A Full Review of Gaming on the EOS Blockchain.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the EOS beacon chain recently has been the increase in gameplay choices available to users. Although gaming is not new to the EOS mainnet, recent advances in both old and new games have revitalised interest in the concept of gaming on EOS, rekindling the excitement of those who have been watching games on other chains explode.

In fact, according to DappRadar's November report, EOS' gaming category climbed by 22% in only one month. The rest of this post will go over some of the most popular games on EOS, both historically and currently. Of course, there are a number of games that have already been invented and are in use, and a comprehensive review of them would be far beyond the scope of this article. That is not to say that those not listed here aren't worth checking out; rather, it seemed to make more sense to concentrate on the larger gaming projects that operate on the EOS mainnet, which often invest a significant amount of time and resources in realising their visions conceived early in the EOS lifespan.

Even though some of these games aren't brand new, they've been continually developing, expanding, and upgrading gameplay, demonstrating that one of the most appealing aspects of blockchain gaming is that there are always fresh tasks and goals to achieve. In the end, though, it will be the players who define the games, and in order for that to happen, they must first be exposed to what is available. Without further ado, here are some of the most lauded and promising games now available on the EOS blockchain.

PROSPECTORS

Prospector is a massively multiplayer online strategy game in which players are immersed in the Gold Rush era of the nineteenth century. Through participation in gamified fungible token dynamics revolving around fulfilling jobs and creating industry or businesses, players get active in finding, earning, and selling real world goods such as gold, wood, and tools.

The gaming concept is actually fairly basic. "Each player is allotted three workers who can do a variety of jobs. Players can either use their workers themselves or hire them out to other players for a fee. To complete any action in the game, you'll need the help of a worker. You'll still need some support from others in the game, no matter how active you are."

Prospectors began with a Wild West world on EOS, but has now expanded to include a Yukon world on WAX. Furthermore, Tombstone Boomtown, which was just recently completed, was added as a way to engage the community in a way never seen before for the game by giving users a time limit to complete the task of mining enough gold and building a railway to transport riches back to the Wild West before the water ran out. Because the original Boomtown was a huge success, you can bet this won't be the last.

The game itself appears to have a strong community and a large number of players, and with recent developments such as the ability to deposit and withdraw money via a bank, study at a university to upgrade skills for players in the game, and even allow outside teams of other dapps to integrate, the game itself appears to have plenty of ways to grow while maintaining the appeal of the already captivated audience and attracting new members along the way.

UPLAND

Upland.Me, a virtual property metaverse that offers true ownership of NFT property parcels mapped to real addresses, recently partnered with a company called Tilia Pay to pave the way for what the team is calling a truly digital economy.

Upland is a blockchain-based game in which users can buy, sell, and trade virtual properties mapped to the real world. By becoming a “digital landowner,” users can build properties and earn UPX coins. The project utilizes blockchain to tie each property within the Upland platform to an NFT.

What is Upland? Upland is the earth’s metaverse mapped to the real world and accessible via web, iOS and Android. In addition, there is a “real economy” that is sustained by the players via the market forces of supply and demand. Upland is built on the basis of three key pillars: Play, Earn, & Connect. To learn more about the metaverse.

Who is behind Upland? Upland was created and is operated by Uplandme, Inc., a Silicon Valley based company with support from organizations such as Block.one (creators of the EOS blockchain), and veterans from the gaming, real estate and technology industries. The company was founded by Dirk Lueth, Idan Zuckerman and Mani Honigstein. Upland’s team is proudly distributed, and employs professionals from across the world, including a development division based in Ukraine..

How Does Upland.Me Work? Upland aims to provide a clean, smooth user experience on the web, iOS, and Android in an effort to attract a wide audience. The Property-to-USD program is still in beta, the ability to sell properties for USD is currently open to 100 Uplanders. However, the team plans to increase that number gradually and the feature will eventually be available for all.

