After more than a year of earning crypto from blogging and lending cryptos on Decentralized Financial protocols, I finally had the chance to use cryptocurrency for its original intent - purchasing things! About a week ago, I started playing Splinterlands on the Hive blockchain, and was impressed by the concept of the game and artwork on the cards. I don't usually make impulse purchases, but after a few days of playing Splinterlands, I realized that 1) the game is pretty cool and 2) in order to make meaningful progress in the game, you need to make a small investment in the "Summoner's Spellbook." I decided that purchasing the "Summoner's Spellbook" would be a worthwhile way to support the game while also giving me a chance to write an article showing others how the process works.
The Summoner's Spellbook
First off, I have to say that I am by NO MEANS a Splinterlands expert as I have only been playing about a week. With that being said, the the basic concept of the game will be familiar to anyone who played Pokemon or Magic: The Gathering while growing up. Players collect different cards that have different powers and special abilities and then battle other players. The difference between other card games is that Splinterlands is a blockchain based game which means that you have true ownership of your cards, and they can be sold or rented out. In other words, Splinterlands adds an additional economic layer on top of an already interesting card-battling game. Players can also earn rewards for winning battles and completing quests, and the cards can be leveled up. According to the website, both the in-game currency and the cards have real world value, so it is an interesting spin on the classic card-battling genre of games.
I started playing Splinterlands for free simply by logging in with my pre-existing Hive credentials. Although you can play for free, spending $10 to purchase the "Summoner's Spellbook" is more or less necessary to participate in quests and earn daily rewards, earn Dark Energy Crystals (the in-game currency), participate in tournaments, and purchase card packs. I do like the fact that I could start playing for free to see if I liked the game, but the more I played, I realized that the Spellbook was necessary if I wanted to make any real progress in the game. As much as a cheap skate as I am, I realize that the developers and people who support the game need to be compensated for their work, and I believe that $10 is a reasonable price, especially considering that you can play for free beforehand to make sure you like the game.
My Crypto Purchase
As excited as I was to purchase the Spellbook for the in-game benefits, I was just as excited to make my first cryptocurrency purchase. The Spellbook can be purchased with fiat or a variety of different cryptocurrencies including ETH, STEEM, BTC, LTC, BCH, and a few others. I was quite impressed by the selection of payment options and decided to pay with Bitcoin Cash due to the low transaction fee. After purchasing the Spellbook, I had to wait about 15 minutes before I received confirmation that it had arrived and that I was able to begin receiving all of the in-game benefits.
Conclusion
After playing for a few days, I have concluded Splinterlands in an interesting game, and I like the fact that the cards are trade-able on the blockchain. I have read various posts on Publish0x detailing how it is possible to make money by playing Splinterlands, but I doubt with my playing ability that I'll end up making much off the game. Although I have spent the past year as a DeFi user, it feels good to finally be able to finally purchase something with crypto and use crypto as the means of exchange that it was designed to be used for. For those of you who have been playing for longer than I have, feel free to leave any useful bits of knowledge that you think a new Splinterlands player would find useful. Thanks for reading!
References
https://www.publish0x.com/costanza/how-to-freeroll-splinterlands-and-get-great-returns-xrdpgv
https://splinterlands.com/?p=faq
Image Credits
https://d36mxiodymuqjm.cloudfront.net/misc/Splinterlands+Media+Kit.pdf
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