Friend: [glance over monitor] Hey, what are you playing?
Me: Oh, this is Splinterlands, an NFT game.
Friend: What? End of tea? What tea?
Me: ... NFT. To simplify, it's a blockchain game.
Friend: Blockchain? Bitcoin? Can you earn money from playing?
Me: Basically yes, but first we need to..
Friend: How much can we earn? How to play?
Me: Well, it's a trading card game, and..
Friend: Teach me! Teach me! Cmon, don't be stingy!
Me: ...
Ever experienced something similar to above conversation? Well, you are not alone. Everytime I was trying to explain to a friend about @Splinterlands game, it always end up being awkward. Either they were too eager, or they were not eager at all.
That's why I'm trying to compose this post, to serves as the explanation post to whoever need it. Bear with me, I am still a newbie in #Splinterlands, so this post is basically my own explanation regarding this issue.
DISCLAIMER
* I am not a professional cryptocurrency consultant nor a finance guy.
* This article is just me trying to use easy-to-understand explanation for new players.
* Should you find anything incorrect, please do correct me by leaving a comment below.
* Remember, do your own research before deciding anything!
* Thanks and happy reading.
Feel free to share this post to your friends should you think it's useful to save both you and your friends' time.
Should you decide to sign up to Splinterlands, please do use my referral link HERE.
Love you 3000 if you do use the link ❣️
Splinterlands is an #NFT game. It is based on #HIVE #Blockchain ecosystem. The game itself is a Trading Card Game (TCG) that allows the players to play, earn, own, and trade cards as in-game assets. Some of the most famous TCG games are Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic: The Gathering, etc.
In order to fully understand Splinterlands, we need to know what's the meaning of those fancy words:
NFT stands for Non-Fungible Tokens. Let's dissect the meaning word by word.
There you go. I'm struggling to not use hard-to-understand words here, so even a newbie to cryptocurrency and blockchain world could understand it.
Things got tricky when I tried to source easy-to-digest information regarding blockchain. I finally found a post with easy explanation in Guru99's website.
If you're TL;DR, don't worry, I will sum it up for you below.
Blockchain, like its name, really refer to chain of blocks consisting data / information / transaction.
Every block consists of:
Transaction data (i.e. Buyer, Seller, transaction amount, transaction item, date, etc.)
Hash (unique digital fingerprint of the block itself)
Hash of the previous block (hence the chain in Blockchain)
Previous block's hash is what made blockchain very secure. For example, if someone alters a data in block 2, its Hash will also changed automatically. Block 3 will still have old block 2's hash, and this will make block 3 onwards invalid. Therefore, changing a single block can quickly make all following blocks invalid. In simple words, the transactions that were already recorded in blockchain ecosystem is immutable (unchangeable).
Should you decide to sign up to Splinterlands, please do use my referral link HERE.
Love you 3000 if you do use the link ❣️
Now let's get to the core question, why Splinterlands? WhaSplinterlands Documentationt makes it different with all other trading card games? We can play, sell and trade digital cards too in other games. Well, in some ways, it's true. Let me use a table to ease the information flow.
| Main Features | Online Card Game | Physical Card Game (i.e. Pokemon) | Splinterlands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Able to play anywhere & anytime | ✓ | x | ✓ |
| Cards as assets | x | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cards trading | x | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cards selling | x | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cards renting | x | ✓* | ✓ |
| Limited cards in circulation | x | ✓ | ✓ |
| Card history checking (qty released for each card, qty to be released, current circulation, etc.) | x | x | ✓ |
| Check other players' transactions (i.e. transfers, rent, selling, assets, battle results, etc.) | x | x | ✓ |
| In-game currency = Cryptocurrencies | x | x | ✓ |
| Cost to start playing | Free | Varies | US$ 10 |
| Play to earn | x | x | ✓ |
| Cryptocurrency airdrop | x | x | ✓ |
| Players able to govern game's ecosystem | x | x | ✓ |
This is quite straightforward. Splinterlands as an online game of course will be able to be played anywhere and anytime, whereas physical games need both players to be present at one time in the same place to be played.
All the cards and in-game items in Splinterlands are NFT assets. Meaning those items are yours and yours alone. Every piece of cards in the game has its own ID, to differentiate with other cards. Example you and your friend may have the same Furious Chicken card, but since they have different internal IDs, they are unique to each of you.
Typical online card games don't offer card trading, selling, or renting. Physical card games like Pokemon is famous for the value of its cards in the online marketplace, but players really need to make sure things like the physical condition of the cards, edges of the cards, etc. To keep mint condition of the cards, players often spent a lot of money to build custom cases, boxes, or containers.
Splinterlands came into the picture, offering card transactions without all the hassle to maintain the physicality of your cards. All cards have their own unique ID (digital fingerprint, or NFT) and recorded immutably (not changeable) in a public transaction record (digital ledger). All of this will be done easily in the #HIVE blockchain ecosystem where Splinterlands is based on.
Personally, I like to use PeakMonsters and MonsterMarket marketplace as it has more intuitive interface and better filters.
tedus
Find 
Find #monstermarket marketplace HERE.
