Okay, so finally I've done it. Not like I don't have enough stuff I am (or should be) working on in the real world, I made the decision to take a head dive into dCity. In case you don know, it's a type of Sim City -esque game, based on our trusty Hive blockchain. So far I have tried to get a feel for it several times, but it took an offer of @ecoinstant, who I understand is a major player in this game (no pun intended), to offer up starter cities at a price of... well, what I normally earn on a successful post. So I thought why not? I transferred him the 16 HIVE, and immediately he sent me a little city. If you are also interested, give him a shout-out. He may still have some starter towns available, as advertised here.
Art and Nature - Exactly My Type of Town
So let's take a look at what I've got here. Feel free to take a close look at my city, as the blockchain lets you see what I am seeing: a mountain town with lots of arts and parks. I'm not sure if my cool background is visible for anyone, but I really like the overall feel it provides. A population of exactly 218, nestled among pink mountains. There are four parks all around, one huge one, two medium sized ones, and a smaller one, so lots of space for nature and recreation. The other thing my town has, are two art galleries! That's right: arts and nature, that's what we're all about!
There is of course a police station, just to make us feel safe, and a nuclear power plant, to provide some juice for our devices without dirtying up the skies (and yeah, who cares about the radioactive waste... I'm sure they'll find a final storage site in the desert or something). Given all these parameters, I'd say my city (does it even have a name? does the game allow me to change it?) is most likely situated in some remote part of California or Colorado, ... OR ... to make it more interesting, some strange spot in Wyoming or Utah. Or internationally thinking, it could be some weird artsy enclave in the mountains of Armenia or possibly in the Pyrenees? But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was merely going to share my developing game-playing experience here.
Buying and Selling Stuff: It's all About Real Money!
One cool aspect of dCity is that it is a play-to-earn concept. You can actually earn real tokens you may even currently hold on your Hive Engine wallet. Not only the SIM token, native to dCity, but CCC, the token associated with arts and creativity, WEED the cannabis token, BEER (yes, you guessed it!), and probably numerous others. As you can see, I'm just getting my feet wet here... However, on the flip side of the coin, play-to-earn also means pay-to-play in a way. After all, each new building, and each improvement to your town needs to be paid for with... exactly: with real life tokens of actual value!
Well, having been on this blockchain for close to five years (Hiveversary coming up!) I have adopted a funny way of looking at HIVE, and even more so at its second tier tokens. While they represent real, actual value (you can trade them for HIVE, which in turn you can exchange for let's say BTC or ETH, which may be traded for the fiat currency of your home country), in practice they are more or less monopoly money. Except for, that the game keeps going and going, and if you play it right, you keep getting richer and richer. For example, I keep submitting posts about murals to the weekly street art contest by CCC, and guess what: I keep getting richer with CCC tokens! So far I have not done very much with them. But in my dCity town, I think using them to sponsor an arts festival kinda offers itself.
My Town Is In Financial Decline!
Again, I don't want to jump the gun here. After all, I still don't know how to play dCity. It's not nearly as intuitive as classic city building games, or even other blockchain games I have tried. Here it seems like I gotta keep my wits about me. So let's take a careful look: There are tons of stats, which I tend to get me as excited as maps (which on the other hand this game doesn't have). The one with the $-symbol on the left side shows a big red -7. Mousing over it, I can see that that is exactly the amount my town generates. Go figure! Having 388 SIM at my disposal, this should mean that in about two months my town will be bankrupt if I don't do anything. Not sure what this would mean, still I'm trying to avoid it.
New Citizen - Welcome to Homelessness
The other thing that I noticed, is that since I acquired my city, its population has grown by one. But what if this new citizen has nowhere to go, no job, no education, no roof over their head? Not an easy question, especially among my gentrified town of mountain-bikers and arts-and-crafts shops! To make things worse for him (or her), there is another new citizen who recently appeared, but they were lucky enough to become a student. Probably an art student, given my town's background. But what can I do with my homeless one? After all, we know how these stories tend to end, and indeed, in spite of our vigilant police, crime may still offer an opportunity. But nobody wants that. As the person in charge (am I the mayor, or simply and honestly the town's despot?) I feel I need to address this issue before it becomes a problem. But how? Should I buy the guy a bus ticket to somewhere with a warmer climate? I know, many before me have done just that.
Interestingly, here in this game there is market. Each building, each citizen, and pretty much everything else, is its own NFT, which you can sell and buy from one player's city to another. So my homeless guy, in this case, I could put up for sale(!) for 66 SIM. That means, I could get rid of him and my town would stay financially afloat eleven days longer! Is this for real??? Ideally I would prefer to educate him, give him a good employment, and help him find a nice place to live, and become part of our beautiful mountain community. But how?
Learning Never Stops
As you can see, I am completely new to this game, still figuring out how to manage it. But I'm getting there. Now I kinda feel like I need to do something about this homeless fella, but honestly, I feel I don't know half the things I can really do. Give him a home? Integrate him into the community somehow? Let me figure it out. So if there are any avid dCity players reading my pitiful first intent, I'd appreciate some hints and tips. Maybe you can point me towards some useful posts for beginners. Though I'm positive that quite soon I'll have my head wrapped around this game a bit more. The next post is sure to follow. Until then, thanks for reading.