Today we'll take a quick look at Knightlands, a RPG on the Polygon blockchain. It's a newer game, only recently launching their beta, though has some solid foundations and is surprisngly approachable for the number of systems in play. This should largely be considered a preview of what's to come as the game is in beta and does not have all of the planned features yet - the token for instance is still pre-IDO, though there was a founder's presale which did sell out (various tiers of in game items and tokens).
The views expressed in this review article are solely based on independent observations and research conducted by the author. The author has not received any sponsorship or payment from Knightlands in exchange for writing this article, and the opinions formed are independent of any external influence. Nothing contained within this article should be considered financial or investment advice, please do your own due diligence and research. An attempt is made to have accurate information included, but as projects are updated, this is all subject to change and may not reflect the current state of a project if enough time has passed.
Concept
Knightlands is a RPG style game, with a few different modes and mechanics at play. It resembles more of a mobile/casual style of RPG mechnically, with the systems it implements. The combat is largely automatic, either progressable by hitting the attack button or allowing it to be fully automated (within energy constraints). The Quests, Trials, and "Onyx Tower" modes provide players varying types of challenges with rewards - each mode having their own pool of free daily attempts (in the case of Quests, energy is required per attack which is constantly recharging or can be refilled with items).
Platform & Tech
Knightlands is a browser based game, though can easily be played on mobile. The layout seems designed with a "mobile first" pattern and no wallet/blockchain app is needed to enter the game (authentication is handled by a separate game account with email, Discord, and Google based options).
Entrypoint & Self Sustainability
Knightlands is free to play, though there are purchasing options for in game currency and items. The idea of self sustainability can't be fully evaluated at this time, though there are daily refreshes of free attempts to allow play to continue, and energy for quests does continually regenerate.
Tokens
There are two tokens directly related to Knightlands - FLESH and ASH. FLESH is distributed through in game Raids and Tourneys. For Raids, there are two pools - one for free players, capped at 35 FLESH per day, and one for ticketed players, capped at 1000 FLESH per day. The difference being primarily that ticketed players are required to purchase a raid ticket to participate in the group raids which yield Raid Points - a player's earned FLESH appears to be directly correlated with their share of the total earned Raid Points for a given day. ASH is acquireable via staking FLESH tokens, though as FLESH is not currently tokenized, ASH does not seem to be obtainable at this time. More information around the tokenomics can be found on the Knightlands' Medium blog.
In game Gold and Shines are only in game and are not tokenized.
Game Loop
At the core, Knightlands uses auto battler mechanics within Quests, Raids, Trials, and the Onyx Tower. The player has the ability to choose which mode they're entering, each with their own pool of free daily attempts, or in the case of Quests, a separate energy meter. Once in a battle, the player can attack, enable auto attack (until their energy runs out, or death), or stop the automatic attacking.
Each encounter earns the player rewards in the form of XP, gold, and potentially items. Group level raids also award RP based on the player's involvement within the raid (it's possible to run a group raid solo, though the difficulty is much higher than a solo tier raid). Raids also bring in an army building mechanic, where the player can use monsters (acquired through a Gacha style summoning system) to augment their power in battle.
Adventures currently appear to be time-based loot rolls, where an adventure is a wait between 4 to 24 hours for a reward of varying quality (determined by adventure tier).
As with most RPGs, equipment management and upgrading (through leveling up and enchanting) is also present. Much like the layout, Knightlands follows some mobile oriented design patterns in this regard. Loot chests that offer free openings at fixed intervals, daily rewards/tasks, etc. It's a different strategy than other blockchain RPGs which have NFT or tokenized gear, in a way possibly making it feel more familiar and approachable by free to play players.
Community
The official Knightlands Discord and Knightlands Blog appear to be the best way to stay updated on the developments within the game and engage with other players. Within the Discord, the developers appear to be fairly active, and have a Github bot hooked up to post commits automatically (in non developer speak: a way to see raw development progress happen).
Final Thoughts
Knightlands only recently entered beta, but it already has a mechnical depth one could reasonably expect from a mobile RPG. It's an interesting approach, and one that results in much more of a game being created with the goal of hooking into a blockchain, rather than a token being created and a game then attempting to support it. The systems at play are well known mechnically speaking, and the ability for the frictionless account system is great - a non-blockchain enabled gamer could pick this up, and then convert rather than having to set up a wallet before even entering. Being a new game, there's much that I likely haven't seen, but what I have seen, makes me interested in what's coming and the potential for Knightlands on the blockchain.
Thanks for reading, and if you enjoy discussing blockchain gaming, consider joining the Crypto Gaming Guild on Discord.