Original - Odaily

Author - Husband How

What kind of chain game can make the market crazy?

The total number of reservations for the second test exceeded 1.2 million, nearly 25,000 users participated in the internal test, and the ten-day retention rate exceeded 47%; the third test had nearly 4,000 daily active users, and the ten-day retention rate exceeded 90%, and the total transaction volume of the NFT trading market exceeded 1.15 million USDT , the test token topped the list of opBNB trading volume.

This is Cards Ahoy (CA), a new GameFi player. As a fast-paced trading card game, players can freely collect various cards, build their own decks, use wisdom and strategy to compete with players around the world and win rewards. Compared with other chain games, the gameplay of CA is simple. Each game lasts for 60 seconds. Players can easily get started and experience the fun of fast competition.

Odaily elaborated on Cards Ahoy’s playability, economy, and the project team’s unique GameFi mechanism design ideas.

1. GameFi becomes the key to Web3’s large-scale breakthrough

For users who are used to Web2, Web3 is in new and unfamiliar territory. How to promote the large-scale adoption of Web3 has always been the goal of practitioners.

Referring to the Web2 era, social software and online games have become the two sharp edges that promote the large-scale adoption of the Internet. However, the current development of Web3 social networking is slow, and the chances of breaking out of the circle are slim. As a product of digital technology, games are naturally compatible with the characteristics of Web3 and are a key factor in the large-scale adoption of Web3 in the next stage.

If Web3 will eventually replace Web2, then GameFi must be the sharpest sword in the Web3 camp.

Since the last bull market, the development of GameFi has attracted global attention. Whether it is a crypto-native project or Web2 game giants such as Ubisoft are rushing to deploy GameFi, and 2 games have successfully broken through: Axie Infinity will Play to Earns concept successfully broke through the circle and also brought income to poor areas in Southeast Asia to realize social value; StepN took over and combined sports and games. With excellent marketing and operations, it drove more Web2 users to enter GameFi. The commonality between the two is that the game design is simple, quick to get started and easy to spread.

However, any game has a drawback, and its popularity will decrease over time. This is more obvious for Web3 games than traditional games. Although the economic model will increase the promotion of the game in the early stage, the turning point of the games survival will also be earlier.

After experiencing two popular games, GameFi, what characteristics should Web3’s next breakthrough project have? How to achieve a balance between economic model and playability to extend the popularity of the game? New GameFi player Cards Ahoy handed in his answer sheet.

2. Playability of Cards Ahoy

Cards Ahoy is a card collection and battle game. All cards in the game exist in the form of NFT. The game is fast-paced and accessible, allowing players to battle using MEME-style cards in 60 seconds.

Cards Ahoy is developed by the Metalist Game team. Most of the team members come from Web2 game giants such as NetEase, Ubisoft, Blizzard and Riot Games. Especially the officially announced development team brings together developers with experience in well-known card strategy games, such as Hearthstone. Legends and Onmyoji, among others.

Although the financing amount and investment institutions of Cards Ahoy have not been announced for the time being, the partners shown on the official website have solid backgrounds, among which the more famous ones are: Binance, OKX, NetEase, Associated Press, Yongjie Wujiang and other leading Web2 and Web3 companies. factory.

Cards Ahoy is more like a simplified version of Hearthstone. It simplifies the complex decks in Hearthstone without losing the essence of competitive games. It has the right combination of difficulty to get started and competitiveness.

Players can pre-configure their own combat teams. In PVP, pre-configured decks take turns to play, each card has a certain blood bar energy, and they collide in turn in a wheel battle. The energy of the opponents cards is consumed according to the skills and attack attributes. Once the energy of a card reaches zero, replace it with the next card until all cards are consumed.

The entire game lasts as long as 60 seconds, and you can even adjust the battle speed to quickly complete the game and enter the next round of battle.

Cards in the game are divided into different rarity levels. The higher the rarity, the fewer the cards and the stronger their power in battle. Card rarities can be obtained through a variety of means, including ladder racing, opening Ahoy chests, and alchemy.

