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What are we going to do in DeFi network today? Let's play PRG and win beautiful NFTs!
In addition to the recent popular NFT concept, this Web Game is also a classic Dungeons and Dragons series. When such an epic game teams up with cryptocurrency, how can an experienced RPG player plus Crypto investor like me resist it? Let's check on DungeonSwap which is claimed to be the first DeFi RPG game on the BSC chain. Get ready? Go!
Dungeons and Dragons D&D is a very famous medieval fantasy theme, spanning video games, board games, film and television, and novels.
Prerequisites to play
- Install encryption currency wallet, recommended MetaMask and install BSC network
- Deposit a little $BNB (for transaction fees) and some $BUSD (for game content) into wallet that you can afford
- Cheapest network fee to deposit $BNB and $BUSD: deposit in Balance first then withdraw to your BSC wallet address.
DungeonSwap
Generally, when we see "Swap" as the trailing word of a DeFi application we can immediately tell that is an "Exchange". Exchange is a place where users can convert A currency into B currency based on the current currency exchange rate.
The token issued by DungeonSwap is $DND which is the ticket to enter The Dungeons and the action points to be spent during battle. Although DungeonSwap is a gaming website, it is also an exchange allowing players to easily swap virtual funds.
"Friendly notice: Please use the built-in browser of METAMASK to use the wallet function when visiting the website with your mobile phone."
Apart from the exchange functionalities, the main feature "The Dungeon" RPG game was firstly released on 8/1. The Dungeon’s story line was designed and written by a well-known D&D professional player. Each enemy/monster you encounter and all equipments you can loot in the dungeon are with a lot of materials for players to read. That's the spirit of D&D and RPG. Really cool to me!
For the first release there are three dungeons for players to explore: The Training Field (Tutorial) , Campaign: The Mad Wizard's Underground Lair, and Campaign: The Grand Colosseum. Each dungeon requires entry fee of 0.7 / 1 / 10 $DND.
As you know, dungeons are apparently not for newbie to enter. For 10 cost dungeon it's recommended to have rank ??? or above equipment. "Don't get killed, child." You should firstly play The Training Field (Tutorial) to get your basic gears and understand how the game mechanism works.
In computer games, the core element of a RPG game is the growth of the character. As the story progresses, it is necessary to fight monsters to accumulate experience and level up in order to challenge more difficult areas. Each time you knock down a fearsome creature it has chance to drop items. Whether you can get a top-tier drop is base on difficulty and how lucky you are, accompany with the fun of collecting special or set items.
In "The Dungeon", Dev Team shifts the growing factor from character to NFT, a.k.a. Non-Fungible Token, a novel cryptocurrency specialty get attention recently by establishing uniqueness of digital assets.
Each NFT has several attributes to represent its value and in-game power, 3 key attributes:
- Star - The more stars, the higher rarity an equipment has.
- Level - A random value when a NFT been minted. Higher level introduce more battle power.
- Element - Not every NFT has element, like Fire or Water. Elements brings strategic thinking in game.
There are three kinds of equipments that can be used in battle, namely weapons, armors, and accessories. And there are totally eight elements as water, fire, ice, wind, earth, thunder, light, and darkness. You must think twice and use different combination to get advantages when you fight different monsters.
It is worth recognizing that these NFT equipments are data written on the blockchain and are also commodities. They can be bought and sold in the marketplace at later stage which represents their characteristic of value circulation.
From current roadmap official revealed that in September "Smithy" will be delivered. What does Smithy suppose to do? Of course... Craft! It won't surprise me that Star and Level attribute can be enhanced via Smithy crafting. Smithy will play an important role for the ecosystem that crafting will burn $DND to introduce deflation, so as to stablize token supply and demand.
"I won't sell my Silent Haze. It's a blessing from the god and I'll use it to slay my enemies."
And there is also "NFT Market" to be released in August. A place for players to trade their equipments to boost DungeonSwap economy, and give reason to players to loot more valuable NFTs as best as they can!
