Gaming on Ethereum: Will These Dapps Bring Blockchain to the Mainstream?

Chris Bridgett
Good Audience
Published in
7 min readOct 26, 2018

--

It’s not just about collectible felines anymore.

From Crypto Kitties to Major League Baseball, the rise in crypto collectibles has truly been something to behold.

But while there’s most certainly a place for collectibles in cryptocurrency’s future, and we’re bound to see more from the likes of P3D and Fomo3D, what’s likely to really attract the mainstream is gaming on the blockchain.

The idea of being able to make money while playing a game is simply fascinating, and blockchain gaming allows this. By converting items, cards, characters, abilities — or anything really — into tokens on the blockchain; players are able to securely and trustlessly trade and sell their gaming spoils without the fear of being scammed, or worse, hit by a ‘real world trading’ ban!

Without further ado, here are 7 gaming dapps from a wide variety of genres that have the potential to bring blockchain to the mainstream.

(I promise I’m not sponsored by any of them!)

Zombie Battleground (by Loom Network)

I’m of the opinion that Loom Network is kind of a big deal for Ethereum. From Crypto Zombies — the Solidity developer school, to their dapp sidechains, to Zombie Battleground, this development team is doing its best to enrich and expand the Ethereum network.

Zombie Battleground is a collectible card game based on the blockchain. It allows you to collect and own Zombie themed digital Magic the Gathering-like cards, build a deck, and battle other users. The Loom Network developers noticed something missing when card games made the transition from the material world to the digital one. Hearthstone, for example; a game that this game takes a whole heap of inspiration from, allows you to buy packs and build decks, but are those cards really yours? Zombie Battleground provides the solution — cards that exist as ‘tokens’ on the blockchain. You can trade or sell them as though you owned the card — because you do.

This game recently finished its Kickstarter — raising a total of $321,606 — and its backers are currently enjoying the pre-release. You haven’t missed out, though, you can visit the site here and sign up for early access!

Gods Unchained (by Fuel Games)

Fuel Games are the 24-person team behind Etherbots, another immensely popular Ethereum dapp, which allows players to build millions of unique Robots from scratch from four different parts — each a fully owned and tradable ERC721 token. Etherbots saw the selling of over $1 million of parts, and at the time of its launch was responsible for 5% of all transactions on the Ethereum network. Gods Unchained is likely to blow that out of the water.

If you’re not a fan of Zombie Battleground’s cartoonish style and limited deck themes (it’s going to be a Zombie deck), then the fantasy epic Gods Unchained has you covered with its beautifully intricate art style. Another collectible card game that closely follows the mechanics of Hearthstone, Gods Unchained is blockchain’s first eSports game. The first tournament is set to take place in early 2019, and currently has a $360,000 prize pool accumulated. 10% of all pack sales contribute to this prize pool, and they’ve got a target of $1.6 million in mind. This is certainly a game to get hyped about, and it’s just the sort of thing that will attract mainstream attention.

On August 3rd, 2018, the auction for the one-of-a-kind Mythic card — Hyperion — ended, with the final price at 146.28 ETH (around $60,000 at the time), ranking it among the most expensive CCG cards of all time.

You can actually start building your deck now! At the time of writing, there are 2 Mythic Titan cards still up for grabs from presale card packs. They could either make you a pretty penny in the future, or make a powerful addition to your Gods Unchained deck.

War Riders (by Cartified, Inc.)

War Riders is being developed by Cartified, Inc., who were founded in 2015 and are backed by American University Venture Fund and Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator. They have the primary goal of presenting technology solutions for the future of the automotive industry. One does wonder, then, whether the future depicted in War Riders is something to be concerned about!

An MMO set in a Mad Max-esque post apocalyptic wasteland; War Riders sees players build war vehicles in an effort to acquire the last remaining currency in the world, Benzene (BZN), and eliminate any who stand in their way. Players can customize their vehicles to a huge extent — so long as they’ve found enough Benzene to afford it — adding weapons, parts, engines, and even custom logos to their vehicles of destruction. Everything is tradeable on the in-game marketplace: certain items require BZN to purchase, while others can be bought using ETH.

At the time of writing, special pre-order vehicles are available here, if you want to give yourself an edge in the apocalypse. They’re aiming for full release in 2019.

Cryptic Conjure (by Iridium Studios and Lucid Sight)

The collaboration between Lucid Sight — the minds behind MLB Crypto — and Iridium Studios — developers of the innovative voice-activated strategy game There Came an Echo (2015) — can only be fantastic.

