Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a special kind of digital token. Bitcoin is fungible which means one bitcoin is valued the same as every other bitcoin. Like a penny, it doesn’t matter which one you have and they do the same thing. Non-fungible tokens are the opposite; each one is unique with its own value. Non-fungible tokens can be used for access like a username and password or represent collectible digital art, and objects in video games. They also have potential to replace and make tracking of titles, deeds, stocks, bonds, easier and more efficient.
Want to start learning how to use and interact with NFTs? A fun way to see what they’re all about is to play some of the NFT games. In this collection of games you can explore some of the different ways NFTs are being experimented with.
Here are a few games using digital collectibles or NFTs:
CryptoKitties
CryptoKitties was the original NFT game where you can collect and breed digital cats to create new unique kitties and sell them in an auction marketplace using Ethereum. When the game was introduced in 2017, some “Genesis” kitties sold for over $1 million.
“CryptoKitties is a game centered around breedable, collectible, and oh-so-adorable creatures we call CryptoKitties! Each cat is one-of-a-kind and 100% owned by you; it cannot be replicated, taken away, or destroyed,” they explain.
Kitties have a multitude of different features (cattributes) like shapes, eyes, mouths, colors, backgrounds, and much more. They also have specialty breeds and other unique outcomes from breeding specific cattributes. Players can buy digital cats, breed them, sell them or offer them for siring for a fee.
Like most NFT games built on Ethereum, players use a Metamask browser wallet to navigate the site and make purchases. Learn more at CryptoKitties.co.
NBA Top Shot
NBA Top Shot is a platform for collecting, buying, and trading officially licensed digital cards for players in the National Basketball Association. NBA Top Shot is the most popular NFT series by volume since launching in the fall of 2020 selling over $30M in digital cards.
NBA Top Shot, built by Dapper Labs (the same maker of CryptoKitties), allows users to buy packs of digital cards from different tiers of rarity. These packs have a limited supply and once they’re gone, users can only find individual cards they want in the marketplace.
Not only can you collect player cards, you can also collect “Moments” or big plays throughout the history of the NBA that are digitally captured by GIFs attached to non-fungible tokens. Learn more at NBATopShot.com.
TradeStars
TradeStars is a Sports fantasy stock trading game in early access. Built on the Ethereum and Matic network. It is not a pure NFT it is a hybrid of fungible and nonfungible tokens called a “Fractionable NFT”. In a Fractionable NFT you buy and sell fungible tokens that represent a share of the total NFT.
In TradeStars each sports star is an NFT connected to a smart contract that accepts TradeStar Token (TSX) in exchange for tokens of the NFT. When you sell your NFT tokens back to the contract you are given the current value in TSX. The price of the Sports star is determined as a function of the total supply (pool) of the NFTs tokens. The better a star performs the more people want to buy the NTF the more the NFTs pool increases and so its value increases. As people sell a Star’s NFT the lower the pool of the NFTs tokens the lower the price. This automatic creation and destruction of the NFT tokens for TSX creates an automatic and continuous liquidity pool. The continuous liquidity pool solves needing to match buyers and sellers.
TradeStar Token (TSX) is capped at 100,000,000 tokens. Users will determine if that cap is ever reached by using TSX as governance token voting on that and other proposals. Initially 25M tokens are given to founders, advisors and investors. 10M are for fundraising and funding the initial ecosystem, with 65M being set aside for distribution to network users over time. Every week 145,000 Will be distributed to users. It will take 8.666 years to distribute the whole 65M but users may vote to change that cap setting a lower total amount of coins, before then. Over time these distributions will transfer from liquidity payments to payments based on NFTs held and the NFTs real life performance. Trade Stars will start with cricket and soccer. With NFTs planned for football, baseball, basketball, and car racing. Users can unlock future NFTs by staking TSX in locked NFTs. For more information check out the introductory video.
Neon District
Neon District opened for public play on January 19th 2021. During the first week of Neon district 2,200 players logged and 100,000 NFT’s where created on the Matic network. NFTs for Neon District can be traded at Opensea. The second quarter of this year will see the introduction of campaigns and missions. Campaigns and missions are the culmination of 3 years of development and will begin the unveiling of the cities layout. Neon district is set in a city that is 5 times the size of New York.
