Castaways: Free To Own "Actison +MineCraft", interactive walkthrough collection

Chances are, you've heard of Castaways, which has a "raft" of 25 ETH from floor prices:

Or from Free To Own big brother DigiDaigaku, who just bought a Super Bowl AD:

Chances are, you've been playing the Castaways Alpha version of the game, and you've been faced with a screen full of "ocean trash" and questions -- what the hell is that? Why are so many people wandering in the sea? How to "fish"? .

Learn more about Castaways with the BlockBeats!

Project introduction

Game introduction

Castaways is a "sandbox" game inspired by Animal Crossing and MineCraft. According to the Castaways website, each player drifts in search of an island, and once landed, manages the island by gathering resources, crafting items, fishing, planting, and so on.

Health, hunger, item bars, the flavor of MineCraft. The fish swimming in the water is the smell of moving Sen

Below is Castaways' official "Coconut Farming Instruction Manual", which provides an example of how resource gathering and planting play work together. Cutting down a fully grown coconut tree yields coconuts and "soil" suitable for coconut growth. The coconut planted back, and can get a coconut tree, repeated planting can become a "coconut tycoon". Harvesting coconuts at different stages of their growth results in different resources.

Using a twig, a rope, and a can of eaten tuna, you can make a spear as a weapon:

Future plans also include:

1. Weather and time system, day and night cycle, cloudy or sunny

2. Fashion and expression of characters, and keep their own small pets

3. Build your own mini-game in JavaScript

4. PvP versus GvG (Player versus Guild)

5. In-game resource trading market

Team background

Castaways parent Branch announced in early May that it had completed a $12.5 million funding round, Mechanism Play, TCG Crypto, Dragonfly Capital, Polychain, Coinbase Ventures and others participated in the investment. Before switching tracks to blockchain games, Branch was working on an immersive telecommuting product like this:

This immersive telecommuting product raised millions of dollars, so why is it suddenly quitting? There may be many reasons for this, but one of them is co-founder Dayton Mills' "staying true to your roots." When Dayton was 15, PayPal locked his number because he was underage. All the profits from setting up the MineCraft server were forced to be locked down by Web2, leaving Dayton with no money to buy food. Dayton's dream has always been that "every child in the world will be able to put the proceeds from building games into their own Web3 wallet before they have a Web2 bank account."

In particular, Gabriel Leydon, CEO of DigiDaigaku parent company Limit Break, has also invested in Branch. Gabriel praised Dayton for his hard work and leadership, and touted Dayton for making his "first bucket of gold" with MineCraft at a young age.

Dayton returned the favor by not only saying "Free To Own" was great, but also changing Castaways' first NFT series, Raft, in the same ecological context as the DigiDaigaku Genesis series.

The two of them directly let Castaways "raft" series open inflation, never look back from now on. Castaways has now airdropped the "DigiDaigaku X Castaways Adventure Key" to all DigiDaigaku Genesis holders, and Gabriel will make an appearance during the next Castaways Weekly AMA live. Castaways has a "deep connection" with DigiDaigaku, and there will be more to come.

"Rafts"

The Raft was Castaways' first series of NFTS. As mentioned earlier, Castaways learned from DigiDaigaku's positioning of its Genesis NFT series by tweaking the utility of the "raft". Initially, the raft needed to be burned in exchange for a Genesis Island, and not only was it possible to claim the Genesis Island without burning, it also positioned the Raft series as one of the top "Mint" NFT series in the gaming ecosystem, like DigiDaigaku Genesis. You get a steady stream of air drops.

In addition to the Mint positioning commitment and the Genesis Island airdrop, Raft holders currently enjoy three benefits:

1. The raft owner's creation Island will have its own harbour. The "port" is said to be able to play "economic and trade advantages", but the exact role remains unclear. In addition, these native "ports" will be randomly named according to the name of the "raft". The OWNER OF A RAFT GETS THE BEST BONUS IF HIS RAFT HAS THE SAME NAME AS HIS PORT.

    Take the case of "Raft" #93, whose unique name is "Mystic." There must be a "port" on the "Genesis Island" given to the owner of Raft #93. This port could be named after either raft, be it Raven for Raft #71 or Gabe for Raft #6... In the most fortunate case, the owner of Raft #93 is also known as Mystic.

Observant friends may notice that the raft also has two attributes -- "Event Bonus" and "Luck". These two attributes are linked to two other benefits:

2. Additional resources. The raft holder will have more resources on the Genesis Island than the whitelist or the public sale, and the higher the "Luck" value, the more resources on the Genesis Island, such as coal. Since many critical resources like coal will be "non-renewable", this benefit will become more and more valuable as the content of the game is enriched.

3. Game activity gain. "Raft" holders have an advantage in official game events, and the higher the "Event Bonus", the greater the advantage. Castaways officially announced that the first game Event will be for "DigiDaigaku X Castaways Adventure Key" holders, and the "Activity Bonus Event Bonus" for "Raft" will help players earn higher points during the event.