Multi-channel card acquisition lowers the threshold for user participation and prevents the game from easily falling into the Ponzi mechanism.

Each card in Cards Ahoy belongs to a specific faction, and the cards in each faction have unique combat mechanics. When configuring a team, players can choose leaders and members from different factions to create multiple strategic team combinations for PK battles. Currently, there are four optional factions in the game, including plant faction, animal faction, zombie faction and neutral faction.

Different factions have different gameplays, and players need to explore on their own to form a system design that they are good at.

At the same time, as players level up in PK, they can unlock higher-level team configurations and upgrade their cards as needed. This can be achieved by consuming more of the same parallel cards, thus unlocking more powerful skill effects.

Through combat and accumulation, players can also use cards with similar attributes to smelt, potentially obtaining cards of the same or higher rarity, and recover them from the card reserve.

It can be seen from this that adding a certain probability of development gameplay to competitive card battle games can meet the needs of different game players and increase the game stickiness of players.

In addition to gameplay and card development, Cards Ahoy also offers diverse combat mechanics and daily changing challenges. The constantly updated ladder competition in the game allows players to obtain treasure chest points through daily battles and exchange them for ladder treasure chests. The types of cards in the treasure chest change randomly every day. The number of available team configurations will also change randomly every day, and players need to update their team combinations in time according to the rules of the day.

The disadvantage of Web3 games compared to Web2 games is that the playability mechanism is limited. However, from the perspective of CAs game mechanism design, in addition to being simple and easy to use, it combines the competitiveness of card battles with the cultivation of card upgrades. Forming a combined effect of 1+1 greater than 2.

3. Economics of Cards Ahoy

GameFis economic model has always been the most concerning factor for Web3 players, and Cards Ahoy adopts an NFT+ dual-token model. The NFT types are cards and treasure chests, and the dual tokens are CAC and AHOY. CAC is currently the native token in the game, while AHOY is the governance token and has not yet been launched.

According to the above figure, the channels for players to obtain CAC tokens are purchasing on the market, winning ladder competitions, burning cards, token staking rewards, event airdrops, guild rewards and winning in the arena.

CAC tokens are not set to go online, but there are relatively many ways to demand CAC tokens, such as the alchemy system and the purchase of arena tickets, seasonal treasure chests, boosters, energy and lucky four-leaf clovers and a series of necessary props for gold farming. At the same time Upgrading a guild also requires a large amount of CAC tokens.

When the demand and supply of tokens are balanced, the vitality of the game will be stronger. The design of CAs game token economic model reflects this.

At the same time, CAs NFT is also an important source of gold. NFT comes from drawing boxes, treasure chests and smelting synthesis. Different NFT rarities have different values ​​in the market, among which the gold card has the highest value. In the three tests, players used the cost of 30 USDT to open the gold card panda, which was worth nearly 600 USDT.

The box-drawing model is gradually becoming mainstream in Web2 online games, and it is also the main source of income for most project parties. Due to the uncertainty of box-drawing, it is very easy to get cheated. CA adopts this popular method to increase player stickiness.

However, compared with the single pleasure of drawing cards in Web2 games, the uncertainty of CAs returns can more easily amplify the advantages of this model.

Just like the problems in Web3 games mentioned in the quotation part of the article, most GameFi, such as Axie and StepN, do have model designs for NFT+ tokens. However, in the later stages of game development, the participation threshold for new users is too high, resulting in Paying for old users creates a Ponzi game mechanism.

However, CA’s project parties do not regard NFT as a complete entry barrier. This part relies on the foresight of the project side, and on the other hand, the reason is that CA is essentially a competitive game, and most rely on their own strategies to win. Although cards of different rarities have different capabilities, the various upgrade channels also reduce the gap between Krypton gold users and ordinary users.

CA has the right balance between economic model and playability. Playability can extend the turning point of the games life, and the economic model determines the popularity of the game. The two cooperate with each other to become the key to breaking the circle.

