Monthly Appreciation Post (April 2024)
ChainBorn
This month’s post is about a TCG and Heroes that fight for a better Pax Timor — ChainBorn.
What is ChainBorn?
ChainBorn is a TCG for existing PFP collections on Tezos with (as of today) already 21 integrated collections, such as Ottez, Trooperz Genesis, VesselsGen0, and Ziggurats — just to name a few.
For only 2 XTZ, you can summon a Hero, selected from any of the NFTs of the supported collections you own. Summoning allows you to name your Hero and battle with it against other Heroes. Your Hero will be displayed in a card frame showing the characteristics, statistics etc.
By engaging in turn-based battles, a Hero not only gains fame and glory but also experience. This experience will make the Hero stronger and tougher for future battles. They also can be equipped with items and potions.
If you want to find out who the strongest Hero in Pax Timor is, then you can participate in tournaments of 4, 8, 16 or 32 battling Heroes with a minimum entrance fee of 1 XTZ. The winner gets it all!
The Development — from “slow” to speedups
ChainBorn was created to bring some fun to Tezos and some utility to already existing PFP collections.
To develop this game, Asbjorn (the founder and dev) utilized SmartPy.
Smart contracts on blockchains are typically immutable, but when creating games, it would be nice to have the ability to make changes such as fixing bugs and adding new features, right? ChainBorn solved this by having two contracts — the datastore (which maintains the game state and remains unchanged) and the controller (which contains the logic and is replacable when adding new features, for example).
You can read more about how ChainBorn was created here.
For a simple TCG, it was a bit “slow” due to being a blockchain game, as every action was also a transaction that needed to be signed. This can be annoying and kinda kills the fun.
So, ChainBorn took some actions. Firstly, they moved the randomization process to the server, ensuring this is happening off-chain ever since. However, there was still the need to further speed up things. Therefore, the next step was to move the attacks off-chain as well and oh boy that really sped things up!
But don’t worry, the results are still recorded on-chain.
ChainBorn’s Heroes
As already explained above, ChainBorn’s Heroes come from existing PFP collections on Tezos.
You can choose your Hero from 21 collections (as of now)!
→ Owlz, Oxtazy, Bitbirds, BatBits, Big Foot Mafia Club, Ottez, Trooperz Genesis, Dark Wheel Demonz, Witchez, VesselGen0, Prjktneon, Neonz, Ziggurats, Mutant Gecko Gang, Diplomats of Tezotopia, Cyber Gecko Gang, Tezzardz, Ottez Evolution, Bunny Knights, Doombuds, Fearz
You can summon your Hero for only 2 XTZ. When summoning, you’ll also give your Hero a unique name. But that’s not all — it will also appear as a trading card with Health and Strength stats, and you can give them their very own Hero story! So, what are you waiting for? Go and create the mightiest of all Heroes!
The Battle and Tournament system of ChainBorn
Pax Timor has a lot of Heroes and all of them are strong and ready to combat the Chain Ministry. But who is the mightiest of them all?
To determine this, you can challenge any other Hero to a PvP battle for either a loot (XTZ) or in a Hero challenge (yes, this means you’ll not only wager XTZ but also your Hero!). The winner will claim it all and also earn 2 XP, while the defeated will only receive 1 XP.
If you don’t want to wait for another player to accept your challenge, you can instead challenge the Chain Ministry themselves — they’re the NPCs of ChainBorn prepared for a battle 24/7. Only condition: your stats must be similiar to theirs and you can only wager a loot of 1 XTZ.
But if you win, you’ll not only receive the wagered XTZ but also a chest with a chance of a prize. If luck favors you, you’ll receive $LEG — if not, then you’ll get a straw doll.
Battles aren’t the only mode in ChainBorn — you can also create Tournaments with different entry requirements such as allowed Health and Strength stats, as well as the Entrance Fee.
But beware: only the winner takes home the prize! Nonetheless, it’s really a fun activity — especially when combining it with a livestream (hint hint).
To give players some incentives to play, there are also peridodic events where prizes can be won.
The ChainBorn Cup is a sponsored event where players can win badges by participating in battles and tournaments, and by summoning Heroes. At the end of this event, the players at the top of each badge category will win a trophy and prize.
The ChainBorn League is similiar to the Cup, except that the prizes come from ChainBorn itself and that it lasts for 1 year. At the end of this event, the top 3 players in each badge category will win trophies and prizes.
What else can I do in ChainBorn?
For now, you can buy Potions, Equipment, and Skins in the in-game Store.
To purchase these things, you have to acquire $LEG (Lord Emperors Gold) — ChainBorn’s own in-game currency.
Potions come in handy, especially in battles against stronger opponents, and will give you an advantage when they don’t have any Potions equipped (which happens more often than you’d think).
If you want to battle against a stronger Hero but you haven’t acquired enough XPs yet to have a fair fight against them, then Equipment can help suit up your Hero for this battle, as this gives you extra XP for Health and/or Strength.
You think the card of your Hero looks boring or you just don’t want them to look like everyone else? Then a new Skin would be the right thing for you, as it will make your card look special!
Do you have Equipment, Potions, Skins, or even Heroes you don’t need anymore? No problem! Just list them in the Store for sale.
Special Events in ChainBorn
From time to time, special events also occur in ChainBorn to bring some extra fun to the game.
One such event was the first anniversary of ChainBorn on August 18th, 2023 when they also launched the “Free Myrddin” quest. In this quest, players needed to “find” special items by battling the Chain Ministry to free Myrddin from their grasp and recruit him to join their own squad of Heroes! Snotface successfully freed Myrddin and now owns him as their own Hero.
Even though Myrddin is already free, you can still try to collect all the needed items, as they can be exchanged for 1000 $LEG!
Read more about this event here.
Other events included the Tezos Tuesday and Advent Tournaments, which were a series of tournaments to qualify for a grand finale with prizes to be won.
The latest event was the very first live tournament, where ChainBorn not only hosted a tournament with prizes but also streamed it live with a special commentator: Rick Kitagawa (he/him).
But this was only the first of hopefully many more of such livestreams, because it was hella fun!
You can watch the full stream here.
The future of ChainBorn?
“Is this all?” you might ask. And “Hell, no!” is what I’d answer.
ChainBorn is by far not done yet; there will be new magical features in the future, new added collections, and new coins (such as $FRZ) will be added as well to be wagered in battles.
ChainBorn is here to stay; you just need to be a little more patient — but ChainBorn V3 will come!
Links to ChainBorn
- X: https://twitter.com/chainborngame
- Website: https://chainborn.xyz/
- Discord: https://discord.gg/DcPTA52ygs
- Medium: https://medium.com/chainborn
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Disclaimer: I’m not getting paid by the projects/persons I’m writing these appreciation posts for. I’m doing this simply because I want to and to support others.
