Hive blockchain is becoming a home ground for many interesting games, some of them are already available to play, and many games are going through the development phase. Today, we'll talk about a wonderful game presented by @hive-173115 community through Gnar Studios.
The game is known as Quest for Stoken, a retro-styled game with lots of fun elements, interactive objects, weapons, hostile creatures, and evil bosses. The game looks like a classic version of a hack-and-slash game that many of us used to play on Nintendo, NES, and Commodore 64 gaming consoles.
Introduction
Quest for Stoken was launched in early 2023 on Hive Blockchain as Alpha for testing purposes by a famed community of skateboarders popularly known as @skatehive founded by @web-gnar. The aim was to create an interactive retro game based on classic hack-and-slash games with an element of skateboarding in it. The game is still in the Alpha phase but there has been plenty of updates patched up in the game which make the game more fun to play.
The hero is a skateboarding legend who takes on his role to clear the street menaces using a sword, shield and collected weapons. The character walks on a skateboard uses special skills to boost its speed and rushes toward hostile characters to finish them.
The player earns Stokens collected from enemy drops and by opening interactive objects in the game. The utility for Stokens (Stoke Token) is yet to be unlocked in the near future and this token will be tradeable.
How to Play the Game
Playing Quest for Stoken (QFS) is pretty simple using your PC's or laptop's keyboard, let's hope that a joystick integration may come into effect after the testing period, but I feel better playing with a keyboard.
Here is the list of Keys to be used in the game:
- Arrow Keys to move the character in either direction
- Z for attack
- X to interact with objects and NPCs
- C to bring forth the shield to block an attack
- V to shoot ranged weapons and accessories
- Space Bar to jump, double tap for a higher jump
- Arrow+Z to Speed up the skating run
Now, Watch this YouTube video to see how to play the game and what can you expect from the missions, the video tutorial will tell you about all the basics of the game, hopefully. For any query feel free to ask in the comment section.
Game Issues
The game is still in the development phase and needs a lot of makeover and patches, as we are currently playing in the Alpha version, there will be issues, and then comes resolutions. So, we should report any bug we encounter in the game to help developers build a better end-product. Currently, I put some observations here so Devs can look into it. However, I have added a comparative video footage of the issue of actual gameplay in the above video as proof in the end.
Slow-Mo Mode and Lagging is a common issue in the game, I have tested the game on 2 different browsers i.e. Vivaldi and Edge and I found out that it plays a lot better on Edge than Vivaldi. Vivaldi, despite being a low-memory consuming browser, the game runs pretty smoothly for the first few minutes but as the game progresses the gameplay feels like a Slow-Mo video and the character lags in taking actions. But, sometimes same stage becomes 3x faster after restarting the game or respawning the character.
Edge is quite reliable in terms of smoothness and speed, I played for almost half an hour and found no issue regarding game speed or lagging. I think Edge has better memory control than Vivaldi as it allocates required computer resources to the game.
Stun Effect While Hero Sticks to a Hostile Character is quite annoying and takes a complete health bar within a few seconds, look at the following game footage for this issue.
When jumping from below, the character sticks to a police guy and he tries to attack but fails to do so while recovering from the Stun effect and dies immediately. This even occurs when a pigeon flies from above and attacks him. It is hard to get out of this effect if there are 2 hostile characters adjacent to him.
I think the solution is to send the character into blinking or transparent mode for 3 seconds at least to run away from enemies.
Unseen Projectiles are shot from unknown sources, I still need to figure out where these projectiles such as knives and other stuff coming from. The example is also shown in the above image, a knife passes by when the character dies and it is hard to look for the exact source of such harmful objects. Sometimes, these objects hit so quickly as the character moves through the streets with a speed.
I think the speed of projectiles needs to be adjusted, so the player can sense when a harmful object is coming towards him. It can be left as it is as a challenge, but at least the player should be aware of the source.
Never Ending Game Over Screen dominates the game after losing all lives and restarting the game from the beginning. It never goes away and the character even gets stuck in the first mission and cannot even use the portal to the next stage. Look into this animated version of the gameplay and see how annoying it is.
I have observed this bug a lot in the Edge browser, it goes away when I refresh the browser and reload the whole page.
Final Thoughts
It is indeed a wonderful game and I enjoyed playing it again and again to train myself and adapt to the game environment. The game has plenty of potential for both casual players and serious retro lovers. I hope the complete game will bring more features, events, quests, and multiplayer boss fights in the future.
The Web-Gnar and his team are making wonderful efforts to bring a smooth and bug-free game for an everlasting experience to its potential players.
All the best.
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