Rather than saying that CA has stepped out of a new economic cycle system, it is better to say that CA has brought GameFi back to the original development path of the game.

Since the release of the projects white paper in October 2023, Cards Ahoy has undergone two tests, and the results of the two tests performed better than GameFi in the same period.

Among them, during the 10-day file deletion test in November 2023, nearly 25,000 users participated in the internal test, with a total online time of nearly 180,000 hours, more than 40 million collision data, and a cumulative transaction volume of more than 210,000 TUSD (test currency, equivalent to USDT), the retention rate exceeded 47% in the ten days after the test. In addition, during this test, the highest transaction price of a single card NFT in the trading market reached 600 USDT.

In the three tests that have just ended, CAs performance is still outstanding. This time it is still a deletion test, but NFTs are retained and transactions of CAC test coins and USDT are supported. The total number of participants is nearly 4,500, and the data shows that there are nearly 4,000 daily active users, and the 10-day retention rate is 90.13%. The CAC test token ranks first in the opBNB transaction volume. The total transaction volume of the NFT trading market exceeds 1.15 million USDT, among which the highest card The transaction price is Level 3 Gold Panda Master, with a value of 6,000 USDT.

Both tests achieved outstanding results, laying a good foundation for the subsequent launch of the public beta version.

Ah Wei, a third-test player and founder of the DGA Guild, said: Cards Ahoy is a high-quality Web3 game with potential, with exquisite art, interesting experience and in-depth gameplay. The game has many seemingly contradictory aspects, such as Easy to play but brain-burning game, low cost and attracting gold-rich players, the coexistence of light and heavy games. Although it is a personal competitive game, it has strong social attributes. The economic system shows its characteristics and operates steadily. According to personal calculations, the return on investment The rate is between half a month and three months. Cards Ahoy is expected to become a long-term Web3 game that can be released, played and made money.

Former Hearthstone world champion Yu Yongai also publicly stated on social media that this is the most fun Web3 card game he has ever played, with high playability, and shared the winning lineup.

Not only that, CA has almost become the first choice of Hearthstone professional players in the Web3 card game, and is highly sought after by professional players.

It can be seen from the players statements that this game is not like the previous GameFi model, and pays more attention to the unity of playability and economy. This is also the key point that has been emphasized above in GameFi to maintain the popularity of the game. .

4. Returning to the essence of the game, Cards Ahoy will lead the new narrative of GameFi

Web3 games give the game the greatest value, namely the free circulation of assets and player asset ownership.

NFT and token assets are connected to liquid financial markets around the world, increasing liquidity, trading frequency and premiums. For game developers, there is a greater chance of obtaining more tax revenue; for players, games become asset income, and retention rates, average revenue per user, and lifetime value will all increase.

Fantasy Westward Journey in the Web2 online game has successfully verified this concept. In 22 years, Fantasy Westward Journey has established an open and stable player trading system, and its transaction revenue has reached 20 billion, becoming NetEases most profitable game.

However, compared with Web2 games, the current Web3 game market is still small, accounting for only 3% of the total market value of the encryption market. To promote the development of Web3 games, several industry pain points need to be solved: improvement of infrastructure and experience, lowering barriers to entry, and providing high-quality game content.

At the same time, game playability is the most important factor in the game. Only by immersing players in the fun of the game can we promote the balance of the economic system, improve the interactive experience, and lower the experience threshold for mainstream users. Optimizing the Web3 game infrastructure is also a key factor. .

Just as the idea expressed by the Cards Ahoy project team is to truly realize GameFi as both Game and Fi, making CA a simple and easy-to-use popular product, leading the next generation of Web3 new paradigm.

The project team stated that it will focus on the fun of the game, focus on creating a product that is fun and can last for more than 5 years, and will carry out a comprehensively innovative economic system design to protect the rights and interests of players. At the same time, the project team hopes to simplify the game mechanics and concepts and make a game that everyone can play, so that young people can become the first users of Web3 games.