The Spark (ep. #21)

Hello and welcome to the episode #21 of “The Spark“ newsletter!

Here you can find everything you need to stay up-to-date with upcoming and existing NFT projects and web3 games.

Now let’s dive into the info

Episode structure:

[Early alpha] section:

1. MadWorld [3015 followers]

• Mobile survival PVP game in post-apocalyptic setting

• Developed by seasoned professionals, who previously worked with Blizzard, Zynga, Electronic Arts and more

• Raised $8.5M in VC funding by a16z, Bitkraft, Golden Ventures and others

My take:

Interesting part here is that project leverages AI to create a ‘moment-to-moment’ action packed gameplay. AI + gaming narrative remains bullish and not really diluted (yet), so that’s an additional bullish point to MadWorld.

There’s no actual gameplay preview for now, so hard to judge on that point, but sneak peeks on X and on website look decent.

Early access + allowlist form is available on their website, and it’s pretty short, so worth to fill it. Might end up being something valuable.

2. Cosmic Cowboys [256 followers]

• Real-time blockchain strategy game built with AI-powered NPCs (yes, AI again)

• Backed by Pinata ($21.5M in funding, lead investor - Pantera Capital)

• Already live on Base mainnet

My take:

Yep, this one is extra early, and flying under radar for a reason. Their marketing is pretty much nonexistent at this point. Hence people don’t really dig deeper.

Game itself looks innovative and they’ve recently concluded 1st private beta test. Players could mint a character as NFT and then modify/influence their current and future decisions, which also were reflected in a form of dynamic metadata onchain. At the same time, all actions are autonomous and performed by character.

Not sure if it will pick up momentum by itself, or team will find an appropriate marketing entity, but I would put this on radar just because of the fresh idea/narrative and good amount of funding in hands of parent company.

[Updates] section:

• Today The Game announced that their genesis free mint is coming in Q1

• Overtrip teased $TRIP token launch

• Wadeside mint auction is now live (multiple stages)

• DEW introduced trade-to-WL initiative

• Forbes teased NFT collection launch in spring this year

• LaLiga announced mint details, minting on Arbitrum

• Story Protocol revealed their newest development - programmable IP layer

• Xborg announced play-to-airdrop campaign

[Giveaway] section:

I’ve partnered with SA World to provide my subscribers 2 GUARANTEED WL spots for their upcoming free mint.

SA World is the unified platform powering $SAE and Summoners Arena, a free-to-play Idle RPG with incredibly stylistic gameplay mechanics and characters. 

Team has experience in building gaming companies which have onboarded hundreds of millions of users and raised 7-figures in funding from the most prolific venture firms in the world.

SA World aims to connect all WEB3 gaming plugins via $SAE, the token that will bring all gamers within a standardized ecosystem.

Enter the giveaway here - alphabot link

[News] section:

• Magic Eden announced retrospective ‘diamonds’ claim for early ETH NFTs traders

• Sugartown teased new chapter launch

• Proof of Play introduced their multichain solution

• Immutable zkEVM will be gas-free for players until September 2024

• Ultiverse secured new $4M VC funding round

• Yuga Labs acquired PROOF ecosystem

• Citizen Conflict announced a token generation event on February 29th

• Ronin revealed Kaidro - newest RPG game that is coming to Ronin blockchain

That’s a wrap for this time!

Don’t forget to make your own due diligence on those upcoming projects

I’ll see you on the next week with even more alpha

And remember - everything starts with the spark

Kin.