"Islands"

The total number of Creation islands is 500. Of these, 100 will go to all raft owners, 250 will go to users who have contributed to the community and playtesting since May, 100 will be open to the public Free Mint, and 50 will be reserved by the project side for marketing and events. The project is planning to give away part of the "Creation Island" as a prize at the "DigiDaigaku X Castaways Adventure Key" holder event.

Current access to the "Creation Islands" :

1. Buy a raft. According to Castaways, a snapshot of raft holders will be taken before the start of Free Mint. Therefore, the purchase of "rafts" in the secondary market can still get "Genesis Islands" airdrop.

2. Participate in Free Mint for the public. Free Mint will launch at 6am Beijing time on October 18th. Castaways will be Posting a link to Mint on its YouTube live stream on a first-come, first-served basis.

3. Buy the "DigiDaigaku X Castaways Adventure Key" and get involved in the exclusive game events that follow and top the list. (Note: This information is still not officially announced, but was mentioned by the founders in the official weekly AMA)

"Genesis Island" won't be the only "land" series in the game. As the content of the game continues to improve, there will be "second generation islands", "third generation islands"... Raft-holders have been assured of airdrops from second-generation islands. Officially, the more OG an "island" is, the more precious it is because of its scarcity and "non-renewable" resources. For example, coal will be the exclusive resource of Genesis Island, and will not be refreshed on Genesis Island, nor will any new "islands" be released in the future, but as a basic resource at the bottom of the prop making chain, the in-game demand for coal will only increase. Each generation of "new islands" introduces new resources and follows the principle of scarcity and "non-renewability".

Genesis Island will also be able to benefit from the in-game resource trading market in the future, which, based on what is known about the game mechanics so far, is a powerful perk. Different "islands" will have different drawbacks, as well as different advantages. An "island", for example, might have poor soil for farming but be good for cows. In order to make the cows fat and fat, they need to import large quantities of feed from other "islands" and export milk, leather... Such a design should make the market for in-game resources a thriving one.

Players can play without an island, but they have to work for an island owner, digging coal, cutting trees, etc., in exchange for payment or even a piece of land.

Interaction strategy

The current valuable interaction items are:

1. Participate in the "Creation Island" Free Mint for the public. Free Mint will launch at 6am Beijing time on October 18th. Castaways will be Posting a link to Mint on its YouTube live stream on a first-come, first-served basis.

2. A new beta will be available soon after Free Mint's YouTube live stream ends. In the new beta, the player name in the game cannot be changed once set, andWill be cast as NFT. In addition to thinking of valuable names, be sure to do a good job in advance of the game's mailbox association work!

Email association steps: use the browser to enter the game (link: https://alpha.branch.gg/), click the "key" on the upper right of the page, enter your email and press Enter to submit. The verification code email will be sent to the specified mailbox. Enter the verification code dialog box and submit it. After the association is successful, the Logout prompt will appear when the mouse hovers over the upper key.

Game name setting procedure (Note: the new version may be changed after the launch) : click the "chat bubble" at the top of the page, the chat box will appear. Chat box below the input game name dialog box, input in the box and press the enter key to submit.

3. Keep playing. "Fishing" was the only thing that was playable for a while, and there wasn't much point in interacting because "Genesis Islands" was already on sale. However, Castaways is officially serious about rewarding loyal players. For example, the key obtained by the "fishing" will open the "treasure chest", which will be buried on the "island" and will also drop some of the "fishing big fish" in the past test. (Note: The exact rules are still up in the air.) As a result, there may be unexpected rewards for continuing to play, and greater proficiency may give you an edge in future games.

In the upcoming version, players will start "going to the island" to experience resource harvesting and other new things, and the characters will no longer be able to "swim" or be automatically assigned to "rafts" (note: the rafts are not NFTS, but the "vehicles" everyone has in the current version). Based on the distribution of the Genesis Islands whitelisting, it's important to have a good game duration, and it's helpful to play the new version as soon as possible to earn rewards later on.

conclusion

Castaways gives a clearer look at the "Free To Own" model in action, giving us a glimpse of how blockchain games are maturing:

1. "Free To Own" actually means "Free To Play To Own". The ability and attitude of the project team displayed in the "Free To Play" link is crucial to the stable development of the project. Within four months, the text and voice chat features had been perfected, albeit only in Castaways, and versions were iterating rapidly. During the YouTube live broadcast almost once a week, the team will give feedback to the community's problems and suggestions, and give a brief return on the solution of some important problems. It's hard not to love a team that's capable and willing to listen.

2. "Free To Own" is essentially a change in the monetization path, which is based on richer playability and promotes players' game content transactions through mechanisms, so as to better help players' game content (revenue) tokenization and form a win-win situation between players and project parties. While the early days of "Free To Play" seemed like just another form of "wanking," as Castaways continues to update, we should see the idea of "the more you play, the more I earn."

Of course, Castaways also has some shortcomings. For example, from the utility adjustment of "raft", Castaways more or less gives people a sense of "planning while making". However, Castaways' success in the market is enough to expect more blockchain-based games like this -- download-free, point-to-play, no NFTS for revenue, richer playability, and revenue that is directly related to the depth of play. Maybe this will be the new trend?

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