In Pokemon card game, all the cards were printed with limited qty, different qty for each type of cards. The notion of limited prints is what making the cards' prices fluctuate. Imagine having a card which has a total of 10 pcs only in circulation, this will make the card extremely valuable.
Each Splinterlands card has a finite print run, and cards are never printed again once the print run ends.
Splinterlands Documentation
Once a card is no longer printed, the circulation of that card will only go down, because the cards in circulation can only be transferred, combined, and burned.
Splinterlands Documentation
Upon releasing of cards, @Splinterlands will announce it either through their social media, their Official Discord Server, or their Official Telegram.
There are currently six different editions of cards that exist in the game, and more will be added in the future. Editions are similar to "sets" in Magic the Gathering or Hearthstone. The Alpha edition cards were sold as a limited edition of 300,000 booster packs during the game's alpha pre-sale phase. Once the Alpha edition packs sold out, the Beta edition cards were released. The Beta edition had a limit of 900,000 booster packs.
The Beta edition contains all of the same cards that were in the Alpha edition, plus 15 new cards that were not part of the Alpha edition. The Alpha edition cards have the exact same stats and abilities as the corresponding Beta edition cards, however they have a different visual appearance and require fewer cards to combine together to level them up than the Beta edition cards do.
After the Beta edition sold out, the Untamed edition was released with 1,500,000 packs available. This is the current edition that is available for purchase in the shop. The other editions are two mini-sets called Essence Orbs (200,000 were available and are now sold out), AZMARE Dice (300,000 available currently for sale in the shop), and the Reward edition which contains cards only obtainable via quest and season rewards.
Splinterlands FAQ Page
The print status of each Reward card can always be checked at THIS TOOL, created by community member 
Because Splinterlands run on HIVE blockchain ecosystem, everything is public. Remember the explanation about blockchain, it's basically a big public digital record book. We basically can check on someone's block transaction using HiveBlocks, check on someone's battle inside Splinterlands game interface, check on someone's card possession and rental using PeakMonsters Bulk View, etc. (you got the point).
This proves to be a very useful features, because you can literally learn from the best.
So basically, you #PlaytoEarn DEC cryptocurrency in this game.
You can read more about DEC HERE.
Splinterlands is free to play, however in order to earn real-valued rewards and unlock the full potential of blockchain-based gaming, players are required to obtain the Summoner's Spellbook. The Summoner's Spellbook can be purchased in the in-game shop for $10 via PayPal or various cryptocurrencies. Purchasing the Summoner's Spellbook allows you to choose a unique account name, access your blockchain account keys, unlock the ability to earn rewards with real value, and more!
The fact that traditional free-to-play games give out in-game currencies and items to anyone who signs up for free highlights the fact that the items are infinitely printable and mostly worthless. Splinterlands is different. All of the game cards and the in-game currency, Dark Energy Crystals (DEC), are limited in quantity and able to be bought and sold on various platforms. This means that it's not possible for them to be handed out to anyone who signs up with an email address, and in order to start earning them players need to put a little bit of skin in the game.
Splinterlands FAQ Page
You can read more about Summoner's Spellbook HERE.
You can read more about SPS in this SPS White Paper.
Here is a handy AIRDROP POINTS CALCULATOR built by community site Splintercards.com.
I created Splinterlands account 
Since then, this is the list of my assets in Splinterlands (as of August 25 2021, 24 days after my account creation):
| Asset | In-Game Qty | Value (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| Cards | - | 66.01 |
| Credits | 6,254.00 | 6.25 |
| DEC* | 77,928.00 | 563.94 |
| SPS* | 61.83 | 25.51 |
| HIVE* | 13.54 | 6.77 |
| HBD* | 0.12 | 0.16 |
| SPT* | 4,373.16 | 27.78 |
| LEO* | 0.50 | 0.13 |
| POB* | 0.36 | 0.08 |
| PIZZA* | 0.10 | 0.02 |
| NEOXAG* | 3.56 | 0.01 |
| PAL* | 0.02 | 0.00 |
| TOTAL VALUE | 696.66 |
*Cryptocurrency
Here's what I invested so far:
Total investment = USD 27.40
Basic math:
US$ 696.66 - US$ 27.40 = US$ 669.26
Take this profit info with a hint of salt, because I am considered super lucky to win 73,500 DEC from daily quest loot chest. What I'm trying to say is, you may or may not be super lucky like me.
tedus
After those lengthy reading, are you ready to start now?
Please use my referral link HERE to signup, and you're good to go.
Don't worry about not having good cards and losing your first few battles.
The whole Splinterlands community will help you up and boost you through your newbie life. 😁
If you happened to be a fellow Indonesian, you can join below Discord Server, we are more than happy to lend you some cards:
@cicisaja
@christahirIf you're not from #Indonesia, feel free to join anyway. Just be aware that we use Indonesian language inside.
A couple thousand words have gone by, hope you have a better understanding of Splinterlands now. Please upvote and share this post to anyone who needs it. Cheers!
Should you decide to sign up to Splinterlands, please do use my referral link HERE.
Love you 3000 if you do use the link ❣️