And stock up on crypto-backed heroes
Making the most of the advantages provided by blockchain without introducing its many complexities is a balancing act faced by all dapp developers.
It’s a particularly tricky issue for game developers, however.
For one thing, gamers expect to sign up easily and play for free, only spending money when they really understand the in-game economy.
Equally, with enormous competition for players’ attention, any game running on a blockchain needs to be as attractive and as accessible as say Fortnite or Clash Royale.
That’s a dilemma Canadian team Xiponel Studios is hoping to overcome with its forthcoming MMORPG Kingdoms Beyond.
Get in and start playing
Described as Pokemon meets Runescape, it’s a free-to-play browser-based game in which players collect, train and battle heroes, forming teams of three to fight strategic turn-based battles and win loot.
Over time the game will also include a resource-based crafting mechanic, and eventually PVP battles and a land system too.
Running on the Ethereum blockchain, Xiponel says no wallet or tokens are required: players can jump straight in.
Instead, blockchain features are only introduced as required; i.e. if players want to own or trade blockchain assets.
“We want to be the mainstream game that brings major market adoption to the blockchain gaming space by removing several barriers of entry that are prevalent within current blockchain games,” it says.
Value backed by cold, hard crypto
The game has an innovative approach to creating value too.
Each NFT hero is backed by a certain amount of either ETH or DAI. This means at any point its owner can burn (or destroy) the hero to recover that value. More importantly, however, the more you level up your hero, the more valuable they will become.
Xiponel Studios explains it this way. If you buy a chest for 1 ETH, you may get a level 1 hero that’s backed by 0.2 ETH. However, when you max out their level, they will be backed by 0.8 ETH. The rarer the hero, the higher the crypto backing.
Of course, this only creates part of a hero’s value. You will have noticed that in this hypothetical case, you paid 1 ETH for something with a maximum backed value of 0.8 ETH.
It looks like you’ve lost money on the deal!
But remember, the 0.8 ETH is only the backing if you want to burn the hero. A maxed out hero could be worth 1.2 ETH (or more) when traded with other players.
In this way, such backing provides a lowest level valuation to ensure the NFTs in Kingdoms Beyond never become worthless.
It’s a neat way of helping to kickstart an in-game economy which is becoming more popular. Games using the Enjin platform take a similar approach using its ENJ token, for example.
Time to play
Which all leads nicely into the news that Kingdoms Beyond has launched its Alpha version and its Founder’s Sale.
In this you can purchase loot boxes priced at $5, $20 and $50. The cheaper boxes will have an unlimited supply but the $50 Founder’s Chest is limited to 5,000.
So it’s time to jump into the game and inspect the goods, especially given that if you use our link you’ll get a 15% discount (at least for the first week).
Check it all out at the Kingdoms Beyond website.
Keep up-to-date with the world of dapps at DappRadar.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