Cryptic Conjure is a magical cyberpunk MMORPG that utilizes both Unreal Engine 4 and Ethereum’s technology in order to create something truly spectacular. It’s built around one key concept: players can craft spells that they can share with other players, but spells get weaker the more they’re shared. This is achieved through the use of ERC-721 tokens, allowing players to trade spell ‘essences’ in the form of tokens at the cost of a decreasing bonus that starts at 200%. To craft the more powerful spells, players need a Runic Altar. Some are controlled by the developers, but most are player-run. Players can set fees for the usage of their altars, as well as modify and improve their altars to fit certain needs.

In short — Crypto Conjure’s entire economy is Ethereum-based, allowing successful players to turn a tidy profit as they game.

A number of rare artifacts and items are currently available in their presale, found here, for players who want to get ahead of the game.

War of Crypto (by Lucille Games)

Lucille Games had humble origins as the creators of PokéFind, a highly successful Minecraft mod with over 1 million users. This year, however, they attended E3 alongside Enjin, the massive social gaming platform that boasts 20 million members, to showcase the highly anticipated War of Crypto. Enjin are responsible for the Ethereum-based EnjinCoin, the blockchain game development platform that powers War of Crypto.

War of Crypto is a web-based (and recently announced as Android and iOS-based) PvP multiplayer fantasy game featuring unique heroes that can be evolved and traded. Players will be able to level up and customize their heroes, build a powerful team, and dominate other players. Or just collect as many as you can! There are already a huge variety of heroes to collect, including a space dog humorously named ‘Lambo Mooner’ and a pink whale.

Everything in-game will be able to be traded on the marketplace for EnjinCoin (ENJ) which, presumably, can be exchanged for ETH or other currencies from there. You can take part in their presale here and purchase some of the wackier heroes for yourself.

Bitizens (by BitGuild)

BitGuild is a blockchain gaming platform currently responsible for the BitGuild portal that allows easy access to a number of dapps, including Axie Infinity and Ether.Online. Their goal is to implement a marketplace that allows people to trade items from each of these games without the need to leave their hub. They currently have a 19-person team working on Bitizens: the ambitious social RPG.

Currently simply an avatar game in its alpha, Bitizens aims to allow players to create a unique character, explore the world, traverse the vast Bitropolis cityscape, play a variety of games, and collect items to trade on the marketplace. They recently released the Fishing minigame allowing players to earn PLAT, Bitguild’s own Ethereum-based token, for taking part. There are plans to release an ‘expeditions’ feature later this year, allowing players to send their avatars out into the world to earn items and other goodies. Players will also be able to set up their own nodes and benefit when other players take expeditions to them.

You can sign up to Bitizens right now, through the BitGuild portal.

Forest Knight (by Chrono Games)

Behfar Iranmanesh is the one-man army behind Chrono Games, the developer responsible for Forest Knight. He is passionate about video games, and claims to be dedicated to bringing the best possible player experience to his game.

Forest Knight is a turn-based mobile strategy game that’s powered by Enjin. Players can build a town, complete quests, create a team of heroes and equip them with powerful items. The game will start as a single player adventure game, with plans to implement a PvP battle arena after its launch, allowing players to compete for blockchain-based rewards. Characters and items can be also be traded with other players, allowing you to profit whilst gaming.

You can keep up to date with the game’s development on the Chrono Games Twitter, or on the Forest Knight Medium page.

One of the biggest problems Ethereum (and blockchain technology in general) faces is scaling.

In December 2017, when Crypto Kitties reached peak mania, the Ethereum network ground to a halt because everyone was breeding kitties on the main Ethereum chain.

As a way around this problem, all of the above dapps utilize side chains in order to allow players to enjoy them at significantly faster speeds compared to the Ethereum network. Tokens will be secured by the Ethereum main chain, but most in-game actions will take place on the side chains. This also means players don’t have to pay and wait for each and every action they make, which was another barrier to mainstream adoption.

Of course, by no means are these the only blockchain games currently in development. These are just a select few of the many, many games currently being developed for Ethereum.

There are a number of games in development for other platforms, too, including EOS and Tron. You can find a great list of all upcoming — or already released — blockchain games at Tokenized Games.

I am confident that blockchain gaming will bring mainstream adoption to Ethereum, and blockchain technology as a whole.

Will it be these dapps that do it?

--

--

Math graduate and crypto enthusiast. Sharing blockchain news and ideas, and experimenting with making money online. Writer at https://www.myidleincome.com.