Over the past few months, we've seen an increase in blockchain gaming and its adoption. This is because blockchain games offer real and valuable incentives and collectibles that one can exchange for money unlike a lot of non-incentivized games.
EOS Knights is a blockchain-based game built using on the EOS blockchain. It is an idle RPG for Android and IOS platforms and is among the first live EOS games ever produced. EOS is listed on State of the Dapps, a well-documented website for Dapp that are built across various blockchain platforms, and is currently ranked 7 in the gaming category almost meeting the GTA San Andreas game . The EOS platform is great for games such as EOS Knights because of scalablity and its free transactions, since every in-game action involves a corresponding transaction on-chain.
Gameplay
To play this game, users need to have an EOS account and an extension named Scatter to enable them broadcast transactions directly from their browsers. Users also need to have a fair amount of EOS staked as RAM and CPU for a smoother and lasting gameplay. I currently have about 13 EOS staked as CPU and i was able to play without running low at anytime.
EOS Knights has 3 ways users can choose to play from. They include:
The web browser (chrome). I suppose any browser that supports Scatter as an extension is a go because i was able to login through my Brave browser as well.
The Android app can be downloaded from Playstore and users can play from there.
The EOS Knights app from Appstore can be downloaded as well.
The Gameplay is simple: Control a knight and protect the village from an impending onslaught by a group known as the Orcs, and reach the highest level/floors that you can. The rules are straightforward as well; Pick a hero (or heroes), knock off a bunch of bad Goblins in different locations in the EOS Knights universe; Gain experience and Win items, level up, and keep going.
Players are provided with 3 in-game characters for hire namely; Eric the Knight, Oria the Archer, and Scarlett the Mage. As their names imply, each character has a different fighting style/skill. The Knight fights with a sword, the Archer fights with arrows and a bow, while the Mage fights with magic. You are required to buy one or all of the three of them to level up faster. As at today, a single character costs 0.299 EOS and they double in price with every one you buy.
As the game progresses, you are taken through different levels where you meet more enemies with a slightly increased difficulty that the previous stages. Hence, it is advised that you level up on your heroes with every stage you pass.
A hero plays until they die, which players can revive them by simply clicking the rebirth button. 'Rebirthing' a hero gives you all the loot the hero had earned while fighting Orcs before they were killed. Players can rebirth their heroes to restart a particular level without waiting for them to die. This immediately allows them claim the earned items (such as Magic water), which they can level up to make their heroes stronger. In fact, i found that a couple of top players recommended that more newbies should use the rebirth button as often as possible so that they could get more items for crafting better weapons for the heroes, since the startup weapons are weak.
You can level up by using the items picked during game-play and the most important resource; Magic water, which at the beginning of game-play, every new account gets 1000 Magic Water for free.
At the base of the screen you can see a few options namely the Battle section where you fight, There is also an items section, a marketplace and a book section. The Items section is your inventory which contains your earned items and materials. these items could be anything ranging from wood to titanium. Some items are easy to come by and others are rare and they can be crafted to make better weapons to equip the heroes or simply sold in the market place.
The Marketplace
The Marketplace as the name indicates is a decentralized space where every player can buy and sell items, weapons of various levels and collectibles directly from other users. Prices of the items in the marketplace are controlled by the users. I've been playing the game for a few hours now and i was lucky to pick up a few weapons for amazing prices off the market, which i used to equip my heroes to make them stronger.
Pets.
At the bottom of the screen, there is a section where users can also adopt pets and attach them to their heroes for added skills and qualities. A hero can only be accompanied by a single pet. Pets cannot be bought off the market and require lots of Magic water to breed. But they're totally worth it as they give your heroes more buff in dealt attack, HP and added speed. Pets are 24 in total and just like weapons, they are categorized and are ranked as below:
- 8 normal pets
- 8 rare pets
- 4 unique pets
- 4 legendary pets
Legendary pets are harder to come by and they give more boosts than just normal pets. Just like the weapons, one can level up pets by combining the same kinds.
The general Gacha tickets (the red-coloured ones) can get only get you normal, rare and unique pets, while the gold-coloured advanced Gacha tickets has a chance of getting you legendary pets as well as rare and unique ones. You won't get a normal pet for the advanced tickets. The x5 tickets weirdly doesn't indicate any advantage in terms of price; it's simply a convienence feature so you don't need to spam the network too much.
The chances to get a particular rarity of pets in the advanced gacha is shown as below. This is normally displayed at the header and you'd be very lucky to get a Legendary.
Rare 88.392%
Unique 11.05%
Legendary 0.005%
Also, depending on your level in the game, pets can be sent on expeditions and adventures and they bring back rewards periodically, even when the user is not actively playing. Expeditions usually last 8 hours after which the pets needs a few more hours to cool-down before you can send them on another expedition. One has to be careful with some of the pets and stick to their feeding plans because some pets (like the Dragon), are dangerous to their owner when hungry. They feed on Magic water, so you'd need a lot of that.
As users progress through the stages/floors, they rise up in ranks on the leaderboard and earn EOS coins as they go. There is also the dungeon section where users can play daily quests for some extra items and points.
EOS Knights also present users an additional way to earn more Magic water by bringing in their friends. When a new user signs up using a referral name, they both get 1000 Magic water each, which i think is cool.
In conclusion, i think for a game that's still in beta mode on a blockchain, EOS Knights is pretty impressive for a start – the interface is unique and artwork is simply gorgeous, it runs fast, and transactions (battles), are done in real time, except when you need to validate a few transactions using the Scatter extension. Apart from that, i think the interaction with the blockchain is beyond just satisfactory.
In my opinion, since the action isn't too fast-paced and the fighters kinda do battle from a ranged distance (including the knight), i would't say it realistically can be yet compared to off-the-blockchain games like COL2 (Clash of Lords 2) or COC (Clash of Clans). However, for a start, considering the massive dividends one can acquire from this thing and given that blockchain gaming is still being explored and might just become the standard of gaming in the future, i think the developers have done a very good job and they deserve the attention they've gotten.
You can find out more information about EOS Knights on State of the Dapps.