In the crypto-world, my interest goes for the vast majority to the gaming genre. Not so much the standard games like CryptoKitties or Axie Infinity, which are, in my opinion, fairly primitive demonstrations of what blockchain gaming can look like.
To me, some more interesting are games that have a certain amount of fun attached to them. Here, I will present to you 3 interesting crypto-gaming projects: SteemMonsters, HashRush and XAYA.
HashRush
HashRush is a 3D realtime strategy game, that will allow you to build your own colony on a magically looking planet. Whilst expanding, one must watch out for all the dangers, like disasters and fight enemies attacking your colony. In the end, HashRush players desire to gain the most Crystals of all by building cryptomines, silos and protecting these, to place highest on the rankings. The top players will receive certain crypto-rewards, giving the game a very competitive nature.
The game starts with just a tree: The governor's mansion. This place allows you to spawn new ernacks. Ernacks can do a variety of things, from mining stone, to collecting berries at bushes and even training to fight enemies. Collecting stone & wood is required to create new buildings and food is needed to keep your ernacks productive and well. A certain fog surrounds your colony, which you can only clear with lanterns. No lanterns, no ernacks, as they'll swiftly run away from the daunting & dangerous fog to their trusty huts, where they rest some to sleep the fear away.
HashRush held its first ICO round about a year ago, raising $1.8 million. In about 1 week, their new ICO round will start, funding further development of both the game & its environment. In this 1-year long period, a lot of development and progress has taken place. The team has kept us informed through discord and on their blog and more recently the release of the alpha version of HashRush to maximum of 2000 people.
The alpha is still going on and is mainly meant to catch significant bugs/imbalances, but also serves well as a way of showing the public what the game currently is and what it will probably turn out to be in the end. There is no NDA, meaning that information about the game, including screenshots & videos, may be shared. This is a gameplay video made a couple weeks ago: 
Note that the alpha version is constantly updated and the current version is not exactly what it looks like on that video, which was recorded near the start of the Alpha, when many currently fixed bugs still existed.
The alpha version is closed for signing up on the website, but you still have a chance on getting in by PM'ing darkfall, who can be found in The Official HashRush Discord Server.
The alpha version does not contain many of the key features promised for the release yet, including one of the most vital parts: Blockchain interaction. This is set to change however, on september 28th, when the Beta version of HashRush is planned to be released. The Beta version will include the integration of Blockchain functions and will even have a prize pool of $30k worth of cryptocurrency, which will be split among the top players. The Beta version is limited to ten thousand players, so be quick and register here: https://hashrush.com/hash-rush-closed-beta-sign-up/.
After the Beta version, HashRush will do its initial release, though that definitely does not imply an end to new features for HashRush. As indicated in their Roadmap, a lot of things will be added after launch, like Hero units and of course other races than just the Ernacks: The Marauders & The Highborn Elves. Eventually, the game will also be published on mobile phones and more PVP/PVE mechanics are added, as well as guilds.
The old ICO of 1 year ago sold RC, which was distributed and can be traded on Forkdelta. The new ICO sells an other token, called RUSH. RC-holders will receive 1.34 RUSH per RC in an airdrop on 2 december. If you wish to invest, buying RC to then get RUSH may be a valid option.
The other option, of course, is to invest straight into the ICO, at https://hashrush.com/ico/, which helps both HashRush, but probably also you: It offers token bonuses up to 30% if you invest more and so earlier. Another advantage is that you get certain in-game items, like the starterpack and premium membership with a duration that depends on the amount (& time at which) you invested. More information available at HashRush's ICO page and on their Steemit Blog.
SteemMonsters
SteemMonsters is a blockchain game hosted on the Steem blockchain, so you may already be familiar with it. As the Steem blockchain allows for near-instant and free transactions, the game offers a lot less fees/annoyances than its Ethereum-based rivals. The game is in its current state just a collectible card-game, with the regular & the gold version of 59 different cards, ranked in common, rare, epic & legendary tiers and belong to one of the 6 splinters. These cards, each with unique and awesome art, can be bought from the market, but can also be created by purchasing card packs (or a starter pack if you're new). Cards can be combined to turn them into higher levels, with higher stats and more abilities.
Though it's currently only a collectible, SteemMonsters users can soon use their cards to fight eachother in battles & tournaments. These tournaments will be decentralised and can be set entirely to your desires. Tournaments will also have prize pools, which will reward winners upvotes, crypto-rewards, cards, card packs and of course a ton of glory & fame.