Neon District is a cyberpunk turn based role-playing game played in a web browser. Neon District uses the Ethereum and Matic networks to provide NFT collectibles. Players collect characters and gear to build 4 character teams. Neon is the in game currency it is used to buy characters, loot crates, juice and parts. Neon can be earned in game or purchased with dollars or ETH. You start with enough Neon to buy 3 characters combined with your free character you have enough to build your first team and start earning neon.
Neon is earned by delivering pizza, ambushing deliveries or from fulfilling hit contracts. A delivery shift lasts 8 hours, in that time your team will complete 7-9 deliveries. Your team is restricted to 42 tier 1 shifts where you can not be ambushed. After that you are promoted to tier 2 deliveries. Tier 3 deliveries are not yet open but will allow you to earn juice and parts along with neon. You can select to do tier 2 deliveries earlier if you would like. Each delivery is carried out automatically when the current delivery timer ends the next delivery begins. The combat for ambushes are automatic. If the ambushers are successful you lose half of the delivery fee and half of any neon in your pocket.
It is good to bank your fees, move them from your pocket to your bank, after every delivery. You can put out a contract on teams that ambush you. If you or another team attacks and defeats the ambushers they lose 100% of all unfenced goods. The goods are split 50/50 between the contractor and the hitter. If you fulfill your own contract then you get 100% of the goods. When issuing a contract you decide if the contract is public or private. You can send links to private contracts to a friend or carry them out yourself.
Battle can be practiced against the computer or be against other players. The winner is determined by the characters stats, equipment and C.A.R.Ds (Cyber Assisted Response Directives) played vs the stats, equipment and any active C.A.R.D effects of the character attacked. There are 400+ C.A.R.Ds (Cyber Assisted Response Directives) each card has an effect on an enemy or team member and is played during combat. Each of the 6 character types Demon, Doc, Genius, Ghost, Heavy and Jack determine the base stats and role on the team. You spend ticks to play a card during a character’s turn, ticks determine the amount of recovery time before your character gets another turn. Each character has 10 player cards and 10 weapon cards 3 of which are available for play during combat at any one time. Stats and Cards are upgraded and changed using juice. Weapons and equipment are upgraded using parts.
PolkaPet World
PolkaPet World is one of Bondly Finance’s initiatives to introduce people to the world of NFT’s and DeFi.
Doug Ferguson, CEO of Gaming for Bondly believes “that the power of NFT technology lies in taking the mundane and making it cool. Being able to take a coupon and turn it into a digital collectible is the type of idea Doug believes will make normal items you throw away a valuable/tradable asset over time.” Doug was Sr. Vice President, Product Development at The Pokémon Company International (TPCi) and was with the company for 16 years.
DeFi projects from the Polkdot network are represented as NFT (non fungible token) trading cards. Each PolkaPet has abilities, behaviors and Strengths related to the project. The cards will not only have in game abilities, but also utility outside the game in the projects. The benefits of holding a Polka Pet World NFT in your wallet will be things like lower network fees or access to airdrops. Inside the PolkaPet World game itself you will be able to pair your PolkaPet against others in competitive play. Winning prizes in tournaments and for completing storyline tasks and more.
Sales from cards will be split between the card’s project and the PolkaPet Foundation. The PolkaPet Foundation is a DAO designed to provide grants to DeFi projects. PolkaPet holders will be able to vote for the projects they want to receive funding.
As an example here is Bondly’s PolkaPet BondProtect.
BondProtect holds the following utility.
- Bonus Airdrop of Partner Tokens from Bondly’s NFT Launchpad (Bridge, Kylin, and More)
- NFT Staking Rewards (BONDLY + Partner Tokens)
- Next-Gen PolkaPets ‘Evolution’ Lottery
- Lottery Entry for 10 Extra BondSwap Cards to be Airdropped to Holders
BondProtect’s announcement says: “BondProtect is very protective of its loved ones. They feel responsible for the well-being of their community. Valuing safety and security, BondProtect will do everything in its power to protect its home in a calm and collected manner. BondProtect has a slender build and a long wispy tail and wings that allow it to fly as well as swim. They do not bode well in forest-like environments.”
As a project BondProtect (BProtect) is Bondly’s smart contract payment platform. Its features include escrow, recurring payments, and payment protection. It can be used by an individual merchant using the BProtect GUI or built into a site for payment processing similar to PayPal.
