I'm a little bit rusty, so forgive me for any formatting issues, typos, general idiocy, injuries caused by flying ice cream, or other shenanigans...
For years, I’ve always held steadfast to the idea that games would be the key to Hive's mass adoption. Although I love blogging, it really hasn’t attracted the attention of the masses the way a kick-ass game can. Because of this, I’ve tried to support as many games as I can. I jumped into Splinterlands way back when it was called Steem Monsters, and I still have the Alpha cards tirelessly farming on my land to prove it. I was an early supporter of Drug Wars, Next Colony, GLS Goals, WOO, and Exode. Some of those are still around—others, not so much. Then there are a bunch I can't even remember because they folded before they even got started. There was some robot game, a race car game, some farming game, and maybe even a horse racing game? Basically, I’ve always tried to cast a big net and throw a little support to the devs who were trying to create something cool.
Obviously, Splinterlands stands head and shoulders above the rest. It’s not perfect, and I really enjoyed the game a lot more in its earlier, less complicated form. I’ve always loved the team-building aspect of battle games. I used to spend hours creating the best teams I could for Heroclix—even though I very rarely played. But whatever. This is about Crownrend.
Until very recently, I felt kind of meh about the game. I truly appreciated the work of the devs and their attempt to create a game they would enjoy PLAYING themselves. Yes, I am obnoxiously highlighting PLAYING because I truly believe that will be the key to a viral game on Hive. It can’t be about the money. People have to be attracted to it by PLAYING. Fun has to be king. If it’s money-driven, it eventually devolves into a ponzi scheme with some graphics.
That’s why I decided to write this today. I have no delusions that I will make a single penny from Crownrend. But I’ve begun to have fun playing it and rolling the dice to try and open a Divine item every now and then.
Why the sudden turnaround?
The devs, MrTats and Deathwing, have been awesome at listening to feedback from the community. They don’t always take every suggestion (they have a long-range vision in mind that players can’t see yet), but they always listen and explain why—or why not—they will make a change. Not everyone always agrees with them... but it is their game. What’s really cool is that they’ve quickly taken a stand to prioritize fun. This mainly came in the form of allowing PLAYERS to have multiple accounts, while trying to prevent bots from farming and abusing chest prices. This move is what ignited my joy in the game. I now know that instead of just mindlessly clicking against random bots, I am semi-mindlessly clicking against other PLAYERS who are semi-mindlessly clicking against other PLAYERS.
It’s sparked a desire in me to try and build up better attacks, defenses, and speed to stay one step ahead of my human competition, so I can earn enough Denar each day to open one chest. I now have a goal to chase: keep making sure I can open one chest a day.
What happens when I click that "open chest" button? Maybe something bad... maybe something good... but you’ll never—wait, that’s Ren and Stimpy. But whatever. The key is: I want to click that damn button.
There are plenty of tutorials out there if you want to see if you’d also like to click that chest button. For now, just trust me—if you like supporting games on Hive, these devs are worth tossing a few Hive to. And thanks to the world economy collapsing, it will only cost you about $2 to see if the clicking is worth it.
At the very least, Crownrend is a welcome distraction from the real world for a few minutes a day. At this point... that is priceless!
If you made it this far, my Kingdom name in the game is "Spyre". The first 4 people in the comments who can tell me why I chose that Kingdom name will get a full upvote on their comment. I think it's worth $1 right now.
