I took a first look at a DeFi / gaming platform called Rune.farm back in May. Since then, quite a bit has changed. There are now twice as many runes available, new items introduced, and a play-to-earn game added!
Rune.farm is a farming platform that is also building out a gaming ecosystem around it. Inspired by Diablo II, participants earn various rune tokens by staking in their farms and pools. Each rune is only produced for a limited time. Once a rune production cycle is complete, the next rune starts being generated. This usually happens once a week and so far we are up to a total of sixteen different runes! All runes accumulate from whatever farms and pools you are in, and can be harvested at any time.
Runes are currently used to craft various items, each of which not only can provide a bonus to your farm and pool harvests, but which will also double as character equipment in upcoming games. Speaking of items, there are plenty of options for crafting now, including class-specific equipment for each character class!
The in-game market is very active and has been spruced up to show details about each item. Equipment is also sometimes 'retired' from the crafting options and will only be available from the secondary markets. So far three items have been retired, Steel, Smoke, and Lorekeeper.
But perhaps the biggest news in the Rune.farm world is the addition of a new play-to-earn game called Rune Evolution.
Rune Evolution is one of those games where you try to be the biggest fish in a small pond. Running around, eating stuff, getting bigger, and trying to avoid being eaten by something larger than you! In this particular case, it's dragons. And your dragons are eating sprites to grow and eating smaller dragons when you can. Your dragon is also constantly losing power and always in danger of downgrading to a smaller size, so it's important to try and maintain a steady diet of sprites while also chasing other players down!
However, unlike most of these types of games, Rune Evolution has tangible rewards! Rounds last for only five minutes, and the player with the most points at the end wins some ZOD rune as a prize. Also, during the game, you might see runestones floating around. If you grab one, you are rewarded with actual rune tokens. You do have to accumulate a certain amount before the tokens are actually minted to your wallet, but the image below shows you what I was able to grab after only 10 or 15 minutes of playing. And all of these are real tokens on the BSC network which can be easily exchanged for BNB or BUSD!
Small updates and bug fixes are applied to Rune Farm on a regular basis. In addition to the long-term goal of creating a Diablo-like game (called Arcane Sanctuary), Rune Farm also has many plans for improving their UI, making harvests simpler and less costly and adding Worldstones which can be used to enhance items.
Rune Farm has excellent documentation for all of its features. If you would like to read more, you can check out their official guide.