As the projects evolve so will the pets card art and their associated utilities. The NFTs are transferable, taking their utilities with them. Which means you can sell and trade them. BProtect escrow contracts will make trading more secure and reliable.
PolkaPet World might be a way to onboard people to the DeFi and NFT world in an approachable and less intimidating way. You can follow progress on the Polka Pet world as it releases on Telegram, Twitter and Medium.
Bondly Collectible Card Game
BCCG (Bondly Collectible Card Game) is another of Bondly’s efforts to bring new users to NFTs. Each Card not only is used in tournaments but also grants the holder benefits in the bondly family of products. Each card has a character that personifies and explains a bondley product. The Characters on these cards are also being developed into an anime story. Each card is a pass to enter 6-24 participant 1V1 tournaments that are similar to Battle Royal or Last Man Standing. Only one of each card will be allowed in the tournament. There are free and premium tournaments. Premium tournaments will require $BONDLY tokens to participate. Among rewards will be $BONDLY tokens, tokens of partners exclusive NFT cards, NFTs form partner projects. First series cards grant the holder no fees on Bswap. They also gain access to BCCG Elite, a discussion group for strategies, information on other NFTs in the ecosystem. Series one also allows you to submit fan art contests for special prizes and maybe inclusion of your art on future NFTs. Ten premium tournament entries for free.
The more interesting part of the Bondly saga is the Card games are the testing and proving grounds for their Bondly Family of products that will enable others to Launch their own NFTs. Rather than just creating the next Youtube, eBay, Patreon etc. they are putting it all together so you make content and then use NFTs to give benefits to your fanbase. The collectors and fans can then trade and sell the NFTs. The tournaments are one way you could do drawings and fan giveaways. They are proving the model. NFT Launchpad means that you could soon be issuing your own NFTs to fans and not need to run a login database. You can follow Bondly’s progress on Telegram, Twitter, Twitch, and Medium.
The Sandbox
The Sandbox building off of previous success in user generated worlds since 2012 is now building a new 3D multiplayer version. With 40 million downloads and a 1 million monthly users of their current offerings this new game is highly anticipated.
What makes this new version so special is players will be able to create objects that they fully own and sell for SAND (Sandboxes ERC20 token). Voxedit Sandboxes own voxel editor is in Beta for Windows and Mac. Voxel editors are used to make 3D models out of 3d cubes. Voxels can then be animated or used in 3D games. Each voxel model will be stored on IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) and Linked to an NFT that can be controlled and sold on the Sandbox Market. Voxel creations in The Sandbox are also known as ASSETS. The creator can determine how many copies of an ASSET can be sold. The creator can set the number of uses per copy controlling how many can be used in the game. A creator might want to allow hundreds of trees to be placed, but only 1 of a statue or other special art object.
GameMaker is in alpha for Windows it will allow users to create games and interactive components for Sandbox without any coding. GameMaker uses visual scripting tools to create the game interactions. Game creators will be able to earn SAND for their games. Players will be able to win prizes for playing them.
LAND is a 96 meter by 96 meter area in The Sandbox. Land is where other players interact with your games and creations. LAND is also an NFT 166,464 LANDS in total. LANDS can be grouped into estates allowing teams of players to create a collaborative project. LAND is released for sale in rounds that sell out fast. Just like physical real estate you can rent your land to others. Here is a chart for the first 4 rounds of LANDS sales.
SAND is an erc20 token for The Sandbox. SAND is used to buy ASSETS, LANDS, customize your Avatar, play games, to upload ASSETS. Staking your SAND in LANDS allows you to get Gems, Catalysts and SAND. All transactions in sand have a 5% fee. 50% of the fees go to the staking pools 50% goes to the foundation. The foundation is a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) whose purpose is to support The Sandbox ecosystem. The foundation is funding 15 games and 100+ artists making NFTs for the public release of The Sandbox. SAND is also the governance token. Governance tokens are how people vote in DAOs.
Keep up with The Sandbox and future LANDS sales on Twitter, and The Sandbox stie.
The experiments of today are the first steps to the more complex systems needed to track and prove ownership of property of the future. Instead of fighting your kids over there tech time let them learn the basics of tomorrow’s economy.
David Mangiaracino is a Linux systems administrator and website developer at Perpend Strategies.