When the words "blockchain gaming" are used, there's probably a few games that come to mind (Splinterlands, Axie Infinity, etc), but it seems there's a new game ready for primetime - Rising Star.
As with anything I write related to blockchain gaming, nothing in this article constitutes investment or financial advice.
Rising Star is a music career management game where the goal is to start as a lowly busker and work your way to the top levels of stardom. Largely, the gameplay revolves around completing missions and collecting cards. When the player starts a mission, it requires a certain amount of energy to start (which fully refills over approximately 8 hours) and takes a certain amount of time to complete (I've seen missions ranging from 5 minutes all the way to 5 hours so far). A mission will autoplay/autocomplete, so there is little involvement from the player after starting it. Much of the strategy involved comes from balancing resources and deciding which missions are the most beneficial to run.
Mission rewards in Rising Star are in the form of the in-game currency, Starbits. These can be used to purchase individual cards on the card marketplace, packs of random cards, or swapped on the Hive Engine. The cards directly influence your in-game performance and also contribute heavily to the player ranking on the leaderboard, so growing a collection is a good idea.
Rising Star has been around for a while, so why could it really take off now? Over the past few months there have been a few notable events related to the game:
- Expansion to the WAX chain and packs/cards on Atomic Hub
- Ability for music artists to sell tracks as NFTs was added
- Rise in user base and mid-month card expansion due to demand
- Plans for music festival in-game events (new seasonal content)
While those are certainly good indicators of innovation and growth on their own, those events were largely before the recent announcement:
https://blog.blockchaingaming.com/news/rising-star-joins-blockchain-gaming-accelerator/
With Rising Star joining the Blockchain Gaming Accelerator, there's a lot of potential for more exposure and player base growth. The additional resources provided by the accelerator program could certainly open up a lot of potential possibilities.
If you haven't been playing Rising Star yet, now could be a great time to start. With strategic, semi-passive gameplay and a cool NFT collection, it's a great contribution to the Hive gaming ecosystem and blockchain games.
Thanks for reading, and if you enjoy Splinterlands, Rising Star, or blockchain gaming in general, consider joining the Crypto Gaming Guild on Discord