Hivefest certainly saw a host of great keynotes and announcements of some very new exciting projects coming to the Hive blockchain. Being the gaming enthusiast I am, one if not the biggest announcement to me has been the announcement of another idle game that is going to be released next year: Unsung Hero.
In this article, I will quickly go over the concept of the game, get into more detail on some features that I believe to be especially interesting, and discuss a bit what to expect from the game in general.
So what kind of game is Unsung Hero going to be? According to the developer, SlowSundayGames, it's going to be an idle game with some mild RPG elements underneath it. If you want to get all the juicy details, I'd encourage you to check their announcement article as it has a lot of information and is the basis for everything I discuss here.
In case you haven't heard of the idle game genre yet, here's what to expect. Idle games are usually games that more or less play themselves. That's not meant in a negative way, though. The idea is that the player decides what his characters should do and then will wait for them to carry out their mission before another input is required. Idle games are pretty popular in general and we already have some on Hive like Rising Star for example. The cool thing about idle games is that you get to play them at your pace. Usually, you can just log in whenever you have some spare minutes, check the reports from your last missions, claim the loot, give some orders and be gone again. This makes them especially interesting to casual gamers. Me personally, I have Rising Star running all day everyday, even during work, because it only needs some seconds of my attention every now and then.
Since it's an idle game with some RPG elements, you will command several heroes which you'll equip with items, send them on quests so they level up, claim the loot, invest in even better equipment and so on. Most idle games rely on an endless cycle of ever growing numbers and Unsung Hero is probably going to be no other. There's a heap of additional information already available on the different systems in the article I've linked above for those that want to dig deeper, but for now that should suffice to give you a basic idea what to expect.
So what's going to make Unsung Hero stand out from the pack? First of all, it looks like the game is already pretty well designed and feature rich. The concept is a proven formula and going over the different details in the article, the mechanics seem to click. This is something to evaluate in the future, though. Short term, there are two aspects that I found especially interesting.
Firstly, it's a game in the blockchain world and that's the world in which you play to earn. This aspect is already especially well designed in Unsung Hero. The game will use a rewards pool that will pay out daily rewards to its top players. 50% of all sales, post payouts, and curation will go towards the rewards pool and your share of the loot is determined by two factors:
- Damage per second your best hero deals
- The highest level you have cleared
This combination is pretty clever as it discourages players to beat the highest level possible and move their NFTs around to other accounts to beat the same level again. Instead, you are rewarded both for your progress in the game but also for making your hero more and more powerful.
Rewards pools are a proven concept and they are probably the best way to reward the active player base without over committing. Without it, players have to decide whether to sell their NFTs/ingame currency for rewards or progress in the game. Thanks to a rewards pool, players can progress in the game and be rewarded for it. Most successful blockchain games use a reward pools and creating the economy around one from the get go certainly is a smart move.
Secondly, there's another clever concept integrated into the game right away. The game will allow you to sell and trade all items and even your hero to other players. So if you ever find you don't enjoy the game any more, you can just sell everything on your account and move on. But as long as you keep your hero by your side, he will slowly build up a DPS (damage per second) multiplier which will make him stronger permanently... but only as long as you keep him in your account. Whenever a hero is moved to another account, this multiplier is reset to zero and has to slowly be build up again.
This is a great mechanic because it still allows for the free trade of all the game assets but also should help to reduce the pay2win aspect. Sure, you can go to the market and buy the strongest hero in the game, but he will come with no DPS multiplier at all and you'll still have to start from the ground to power him up. We obviously don't have any exact numbers yet, but it's more than likely that an average hero that has been with an active account for month is going to be stronger than even the mightiest legendary hero the market has to offer. This system rewards both players that stick with the game for a long time and that keep playing their favorite hero repeatedly.
The game is going to be released in Q1 of 2021 and you will need to buy a $10 Starter Pack in order to play it. While this will discourage some of the free2play players this actually is a great move in my opinion. This way everybody that wants to play the game automatically has some stake in the game. It's what games like Splinterlands and eXode do with great success and long term, this should help to make the game sustainable and help items to retain their value.
As with all of these games, the sooner you get in, the better your chances are to compete for the top spots of its rewards pool. I'll certainly keep a close eye on the game's development and will follow up with additional articles as new information becomes available. If you are interested to stay up to day with the game's development, I'd encourage you to give @slowsundaygames a follow so you don't miss any updates.
And that's all from me for today. I'm pretty excited for Unsung Hero, this could be another huge addition to the ever growing list of games on our beloved blockchain. Thank you all for reading and see you next time!