Are you one of the few people in the Crypto world that have NOT heard about Upland.me? That's ok, we forgive you. Upland is a game, but can become serious, it is crypto, but also fiat, it is blockchain, it is nft's.... and more. We are an organized group of very dissimilar personalities, all pointed in a similar direction---> Play. Earn. Connect.
Monopoly is the first thing that comes to my mind when I contemplate Upland. It has real estate, there are railroads and even airports, it has income like passing "Go", and even it's own jail called Alcatraz(and it is actually ON Alcatraz island). There are games of chance that we call Treasure Hunts, a Community Chest with Staff run events to win in game currency or nft prizes, we have game pieces that are called Block Explorers, and many others exciting venues. There is one aspect of Upland.me that differed greatly from Monopoly however, until now.
Recently the developers introduced a temporary building token called "Spud". The best way to describe it would be a unit of measure in time, called "Spud-hours". There were 8 to 10 test structures brought to the game varying from a modest house to a large apartment. Depending on the size of the structure, it could take different amount of "Spud-hours" to complete production of the building. Each person was granted a different amount of Spud, according to their net worth, up to a max of 3.5.
The largest building, the apartment, cost 100 Spud-hours. This essentially means that if you own one Spud, it would take 100 hours to build. Two Spud would reduce the time to half, and so on. One cool thing though, is that the Staff introduced Spud during an inter-district competition, and select individuals were chosen to represent 1 of 10 pre-determined districts as Champs. These Champs were given double the amount of Spud, to build with as they saw fit. What a huge difference that made, because that same 100 hour apartment could now be finished in 14.
Since that first competition, there have been several different versions of the Spud competition ranging from "Llamagheddon", where every person was on their own (the Llama is the Upland mascot), some where a person could use in game currency to enhance their builds, to others where only new players could compete. All in all it was massive amounts of fun. In the beginning these stressed many friendships, but in the end we ALL proved victorious in one way or another.
And now, we prepare for Spud's permanent heir, named "Spark". I personally am very excited about Spark because it adds, what I feel, was the missing link to finally making Upland.me feel like a true "Monopoly" style game. New parameters are going to decide how much Spark each person gets, to include net worth, time in game, start date, in-game participation(log ins), and out of game participation (like Discord, UCN, etc). On top of all of that, they are holding various events that will add to our total Spark, which is a permanent bonus. Every little bit counts, especially for those whale players that own hundreds of properties.
We have been told a few things about this next stage in Upland real estate development. First, the structures are semi permanent. All properties in Upland are non-fungible tokens (nfts), and the buildings we place on them will stay with the property. Once a house is built, for example, you cannot remove it to some inventory for use somewhere else. The property sells, and the building goes with it. The only way to remove it would be to demolish (burn) it, or upgrade it. Second, these structures will take much more time to build than the Spud buildings. Third, we are told that there will be much more color variety, and also micro alignment within the property borders, which will leave room for other placeable items, like decorations. Here is a link to the 2021 Upland roadmap, it should answer your questions in greater detail. 2021 Roadmap
To sum up the feelings about Spark in one word it would be, SuperDuperEnthusiastic. Yes, that's a real word, look it up. As we are still in open Beta, there are sure to be bugs and hiccups along the way. In no way will I let any thoughts of such things interfere with my enthusiasm and excitement about Spark. Keeping an open mind, and staying patient to the nature of large scale software development is key to success here in Upland.me Success is not necessarily a competition that relies on each individual getting things their own way, but utilizing all available assets within the confines given.
I sincerely hope this blog post Sparked your interest in Upland. Think about joining us. Would you be the person that owns a humble block of single family homes, or an entrepreneur that buys a large property for an apartment, a store front or even warehouse? I say, "Why not choose both?"
-JimJuice
p.s. If you want to try Upland, here is my Referral Link https://discover.upland.me/jimjuice to gain bonus in-game currency to use how you see fit. Once you decide to try Upland, please contact myself in Discord to help you get familiarized with the game mechanics. I can also help you with the creation and minting of wax nfts.