Here’s how it works for the beta testers:

• Players can place their assets up for sale on the platform in USD.
• The user goes through a KYC (Know Your Customer) process.
• Once a property NFT is sold, the Uplander can pull out their USD earnings directly to their private Paypal account.
• The Upland community appears to be small but fairly interested in the gameplay. One player, Wulfinite, bought three properties for $500 UD each and his logic was as followed:

350 Mcallister St. (initial mint price of 193,280 UPX, or ~$193 USD) was bought because it is near City Hall. 3 Community Visitor Center (initial mint price of 135,520 UPX, or ~$135 USD) was bought because of the Rarity of Angel Island locations. 401 23rd St. (initial mint price of 356,860 UPX, or ~$356 USD) was bought for its area, as Wulfinite intends to create a preschool there.

Final Thoughts Upland.Me’s partnership with Tilia Pay enables Upland players to trade NFT-backed virtual properties based on real-world locations. With more than 10,000 daily active users and over 40,000 monthly active users, Upland is making progress into an array of quickly growing blockchain-based games.

Blankos Block Party

“Blankos Block Party is a vibrant open-world multiplayer game styled like a giant block party, with a focus on custom art and design, building and exploration, and curating your collection of unique and rare Blankos”

Blankos themselves are the fun and mischievous digital vinyl in game characters inhabiting their own world dubbed The Junction, a multiplayer universe owned and built by the players themselves. In a way structured around the premise sold by the blockbuster Toy Story narrative, according to Chief Creative Officer Jamie Jackson of Mythical Games "the world of Blankos is where toys go when humans aren't looking… That's the lore. Blankos Block Party is a place for toys to be more than just this object that sits on your shelf“.

Blankos can have their own bespoke designs, but will all have the same shape, give or take a few added accessories. Mythical games have already collaborated with several big artists in the vinyl toy world to create custom designs, including James Groman, Pete Fowler, Tara McPherson, and Kronk. When you purchase a Blanko you can see what number you have and how many there are in the world. With some Blankos being seasonal, or limited edition, there's a certain rarity to certain characters. It follows the same logic as collecting physical designer toys in that sense. The closed beta for the crypto-fueled Roblox type of ecosystem whereby players can interact and even create their own lands and levels accessible through all via the party bus launched last November with all those purchasing early access founders packs each with their own Blankos and some other accessories officially entered the open beta December 10th, 2020. Following this with a December 13th closing and burning of all unsold founders packs, the Blankos team will enter phase two of the project alongside all those that participated in closed beta. WIth each Blanko having a skill based ability tree enabled through training to acquire such advantages as speed, agility, shooting ability, or knocking each other over, in combination with the accessories they can be decked out with, the Blankos themselves look to be in a great place to entice fans to collect, upgrade, play, and even trade those coming from the closed beta and everything that follows.

A simple search on YouTube for Blankos even at this early stage of the game will already show the potential cult-like appeal that may become one of the largest it places to be a part of not only the EOS space, but blockchain and online gaming in general. To keep up to date with all the news be sure to subscribe to both the Blankos Block Party and Mythical Games official Twitter accounts, as well as taking a jaunt around the official.

Chain Clash

Chain Clash is an action-packed collectibles & free to play fighting game engaging users with the collection, training, and battling of avatars that players themselves own. “Think of Chain Clash as a crypto-themed Pokemon but with a Tekken twist. The game is designed to enable fans of various cryptocurrencies to prove their loyalty to these coins and show that their community is the strongest”

Essentially then, clan orientation around various crypto communities offers an outlet to fight through game play and skill for your most preferred place in the space. Of course being part of a clan also offers additional perks to help you get the most out of the game and its gameplay. Presently BTC (Bitcoin), ETH (Ethereum), BCH (Bitcoin Cash), EOS (EOS main net) and TRX (Tron) clans exist and gameplay around these are designed to offer equal opportunity and rewards based on individual prowess as opposed to overall clan size.

EOS RACING

EOS Racing is a super fun casual game to kill some time and earn rewards along the way. Start your engines and prove that you’re the most furious racer! Collect, trade and upgrade cars and participate in the variety of daily competitions. The platform grows in tandem with users’ participation, so all users indirectly contribute to the game in a larger way beyond just playing through the creation and exchange on the open market of all game items.

Various completions are held in the game with their own rewards that players can participate in by burning race car fuel and get prizes in the form of fuel, car parts, and even EOS. All results can be verified on the blockchain to ensure complete transparency of the race.

