Cantina Royale is a 3D top-down tactical shooter with both single-player and intense multiplayer modes. Cantina Royale uses Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT for its characters meaning you can play using your BAYC NFT by Q3 of 2022. Made by a 15-person development team, with dozens of years in game development. Cantina Royale was incubated by Verko, a Layer 2 gaming platform that can make games easily ported/developed to a blockchain and made in the Elrond blockchain. Verko makes the game itself beginner-friendly by not requiring to have an elrond wallet, only needing an email while also providing zero gas fees for their marketplace. The game launched this July, having three of the four PvP modes included and their lending program to take place.

As soon as you jump in the game even if you didn't buy any NFT, you will be given a free generic NFT character to use. This allows everyone to scout the game first and test it on their own without paying. Cantina Royale uses $CRT as its main token that you can use for buying and upgrading items. There’s also Crowns, the main currency inside the game. Players can earn Crowns through PvP, PvE and the sponsorship program. These coins also represent $CRT which will continuously expand as the game develops.

Cantina offers PvP and PvE game modes. In PvP, only the winning player or team gets the reward. There are four multiplayer PvP modes, 1 vs 1, free for all, team deathmatch and team objectives. Currently three of the PvP modes are available and team objectives will come later in Q3. PvP also features a rank system where the higher ranked you are the better the rewards. There are four daily missions you can do in PvE: Single player missions, Single player wave attack, Co-op missions and Co-op wave attack. Every player will be rewarded depending on the result of their mission. The bots in PvE have levels that offer better rewards the more difficult it is.

Everyone can buy NFT characters using $CRT in the marketplace which will soon launch. NFT holders will have more advantages in the game through in-game rewards and perks. The rarity tier is as follows: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Epic and Legendary. Free to play users can still make some progress in game but can't have valuable in game rewards. NFT holders can stake/lend their NFTs and choose who will be their scholar based on their skill and stats as a player. This will make free to play users to have a very competitive mindset. Both NFT holders and the scholar can gain in-game rewards.

NFT holders can make new NFTs through recruitment or what others know as breeding. Recruiting will be done by users that have progressed through the game in different levels with their NFT characters. Genesis Space Ape collection is a special type of NFT that when you recruit/breed using this will have you entitled with 1% of the subsequent generation's in-game earnings. Sadly it’s only obtainable through Mystery Boxes and a lottery so you’ll need to have a little luck to claim that prize.

Having Verko allows players to be onboarded easily compared to other blockchain games, making it above all the rest. Scholarship system was made easier and secure, hopefully providing an environment similar to axie infinity that has players, breeders, scholars and NFT lenders. Overall I'm optimistic about this game because it integrates BAYC holders to actually put their NFTs to use. Its value might get affected by this game's popularity. Check their whitepaper out if you also think this game is for you and your guild!

Golden Bros is a free to play 3v3 play to earn game developed with Unreal engine by Netmarble F&C, who is also behind games like Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds. It also uses CUBE as its blockchain. Golden Bros already made its presale back in March, its early access launched in April, and the grand launch currently planned for July 2022. 

Players are provided with nine ‘Bros’, the game's playable characters. NFTs available in the form of costumes for your Bros which allow you to earn $GBC tokens. Free to play players can acquire N grade(the lowest form of Golden Bros NFT) costumes by doing daily check-ins and by completing in-game daily campaigns. Every $GBC you earn can be exchanged into $CUBE which can then be exchanged into any kind of crypto currency that you like.

Costumes have different grades: N(Normal) , R(Rare) , SR(Super Rare) and SSR(Super Super Rare). The higher the grade the better the benefits you get. You also receive more $GBC depending on how many costumes your bros have. You can get N grade costumes by reaching a certain ranked tier in early access of the game while R, SR and SSR grade can only be acquired through GB mystery boxes and its grade is generated randomly. These can have three different factors: victory bonus, daily battles and durability. The rarer grades overall have better stats than lower ones.

Victory bonus multiplies your earned $GBC based on the grade of the costumes you have. Daily battles is the amount of games you can earn $GBC for the day. When your costume's durability gets depleted your capability to earn will also be gone. Although it’s replenishable, you will need to buy a new one after a certain amount of time. Requiring you to reinvest over and over again to continue your play to earn experience, which could be frustrating to the average gamer.

Golden Bros has both PVP and Survival game modes to choose from with other special event modes planned in the future. Survival mode is a free for all battle royale and this mode can only be played every friday. In PVP, the goal of the game is to eliminate all of your enemies in three minutes. This mode features a league system to climb ranks in, earning more rewards the higher you place.

Killing zombies, using capsule pumps or killing Bosses inside every match will give you capsules. Capsules give you two abilities to choose from out of the three possible types which can appear. Capsule types can be determined by looking at the two colors of each capsule: Power(Red), Survival(Green) and Special(Yellow). You can only pick one ability out of the two options, so be careful when you choose! Also, only two capsules can be carried at a time so if you want to pick up another you’ll need to use one first.

