Well, well, well!
Next Generation of Crypto Games, you say?
As a lifelong gamer, I am increasingly fascinated with the new possibilities to play games on the blockchain. We are witnessing the very start of it here on Steemit with our own Steemmonster card game, that has taken off to the moon. I read dozens of articles of people that were having fun trading, upgrading and collecting little monster cards, excited for battles that didn't even start yet! What's even more exciting is that some people never did play or collect cards in real life.
As Steem is an entry into the crypto/blockchain fascination, some of you might not be aware of the many new games that are emerging on the Ethereum Blockchain. Some of you might have heard of Cryptokitties, a game dubbed "The first big blockchain game" by the New York Times, published in November 2017. The price range for one of these cute, collectible cats that you could breed is somewhere between 20 and 100.000 Dollar.
I never really understood why they called it a game though. You can't do much at all with your little kitties, except breeding them. That's basically less than I could do with a Tamagotchi. It's closer to collecting stamps than playing a game. Still, it's cats. The internet loves cats.
Today I want to show you a game that has me hooked completely. Don't get me wrong, I am still gonna kick your ass in the Steem Monster Tournaments. But the game I want to introduce is not a card game.
It's more like the next logical step after crypto kitties. Not only can you collect, trade and breed your amazing little Axies, you can also care for them and battle! And the complex structure of genetics and stats is something every strategist can dive into.
There have been some articles introducing the basic principles of the gameplay on Steemit already. I will not waste your precious time by inventing the wheel all over again. Instead, I will create a comprehensive overview of my own research and experience so far.
The best introduction article, in my opinion, was the interview @creativecrypto did with the team behind Axie Infinity:
https://steemit.com/game/@creativecrypto/crypto-cuteness-and-blockchain-battlegrounds-spotlight-on-axie-infinity?sort=new
And @siddharta 's great contest where I won my second axie:
https://steemit.com/gaming/@siddartha/axie-is-the-new-sexy-let-s-play-axie-infinity-3-axie-giveaway-contest
Scroll down into the comment section in case you are interested in some genuine Axie inspired poetry.
What's new?
When crypto kitties was released in November 2017 it basically crashed the Ethereum Blockchain. The number of transactions the game created accounted for more than 10% of all transactions on the blockchain which made the gas price go up drastically and it became quite expensive to breed.
How is it possible that a game can now be so much more complex and scale easier?
Axies infinity is one of the earliest adopters of the Loom Network's Zombie Chain Technology a DApp scaling solution for Ethereum, focused on games and social apps. As Dilanka the growth at Loom puts it: Loom fits to Axie "like a glove".
His article on Medium from June 2018 is an awesome and extensive "Behind the scenes" overview of the Axie Infinity Gameplay.
https://medium.com/loom-network/loom-sdk-projects-axie-infinity-collect-breed-and-battle-fantasy-pets-on-the-blockchain-22e6fd11b410
Loom supports Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFT's) and makes fast and cheap transactions possible that enables the player to engage in battle with no extra cost.
Same goes for all Delegated Proof of Stakes, that means all your wins, losses and Axie attributes are stored for free.
Now..What are Axies?
Axies are a failure of a biological experiment gone wrong. The intention was to create a dragon, but well.. instead 6 new classes of adorable little pets in the Japanese "Kawai" aesthetic. In the moment, players are able to breed and trade Axies to create the perfect battle team consisting of three Axies.
Every Axie has 6 body parts that have associated battle moves. So it's not only about rare parts or genomes, but what makes an Axie truly precious is the right combination of body parts and stats, such as speed, morale, and HP.
Add to this the fact that every Axie has a unique genome and that there are still battle moves and two classes of species unknown that have to be unlocked and you will better understand the prices at the market and the excitement the breeding causes.
What axies do I want to buy?
There is a comprehensive guide by the Axie Infinity team on Medium the "Axie Inifinity collectors guide"
At first, I was very tempted to pursue the experiment to breed a pure axie, because these are needed to unlock the next species but now that the battle system is moving to the main net and things are about to get serious it's all about finding and breeding the perfect parts for the different team positions:
Tank, Support and Damage.
Certain classes such as plant, water or reptile are better tanks by stats, but certain body part, such as hermit will make your Axie the perfect defense. No wonder the prices for Axies with these parts are much higher!
The bottom price for an axie is around 0.09 Eth at the moment and rising fast in my opinion. Same as the number of wallets and the overall trade of axies.
If you are interested in the breeding background of an Axie you can use the GENE READER
Crafting System
I am very excited about this feature. To explain an importnant fact about the gameplay:
Every Axie is born with 400 EXP. To breed, every parent has to spent 300 Exp (That's why my advise for every newbie is to look for breedable ones in the filter option). Through items such as the terrarium, taking care of your Axie and battling it will be possible to earn EXP. So that means there could be an unlimited flow of Axies.. would that have a negative impact on the market?
A solution to this is the crafting system that allows you to convert Axies and items of the game to new stuff. That will make the game even more exciting and balance the market as well!
You can check out the latest announcement here
If you are interested you might want to check out these links:
First Stream by LTZonda :
Youtube Interview with Dev: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=315&v=U3Ni0zTr_1s
Axie Infinity: https://axieinfinity.com
Discord: https://discord.gg/68DeTqc
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AxieInfinity
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AxieInfinity
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axieinfinity
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AxieInfinity/
Telegram: https://t.me/axieinfinity
But be aware, it is highly addictive!
All pics are screenshots from the Website: https://axieinfinity.com/#
Further reference:
LOOM: https://loomx.io
Cryptokitties: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoKitties
"Next-generation crypto-game"... No offense, but this is just a Cryptokitties clone with some standard added abilities... I consider SteemMonsters to be far superior to this...
About next-gen games, you could include for example HashRush, which is much more interesting and an actual game instead of just a collectible
Hash Rush looks cool!, Thank you for the link. Comparing Steemmonsters and Axie is like comparing apples and oranges, really. These are both games and they both run on the blockchain, but apart from that from that there is not much to compare. For example: a Steemmonster card like Malric Inferno has it stats and those basically stay the same, only getting higher with the lvl of the card. But the other players have the same Malric Inferno card. With the same stats on the same lvl.
If I take an axie on the other hand, Every Axie has different stats and parts, which gives them different attacks and possibilities. No other player can have the same axie as me.
It seems with next gen game, we mean exactly the same: actual games instead of collectibles. HashRush seems to be another genre though.
Loved your article. Quite some research done!
Thank you, @siddartha! It was your awesome contest that inspired me. And I like to find out more blockchaingames that are more enjoyable than just collectibles. Most are just plain boring if you take away the fact that the assets "might" become valuable.
You are most welcome! As for real games on blockchain, I'd certainly suggest Hash Rush. Under the radar right now, but definitely the best stuff.
yeah, I just joined their Main Sale to be able to play the beta soon! Now all these games including axies infinity, hash rush or even steemmonsters haven't really started yet and I always remind myself to not get too excited until I could really test the gameplay. But I am excited anyways!
Awesome article, followed, resteemed and looking forward to reading more. Stoked for what is on the horizon for Axie Infinity.
Very nice, @aristo80! I followed your account already because you resteem awesome blockchain game stuff :D