The gameplay mechanics have recently been revealed in this post, showcasing how everything works. The stats of each card now also show up on the site. If you wish to view the exact stats at each level for any card, go to your collection and turn on "All cards". Then click on the card you want to know the stats of. Next, click on "stats", which is next to "your cards" and you'll be able to view each of its stats and abilities at every level.
There are 6 splinters: Earth, Water, Fire, Life, Death & Dragon. Each splinter has a summoner, with the Dragon splinter being the only one with a legendary summoner, where the other elements have a rare summoner. The summoners "summon" the monsters in each battle and are therefor vital for your battle team. Summoners can only spawn monsters of their own splinter, with the exception of Selenia Sky, the Dragon summoner, which can spawn dragons and monsters of exactly one splinter of your choice. Every summoner offers different buffs to your team, or debuffs to the other team.
Every battle/tournament has a certain mana value. Every monster/summoner has a certain mana cost. The sum of the mana costs of all monsters & summoners in your team must be equal to or lower than the mana value of the battle/tournament you wish to participate in. Next, the monsters will fight the battle entirely autonomously, with you being able to spectate your flawless victory or lurking loss. Winning a battle/tournament may grand you big prizes, depending on the prize pool of it of course. For more information on the exact game mechanics, I'd like to refer you to the Steemit post dedicated to that: https://steemit.com/steemmonsters/@steemmonsters/steem-monsters-gameplay-mechanics-revealed
SteemMonsters also has a great community, reaching from here, on Steemit, to the official SteemMonsters Discord: https://discord.gg/CraMFez. In the discord, you can buy, sell & swap monsters, as well as getting answers on questions quickly, communicating about random crap with others and of course quick news on SteemMonsters. There are also various tools for SteemMonsters, built by & serving its community. PeakMonsters is currently the most interesting one, offering a lot of helpful things like an explorer that shows every purchased pack, sold card and much more, as well as a market with more options to select & more information shown.
SteemMonsters is also going to KickStarter soon, to reach a larger audience outside of just Steemit. The nice thing SteemMonsters offers is that it allows people to get a package of both the Starterpack & a Steem Account for $10, which also involves more people with Steem, which should interest us all, whether we like SM itself or not.
SteemMonsters is a card-game and can indeed be seen as a crypto collectible. However, it's not just that. No fees, instant transactions, wonderful art, a thriving community and a great growth potential both through & outside of steemit make it a great blockchain-game.
XAYA
XAYA (formerly known as Chimaera) is not a single game: It's a whole gaming platform. It has its own blockchain and hosts games through channels on this blockchain. It currently has multiple games planned and one of them, called TreatFighter, is currently in Closed Beta.
XAYA mainly focusses on making it easier for developers to implement blockchain features, as well as allowing games to run more smoothly. This results in higher quality games, which the consumers (gamers/crypto-lovers) will love.
As mentioned earlier, a game called TreatFighter is already in Closed Beta, running on XAYA's mainnet. It's a game that looks like a cryptocollectible, but with a lot of extra features making it much more unique than most things currently joining the frontier. Open Beta is expected to become available soon and the final release soon after. More games are planned to be released on XAYA, including a crypto Soccer Manager game.
Currently, you can reserve your preferred username(s) in the XAYA wallet, so you can use them soon, when games come out. Usernames support a ton of special characters, so you don't have to worry, there's a fairly inexhaustible supply of cool usernames you can get. These special characters include black-white shapes, but also color-stuff, like emojis.
Its pre-sale has finished, but its mainsale is starting soon (2 days after this post is published). Go to https://xaya.io/ to learn more about XAYA. For any questions and extra information, visit its telegram: https://t.me/xaya_en. It is also running a reward program at the time.
HashRush: https://hashrush.com
SteemMonsters: https://steemmonsters.com
XAYA: https://xaya.io
- I have picked these projects as they are by far my favorite crypto-gaming projects at the moment and I have quite some shares in each of them. However, this should not be seen as definite financial advice and you should conduct your own research to make your decision on whether you wish to invest in them or not.
- Thanks to @calumam for his awesome SM-dividers. If you wish to use them too, get them from HERE.
- Feel free to comment on here if you have anything to say. Criticism is welcome, but please keep it polite and don't spam pointless trash like "ITS ALL SCAM!!".
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