The Dungeons
First released game mechanism is quite simple. Take "Campaign: The Mad Wizard's Underground Lair" as example there are a total of 10 levels to be conquered. At each level you'll encounter random enemies and see different NFT you can harvest when it successfully drops.
You need to choose your equipments before attacking, different combination boosts different power considering Elements. Currently it's like a beta version for players to experience, it's not hard to achieve maximum boosting. And with maximum boosting you'll get highest chance to beat the opponent.
If you see the lightening effect on screen it means you already reach the maximum boosting value.
Look, this is a photo took by my girlfriend when I fought The Fiery Sun Phoenix. You must know from the appearance it's not something you can encounter often. We can tell she is a Fire Element creature by checking on the icon right after her name.
Above is the Element Slate. Check before attack to ensure you pick up the best gear. So for the Phoenix, I'd better use Lightening Element to fight against it. (Tips: Use as few equipment as you can to reach maximum chance to get lowest gas fee)
Secondly, choose your Strategy wisely.
Special Attack costs you $DND to get higher winning chance & higher NFT drop chance, while normal Attack costs you only gas fee ($BNB) but just normal chance for both.
If you are satisfied with your accrued $DND rewards, you may want to Escape to secure your $DND earned. Otherwise if you lose next battle, you'll lose all your collected $DND rewards.
Don't feel sad when losing battle, there is still good news that NFT dropped won't be canceled. If you get a NFT and you mint it, it will always be yours throughout your entire life.
"Never leaves, always love you. - by your NFT"
The battle works as rolling a dice, like how we play D&D table game. Current battle result is very simple, take above example I categorized into 4 results and corresponding chance:
- (22.34%) Win the battle and get NFT
- (30.86%) Win the battle but no NFT
- (19.66%) Lose the battle but get NFT
- (27.14%) Lose the battle and no NFT
Undoubtedly everyone wants the first result, but no one can always be that lucky. And I know there are many players focus on gathering NFT and wait for Smithy & NFT Market grand open, so they'll focus on 1st & 3rd possibility. Not a bad strategic thinking IMO. High level rare NFT may be worth a lot and after upcoming patches everything is possible.
Finally I would like to share with you the photo I risked my life to take behind a stone pillar - The Mad Wizard! AFAIK there is no one every take him down. Will you be the one?
P2E is coming
The most challenging part of a project is not kickoff to develop or in the process of development. The most tough challenge comes on the day the product go online.
In DeFi gaming many people are used to P2E concept, a.k.a. Play to Earn, that players can earn digital token while playing. BUT, "the Dungeon" was designed in the concept of Play to Burn as depicts in DungeonSwap whitepaper to perform as a way to do balance between inflation and deflation.
This miss-match brought quite a chaos in community since day one. I am glad that Dev Team listened to community, reacted quickly, and made correct decision they'll provide P2E feature within 1.5 month to meet a large portion of players' expectation.
As for me I am not a fan of P2E. It's not hard to imagine that when all players are gaining more tokens, DungeonSwap must find other ways to burn them. That's inevitable. This is actually the art of design. Thankfully before the V2 releases, Dev Team came up the idea of a NFT called "Relic" to let players enter the dungeon for free, and will not lose any reward from losing a battle. Sounds great!
And I'd like to describe "The Dungeon" to be Play and Earn in stead of P2E. From the whitepaper, Dev Team highlights the importance of gaming experience. They'll put more resources on improving the game to make players feel satisfied in gaming experience even more than passive income from staking & farming. I press a like button on this ideology.
Hope you can enjoy the game like I do. It's really refreshing to play a RPG game on DeFi, and it's addictive. As a D&D lover, I fully support Dev Team patiently grooming the gaming experience and make all the mechanisms & ecosystem better and better. Let's Play and Earn!
Reference Links
- DungeonSwap Official Site
- DungeonSwap Audit
- DungeonSwap Whitepaper
- [Google Doc] DungeonSwap Statistics
- [Youtube Video] Dungeon Swap Beginner Guide | How to play DungeonSwap and make profit!
- [Community] Telegram
- [Community] Twitter
- [Community] Discord
