself from looking at the Marketplace) . Now if it happen , Dope ! But I genuinely enjoy the Game . And I am really interested in Decentraland , but I have heard the Buy in is high .
~ Great read Here by the way !!

Hey, thanks for stopping by and sharing this. It's really interesting to hear first-hand accounts of Lost Relics players, and I like your approach of genuinely enjoying the game, letting the money come second. Maybe you've convinced me to give it a shot, we'll see. (And I've heard the same thing about Decentraland, lol.) Glad you enjoyed the read, and wishing you a great day! 🙏

(P.S. Tagging a few gaming-inclined hivers: @burnoutawesome , @mattclarke , @pusen , @mimismartypants , @enjar , @acidyo , @eddiespino , @cynshineonline , and @kaelci - have you all played any of these? Do you prefer blockchain games or traditional ones? Any thoughts? 🙏)

Thanks for sharing.

I should check it out as soon as I can

My pleasure, thanks for commenting! 🙏

!discovery 30

Thanks! 🙏


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Thank you kindly! 🙏

It’s no news that we are in the trends of nft and playtoearn. I’m honestly finding it interesting playing on this platforms but I enjoy games with good GUI. Spider Tanks seems to be a good one. Thanks for the lists.

I agree on all counts, I'm glad Spider Tanks holds some interest for you, and thanks for commenting! 🙏

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Bang, I did it again... I just rehived your post!
Week 85 of my contest just started...you can now check the winners of the previous week!
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Wooooo! Epic, ty! 🙏