First and foremost, one of the main reasons I’m bullish on Undead Blocks is that it looks like fun to play. As sad as it is to say, Fun gameplay is severely lacking in the NFT gaming space so having a game that looks like something I would want to sink time into, regardless of earning potential, is a refreshing change of pace.
Furthermore, the UI and overall appearance of the game shows a level of polish that is rare for play-to-earn games and therefore has me excited to get my hands on it when the open beta releases in the near future.
Next up is the tokenomics of Undead Blocks. Reading through the whitepaper you can tell that a lot of time was spent on the economic model and Wagyu Games are doing something brand new that I have yet to see implemented in other Blockchain/Open Economy games – Stable coin rewards.
Undead Blocks splits its economy up into two tokens: Undead Token which is the ERC-20 Token used for staking and governance and ZBUX which is the in-game currency of Undead Blocks earned for just slaying wave after wave of zombies. In addition to normal ZBUX, Golden ZBUX are a reward given to players for reaching in-game achievements and ranking on the daily leaderboards. These special ZBUX are pegged at 10 cents and will never fluctuate in value meaning that players will always be able to know exactly how much they have made from playing the game at a high level.
In addition to a dual token system, undead blocks utilizes NFT ‘Weapon Packs’ that act as a standard ZBUX sink and their main monetization model. In order to play Undead Blocks you need to either A) own a weapon pack or B) rent a pack from another player. As you kill wave after wave of undead, you will accrue ZBUX that you can then spend on upgrading your NFT weapon pack which you can then sell on a secondary marketplace like opensea.
This rental, upgrade, and selling system gives weapon pack owners three different ways of monetizing their in-game assets and ensures that players feel accomplished for playing the game while also being rewarded.
Last up is Undead Blocks Stake-to-Mint program. Now that we have talked about the in-game currencies of ZBUX and Golden ZBUX, lets look at the Governance Token, UNDEAD. At the time of recording, UNDEAD just launched today, may 4th, at 60 cents. In addition to the standard APY staking that is utilized with ERC-20 tokens, Wagyu Games has also unveiled an interesting and innovative incentive for their stakers: Stake-to-Mint. By staking a minimum amount of UNDEAD, players will automatically receive a weapons pack once their tokens are locked allowing them to start playing the game.
Not only does this encourage long-term holds for UNDEAD token it also facilitates player engagement within the Undead Blocks ecosystem.
Overall, I feel that Wagyu Games has done their Due diligence. They have created a game that looks fun to play in a genre that we have not seen much headway in within Web3, they have found a new, interesting way to fuel their tokenomics by making Golden ZBUX a stable-coin, and they have incentivized their players to stay in the game’s ecosystem through stake-to-mint.
Regardless of if this game is a smash hit in the space or not, I applaud Wagyu Games for trying to elevate NFT gaming through this unique design choices.
So what do you think? Leave a comment below if you are planning on picking up some UNDEAD token or a weapon pack and if you think this game will be hit or not! I would love to hear your opinions!