Crypto Sword and Magic

Crypto Sword and Magic is the first blockbuster turn-based role-playing game on the EOS blockchain. The game is actually based on the much beloved Facebook RPG Sword and Magic game and revolves around raising heroes, “either a warrior, archer, or a sorcerer. Each class has its own unique skill tree and items, and as you advance in levels, you may choose a different class. Data of all heroes equipment, and pets are all recorded on the blockchain with the game logic working on smart contracts. The game offers standard features such as upgrades in equipment, and even a mercenary mode where other people can use your character and reward you based on your heroes` contribution in battles.

Crypto Dynasty

Crypto Dynasty is another quite popular Dapp running on EOS. As DappRadar reported in November of last month, it was the second highest ranking after Upland with 16% of the total daily active wallets within the EOS gaming category.

Essentially, it is “an idle role-playing game where players send away heroes to fight enemies or challenge each other in the Arena”, with the main objective to obtain as many castles as possible. The game comes with different features that allow players to earn such as the Forging Quest, Boss Raid, Material Drop, and Equipment Crafting to name a few.

Womplay

Speaking of Wombat, the team has not only made gaming a whole lot easier on EOS with their free to create EOS accounts and easy on-boarding social login Wombat Wallet, but now a lot more appealing through the introduction of Womplay. Although not technically a game in itself, Womplay deserves mention here for the simple reason that it is a hub and rewards platform designed for gamers to interact with the games they love and get EOS rewards in return.

In addition to Prospectors, Upland, Crypto Dynasty, Chain Clash, and EOS Racing, Womplay offers a variety of different games both on and off of the blockchain allowing for earning potential. What is most fascinating about this actually, just in case you missed it the first time around, is that through the Wombat wallet, Womplay actually allows for the earning of EOS rewards for games not directly built on EOS or even the blockchain. This is achieved through four different activity types on Womplay to earn rewards: Quick Play, Performance Based Challenges, Routine In Game Actions, and Cash Out Events.

Conclusion

Of course what is presented above is but a mere fraction of the options presently available on EOS which as time goes on are sure to only grow in number as new ideas are formulated and plans take shape. With this in mind, to keep up to date at any given time with the top gaming dapps on EOS, keep a watchful eye turned both towards Womplay above as well as the EOS gaming section of Dapp Radar, as these seem to be the most active places to see what is new and most popular.

As for the future of gaming on EOS and the benefits the technology offers, it does also present some challenges especially in terms of cost as for blockchain based games each action will be equivalent to one transaction. Although some games have taken to moving to other chains such as WAX or Telos, there are other solutions to be explored for gaming dapps to be more efficient in their spending.

One such potential path actually comes off the back of a recent announcement with two long standing projects running on EOS concerning the collaboration of a new social game to be built on EOS. Although all details have yet to be released, as founder of Boid John Heeter notes, “since data stored on an EOSIO chain is not encrypted and can get quite expensive quickly, we looked into BlockBase tech to use its built in privacy while also saving on costs.”

Together they are in the planning and building stages of a large scale multiplayer strategy game which will be stored on BlockBase and powered by Boid in an innovative gamified way to be able to integrate in-game actions and customize the cosmetics with such things as NFT`s. The benefits of Boid partnering with BlockBase to utilize a sidechain to encrypt and store all in-game actions at a fraction of the cost it would be on the EOS main net while leveraging scalability, privacy, and developer friendliness could be a very viable solution for an emerging game market on EOS for smaller projects that may lack the resources necessary to realistically launch full scale on the EOS main net.

In the end though, although not without complications, the benefits of gaming on EOS are quickly becoming clear and beginning to attract quite a bit of attention from both gamers and developers alike. With the technological power that is EOSIO, the branding of the EOS mainnet, and the innovative approach of projects like Womplay to reward users in EOS and BlockBase to scale both in-game actions and cost, gaming on EOS is likely to hold their own at least for the time being against some other very viable and equally exciting EOSIO based chains such as WAX, Telos, and Ultra recently been making moves in the blockchain based gaming industry in their own right.

Thank you for reading.