Introduction
Hello there! 
In this post, I want to talk about SoulKeep, the tower defense game that is within the Splinterlands ecosystem. The game was previously sold to Double Coconut by the SPL team as it will be hard for the team to continue the project with their current resources but still, many aspects of Soulkeep are connected to Splinterlands specially with its use of $SPS for rewards and $DEC for its in-game tokens and that is why I think it is important for the Splinterlands community to know about this game.
Soulkeep Tower Defense Game
Soulkeep is a tower defense game that is built atop the Splinterlands platform and requires a Hive account in order to access it. To start playing it, you can go to https://soulkeep.splinterlands.com/ or you can click on the Soulkeep icon on the Splinterlands menu.
By pressing "Play Now", you will be transferred to the login site where you will need to input your Hive username and approve it using Hive keychain or you can also login using your email which will make it easier for new users to access the game.
The game can be played for free by playing the League but if you want to earn by playing this game, you need to have NFT's to participate on the Tournaments. The sale for Soulkeep has already ended so you can only buy Nightmare on Hive Engine or purchased individual cards on the secondary market.
Packs can be opened using the Splinterlands Mana Well and uses legendary and alchemy potions to increase the chance to have legendary and gold foil cards. Just like in Splinterlands, this are all NFT's which are categorized in 3 types, which are Towers, Spells and Heroes and can either be common, rare, epic or legendary. Just like in Splinterlands, the NFT's in Soulkeep can also be combined in order to make a more powerful card but at the same time, it also resulted for the number of circulating cards to decrease.
Pack Opening Replay
Playing Soulkeep
Upon hitting the Battle or Tournament button, players start a battle based on the league and mode they are at where they will build their defense using the NFT's that they owned which consist of:
- Towers: These are the Defenses for the game that can be dropped in pre-defined spots on any map. They will have base stats that will be able to level up as the player progresses. Towers can be upgraded during gameplay to hugely boost their stats, depending on their overall level.
- Spells: Special abilities that can be dropped on the map. They can be unleashed in battle by the player, on a limited basis, leading to huge defensive or attack advantages. Some towers can only be dropped on paths (those that have allied troops to help you), others can be dropped only on towers (those that buff the tower stats).
- Heroes: Units that can be dropped anywhere on the battlefield and provide special cool abilities, but may also die when hit points are depleted. Once dead, heroes will not be revived during the current battle.
Players can only place the towers, heroes and spells before and after the wave based on what available mana they have which can be obtained for each defeated fioends. They can also use the mana to upgrade their towers.
Currently, there are two ways to play Soulkeep, the first one is by playing League which is free to play and this can be played without using NFT's. Currently, there are 10 leagues to play but in order to advanced from one league to another, players will need to collect the necessary amount of "Fiend Souls" which can be obtained for each fiend that was defeated during the defense that also have different rarities. Each league also cap the level of your defenses, much similar to the league caps on Splinterlands which was latter removed.
On the other hand, playing daily Tournament is what allows players to earn rewards with a total of 33,321.6 $SPS reward pool and the higher you place on the leaderboard, the higher the rewards that you will have. The higher the leagues you reach also affects the amount of $SPS that you will earn on Tournament. Once a day, you can play for free but can also purchased tournament ticket which is priced at 2 DEC/credits each. Your position on the leaderboard will be based on the highest score you get in all your attempts.
After the tournament ends, players who raked at the leaderboard will be able to claim their rewards by going to the Splinterlands rewards page and the $SPS will be staked on the players account.
Final Thoughts
After a long time of waiting, Soulkeep has been finally released and was added to the ranks of Web3 games on Hive. And though the game was not owned by Steemmonsters (the company that owned Splinterlands) anymore, the game was still heavily intergraded within Splinterlands, specially, its use of $DEC and $SPS and if used correctly, can use to benefit both companies in the long run. There are some issues within the rewards where there should have SPS stake requirements to earn in the game but a proposal was currently in draft to address it. As a player though, I find the game entertaining and a good way to chill myself after playing in the Modern league of Splinterlands which was very competitive.
Thank you and see you at the next post
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All the image that I edited here belongs to Splinterlands and Soulkeep.
Card abilities and rulesets from Splintercards.
All the battle links provided comes from my personal accounts and from the scholar account that I am using from Balthazar Guild.
Thank you for reading my post. If you're interested to play Splinterlands, you can join by clicking the images below and follow me on Twitter and 3Speak for timely Splinterlands updates.
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