Nov 29, 2020

5 min read

The Sandbox: The hugely anticipated Blockchain Metaverse Game

Read my original article at Voice.

The Sandbox is a community-driven voxel-based virtual world where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences. The assets can be monetized and traded in the form of NFTs and also integrated within games.

History

The Sandbox is originally a game for mobile phones and Microsoft Windows. It was developed by the Pixowl studio. Pixowl was later acquired by Animoca Brands. The original Sandbox has over 40 million downloads and over 1 million active monthly users.

Sandbox started exploring Blockchain and started creating a Voxel-style Blockchain version of the game. Blockchain will give the users the power to share and monetize their creations. In an initial funding round, The Sandbox raised a funding of $2.5 million to develop the project.

The Sandbox is built on the Ethereum Blockchain. It intends to provide the players and users the core benefits of blockchain:

• Immutability: Any creation in the Sandbox is stored in the blockchain as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT)

• True-ownership: Sandbox assets are unique with varying rarity. Anyone who stores such assets in their wallets is the only true owner.

• Monetization: Assets can be sold in secondary markets, Lands can be rented or gamified, which creates a brand new economic and incentive system.

• Interoperability: Any platform using the Ethereum standard will be able to host such assets.

Key components of The Sandbox

Land

A LAND is a digital real estate created in the form of an NFT in the Ethereum Blockchain. Game creators can use the Lands to build experiences on top of them. A player can populate a Land with games and assets. The smallest unit of Land is 3x3. Multiple Lands can combine to form an Estate. The maximum supply of land is 166,464.

Sand

SAND is the utility token of the Sandbox. It is an ERC-20 utility token. The total supply of SAND is 3,000,000,000. Use Cases of Sand Token include

• Medium of Exchange in The Sandbox gameplay

• Participate in Governance decisions

• Stake SAND to earn rewards

The sand was recently launched in Binance Launchpad.

Gems and Catalyst

Gems and Catalysts define the tier, scarcity, and attributes of asset. Catalysts include empty sockets to the NFTs that can be filled with Gems. Higher quality Catalysts have more sockets, making the asset more scarce.

• Common Catalyst: 1 Gem socket. 25 Atributes. 20,000 Asset copies.

• Rare Catalyst: 2 Gem sockets. 50 Atributes. 4,000 Asset copies.

• Epic Catalyst: 3 Gem sockets. 75 Atributes. 1500 Asset copies.

• Legendary Catalyst: 4 Gem sockets. 100 Atributes. 200 Asset copies.

Products:

VoxEdit

VoxEdit is The Sandbox’s own all-in-one tool to create and animate voxel models. It is the only software capable of exporting Assets to the Marketplace. It has three main features Modeller, Animator, and Block Editor.

Marketplace

The Marketplace is one place shop where you can buy the creator’s assets with SAND. You will be able to purchase Assets, Lands, and Estates here. It is not fully launched yet.

Game Maker

Game Maker is a software that anyone can download and use. Users can create games using the thousands of Voxel Models made by the community in VoxEdit. Users can assemble such models and create their own universe.

Recommended system requirements include a 64-bit processor. OS: Windows 7, Processor: Dual Core 2GHz, Memory: 4 GB RAM, Graphics: 512MB, VRAM DirectX: Version 11, Storage: 2 GB available space

Games building on The Sandbox

Mushroom Mania: Defeat the mushroom monsters, clear all puzzles, and also explore the giant wilderness

Dracula’s Castle: Play a demon hunter inspired by Van Helsing

Shinytures: Revive the lost creatures on a remote planet.

Conclusion

The Sandbox is one of the most anticipated games of 2020/2021. The Project is still in the Phase of selling Lands to the players and game makers. It is backed by Animoca and also has created partnerships with big brands like Binance, Atari, and The Smurfs. Even before launch, The Sandbox has become hugely popular. Land Presale 4.2 is coming soon. The Land cost is relatively cheap. Try to get land beside the big brand. This game will become an instant hit once launched.

I would appreciate it if you leave your point of view in the comments for further discussions.

Play the Sandbox here

Reference: Wikipedia, The Sandbox

Read my previous article: The First Polkadot NFTs: SubstraPunks

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