Playstyle can vary between your characters.They each have different base attacks, evasion skills and ultimates. Evasion can protect you from whatever damage the enemy dishes out, it can be in the form of a forward dash, a barrier or generate healing items. Evasion costs stamina that can be increased by using capsules. If you or your teammate die during the game, there is a revival feather or zone that can be used. Revival feather is for yourself only and it makes you rejoin the battle immediately while revival zone is an area your ally can use to revive you or vice versa. Every player can only be revived once per game whether that is through a revival feather or zone.

Netmarble brings a solid foundation to the play to earn space, one currently fitting for an early access release with its limited content. Although I’m worried about the requirements of needing to reinvest repeatedly to continue earning, Golden Bros proved to be a skilled shooter, connecting to its target, delivering a fun, fast paced title that I believe both fans of the genre and those looking for a new play-to-earn game can enjoy.

Seoul Stars is an online rhythm(Dj-to-Earn)/Karaoke(Sing-to-Earn) game set to launch Q3/Q4 of 2022 with a demo to be released this July. Seoul Stars utilizes Yuna NFTs, each having different skills and characteristics that make you play/earn differently than others. Although it’s a free to play game, holding an NFT has more benefits than not in terms of in game skills and earning rate. Seoul Stars was made with a vision of creating a virtual K-pop Idol named Yuna and building her in the blockchain with plenty of songs, albums, games, and even live virtual concerts.

The korean K-pop agency ‘HUMAP CONTENTS’ will be the main producer of its realistic 3D K-pop Idols, with the famous producer Tommy Lee making the music itself. Yuna already produced three songs titled: "Kiss me Kiss me", "Lonely" and "Flower". The NFT game will be made with Catheon Gaming as their advisor. They have vast experience in creating games in collaboration or on their own. Here's some of their recent experience in games: PUBG, PointBlank, TERA and even the play-to-earn game SOLCHICKS.

There will be two play-to-earn mechanics: The rhythm Dj-to-Earn mode which mobile rhythm game enthusiasts will like and karaoke Sing-to-Earn for those who are confident in their singing game, both modes are free to play but also use NFTs. They will each have their own respective rank tiers in PVP mode. Top ranked players in each game are rewarded with $SSTAR (Governance token). Every two weeks the rank tiers reset and players get rewarded for their final placement. The rhythm game will have two modes: Single player if you’re looking for casual play, and the competitive PvP to face someone else and climb the rankings.

Most of us who are already familiar with rhythm games, especially those who play Cytus, osu, and Voez will of course have a slight advantage to first timers. However, NFT holders will have a huge boost in their gameplay either by slowing the song or even auto play the song for a set duration time, ha! How's that for you? Of course free to play players will get a chance to earn a free NFT if they do well by playing and earning a top spot in ranked or song leaderboards on different levels but I worry that having these advantages in PVP where skilled play is the most important could dampen the experience.

All players will need to acquire a decent amount of $SSTAR tokens as well as CastingTickets to unlock a Yuna NFT, similar to gacha(randomly generated draws) that we’re familiar with. The game itself will have plenty of K-pop songs as the company will acquire the rights to use them as beat/songmaps. Also there will be a Produce-Song-to-Earn mechanic where players can import their own songs in the game and earn $YUNA(in-game currency), $SSTAR, and CastingTickets depending on the popularity it gains. If you’re familiar with osu then this should be exciting since people create their own beatmaps all the time, you’ll just need to be careful to avoid copyright issues. This should also help add variety to the soundtrack outside of K-POP. The Sing-to-Earn mode will have you use your voice quality in terms of pitch, rhythm and tone accuracy similar to the DJ mode. This also features single player and PVP. For now there's no news yet about the skills they have for NFT holders, we will have to wait to see.

I'm optimistic with the ideas they have using gacha for NFT so free to play players will still have a chance in solo mode as well as the integration of RNG drops so not all wins will get you a sure chance of $SSTAR but having a high rarity NFT will boost this rate. This should help $SSTAR not oversupply, making its economy stable than ever even if a massive player base mints it. The game itself is heavily invested in its main token $SSTAR and will use 30% of their virtual Idol Yuna's profits from ads, virtual concerts and album sales to add to what they call community wallet. 80% of this community wallet will be used for burning and buying $SSTAR while the remaining 20% will go to their giveaways and events.

Despite the possible issues having NFT benefits in ranked PVP could cause, I believe this game will be a huge deal for K-pop fans, rhythm game enthusiasts, people who are confident in their vocal prowess and musicians who want to earn more with their songs or gain traction through the game itself. My take on this is you either enjoy the rhythm game, the karaoke game or maybe just collect the in-game NFT cards signed by your favorite K-pop Idols. The game itself is so vast that you'll feel like you're in a big world surrounded by music enthusiasts and K-pop fans alike!

Korean entertainment has been under a global spotlight these recent years and there seems to be no signs of this stopping anytime soon. If you enjoy rhythm games or singing, and the idea of earning in that genre excites you like it does me then maybe you should check it out. Let’s keep an eye out for Yuna and her journey to become the world's first virtual idol in the blockchain!