Why Skyweaver is the best chain game yet?

TG Review Skyweaver: The Best Blockchain Game Goes Far

Robert Baggs, Tokengamer

GameFi disappeared a lot after it broke out a few months ago. Those games like Dragon One, Dragon Two, Axie and CryptoMines fell silent after the end of demographic dividend, which also made many people not bullish on the track of chain game. Without the liquidity of native Token, the so-called chain game is not a game at all.

But Skyweaver isn't a game in the usual mode at all. It's more like a "Dark Forest" that doesn't rely on native tokens, but is purely gameplay. In other words, it's a pretty fun card game, even without blockchain technology. Here's what one gamer had to say about Skyweaver, translated by BlockBeats.

I've been testing a lot of blockchain games since 2018. Some are impressive, some are gamified DeFi, the rest are sparse, and some are completely forgotten. Since the field is so new, most of my work has been devoted to this column, "Link Watching," studying the evolution of link gaming. Skyweaver was the first released game I reviewed (albeit a soft launch beta), what was it like?

Key details

Type: Card (TCG)

Price: Free to Play

Network: Polygon/Ethereum *

Platform: PC, Android, iOS

Play - to - Earn: support

Token: No native token, USDC 

Developer: Horizon Blockchain Games

Release date: Public beta starts on February 8, 2022

Skyweaver is a beast, especially in the chain game space. The game is very similar to Gods Unchained, and for those outside the crypto world, it's more like a Web3 version of Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering Arena.

As of February, it had generated a lot of interest among gamers and investors. Even before launch, the App has 233,000 installations, the Discord community has more than 100,000 people, 345,000 users on the waiting list, and has received eight-figure investments from Coinbase and others.

"We've been honing Skyweaver for the past four years, fine-tuning the mechanics and user experience to ensure that everyone can enjoy it while keeping Web3 pure. We're committed to providing millions of people with easy and secure access to Web3, where everyone can own, use and enjoy digital assets. We see Skyweaver as the bridge that currently exists between the Web2 and Web3 gaming communities, with all the potential for widespread mass market adoption and the growth of the Skyweaver ecosystem."

Peter Kieltyka, co-founder and CEO of Horizon Blockchain Games

gameplay

The title of this article is not clickbait hyperbole, it's the best chain game I've tested in nearly 4 years. The term "TRIPLE-A" has a lot of influence in this space, and they are often offered by reputable and experienced indie studios. There are people (though very few) who seem to be able to produce high-quality things in their genre, but they often take years. The rest are either delusional or hope that "say enough and it will happen."

Although never mentioned, Skyweaver has aaa quality. I started with the desktop Web version, but I hated playing in a browser, so I tried the PC client instead. GUI, animation, speed, responsiveness, fluency... Everything was perfect. Since I have a new baby to take care of and can't spend much time in front of the computer, I took the opportunity to test iOS. App, to my surprise, iOS App is just as good as PC, if not better. I would go so far as to say that the App is unassailable.

I've played a lot of TCG games, so I can play Skyweaver with almost no learning. But this ignorance was short-lived, and ironically, I realized THAT I had no idea how to be good at the game. While many of the mechanics and system designs are familiar to me, they are as deep as I can see, and the skill ceiling is very high.

Game mode

Skyweaver has several competitive game modes and leaderboards. Ranked is free to play, and you can choose to "explore" or "build." Explore lets both players choose a hero and get a random deck based on that hero, while Build allows you to use your own deck. Earn points in this mode to earn a tradable NFT silver card.

The "Conquest" mode is a bit more complicated, and it's a win streak mode, where the player wins a lot depending on how many matches in a row. This mode requires payment of USDC for admission tickets, which cost 1.5 USDC per ticket. There are different gold NFT cards each week, and they show how many were cast before they are rotated out.

Mechanism of P2E

This is a tricky topic and there is not much to say on it at the moment. Since Skyweaver doesn't have its own tokens (there are no token rewards in the game), the only way to make money is to win silver and gold NFT cards and sell them as USDC on the built-in marketplace of Horizon's multi-chain Smart Wallet Sequence. So, it's definitely a P2E (play-to-earn) game, albeit with less P2E mechanics than other games.

I also want to mention the way the game economy model works, which is both encouraging and rare, without any signs of developer greed. Instead of releasing a dedicated token, just using stablecoin was a fascinating decision that I haven't fully understood yet.

developers

Given the quality of Skyweaver, I believe developers have extensive experience in the gaming industry, and Horizon's experience with blockchain is impressive, having developed the Sequence Wallet and co-created the well-known ERC-1155 NFT standard. (It looks like product director Philippe Castonguay pulled off this impressive feat.)

Horizon received $13.3 million in funding from Coinbase, BITKRAFT, Polychain and others, providing more social proof of Skyweaver's capabilities.

Communication and Transparency

This is an unusual section for a comment, but I would never remove it. There are rug effects in the nascent field of online gaming, so whether a project is developed by a single indie developer or by a well-funded studio, I carefully review what they are doing.

So far, the Horizon and Skyweaver teams have done a great job. There was nothing I wanted to know that I couldn't, and their social media team responded well. I hosted the WAX Lyrical podcast with John at NFT Insider, and we both talked about the game individually. We discussed this before the last podcast and noted the team's strong communication skills.

Final thoughts

A friend of mine who specializes in crypto thinks that chain games are bad right now. While I don't agree with him, I know what he means: they don't meet the industry's standards, a lot of infrastructure is still under construction, and the experience of mass audiences entering the space isn't friendly enough.

I also regret the large number of low-quality games and simple formatting designs in this space, but I forgive some of the shortcomings of the innovations that are taking place. Game items and the P2E are a breath of fresh air for a stagnant industry.

However, the first person I showed Skyweaver to was my cynical friend. When people think that chain games are just gamified DeFi, I recommend it to those who doubt it. It was the first project of its kind, a beautiful and complete plan, and a very restrained use of its economy. That said, its economy isn't purely for developers, and it doesn't show significant greed considering it uses Stable Coin in place of its own token.

If you like TCG games, try Skyweaver. If Blockchain technology and NFT were removed from the game, it would still be a game worth playing, which I believe is a sign of the success of chain games.

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