Cryptobots is one of the few games on the NFT market in which economic and gaming components are equally important. The game is already going through the 2nd season of testnet with thousands of players and big prizes. And our readers can exclusively get into testnet for FREE! In the article, we will talk about all the features, analyze the mechanics of the game, and also raffle gifts from Cryptobots.
What are Cryptobots
Cryptobots was launched as a play-to-earn game 5 years ago. It came back in 2022 in a play-and-earn format. It has two main characteristics:
🪙 NFT-component – collecting Bots, Ships, and Lands;
⚽️ Gaming process – online battles between Bot teams that expand to a space strategy with player alliances and interplanetary spaceship battles for power and resources.
For the first time, Cryptobots appeared on the market back in 2017. The game was inspired by CryptoKitties that blew up the market back then, but with some improvements: developers added more classic P2E mechanics and even launched a marketplace. The original collection of Cryptobots (now called Cryptobots Classic) was one of the first added to the then newly appeared opensea.io and the game itself became the pioneer of the play-to-earn format in the world of blockchain games.
With the fall of the NFT market in 2018, the game gradually ceased to be supported due to colossal gas prices and the lack of scaling tools on the market at that time. However, unlike many other NFT games, the developers did not vanish, and all the proceeds were spent on maintaining the project. Note that the cost of Classic Cryptobots has been steadily growing, and all token holders now have an amount 5-10 times more than the initial investment, while classic Bots themselves are very valued among NFT collectors because of their history.
In 2022, Cryptobots returned to give users a new game – an exciting space strategy with a focus on a stable economic system. Genesis Cryptobots – a new collection of the main game characters was successfully pre-sold with 10,000 NFTs earlier this year.
The game is being developed by Playneta studio, which has been working in the field of online games since 2015 and has many successful projects («Kiss Kiss», «Clash Tyrane», «Social Hero», «Fog»). The developers combined the experience of classic mobile gaming and NFT games, which allowed us to create not only a stable economy but also an interesting game.
How and why should you start playing Cryptobots
Now the demand for NFT games is greater than ever (think of Stepn, Gods Unchained, Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, Alien Worlds, etc.). Many such projects have a huge audience, but they all invariably face the problem of the Ponzi-like economy: users who joined before everyone else play only for profit, they produce new NFTs and sell them only to new players. With such a model, demand must constantly increase, and at some point, as in any pyramid scheme, there is not enough influx of new players, demand falls, and the entire economy quickly slides into a death spiral.
The main goal of the creators of Cryptobots is to make a play–and-earn NFT game with a stable long-term economy. On their YouTube channel, the developers explained specific mechanics that allow you to avoid the main mistakes of the market and not slide into a pyramid economy (for example, smaller APY for the sake of stability, targeting an audience broader than just crypto, power inflation of Bots, and etc.).
This approach ensures not only a stable economy but also a real interest of the audience in the game through the multilayered gameplay. It will be possible to start playing six months / a year after the start and not feel deprived. That is the difference between Cryptobots and other play-to-earn games, where the desire to earn comes to the fore both in game mechanics and in marketing, gradually turning projects into an exclusively financial tool for players, dismissing the entire play component and the fun of the game.
How the ITEZ team got obsessed with Bots
The Itez team actively started playing Cryptobots in July 2022. We bought several Genesis Cryptobots, created an Alliance called «Itez crypto frens» and sent out testnet Bots to everyone. Soon half of the employees joined Cryptobots: we played every day, shared tips on how to assemble the best team, and even sometimes fought against each other! In two weeks, all members of the Alliance entered the top 500 players, and the Alliance itself received 20th place in the overall ranking and got several NFT Lands as a reward.
Cryptobots Game really engages users for several reasons:
🪙 Real NFT and earning opportunities. Bots, Ships, Lands, etc. are NFT tokens and this opens up opportunities for different economic strategies: you can make other Bots and Ships from Bots, create upgrades on lands, etc. And all this can be sold directly to other players!
🥊 Battles. Fighting in Cryptobots is definitely not boring – the variety of Bot models, abilities, types of skills and strikes, and status effects is really amazing and allows you to try new things every time.
🥇Create and upgrade your team. Thousands of possible combinations generate countless strategies, so it is impossible to create a team that will defeat every opponent. But you can experiment and upgrade to create a gradually stronger team.
🧬 Manufacturing bots. You can not only buy Bots but also create them yourself from other Bots. They are born not immediately, but at least a day later. “Children” can both inherit the genes of “parents" and receive completely new ones!
🚀 Spaceship production and ship battles. Not only Bots can be made from Bots, but also Ships – in this case, Bots are disassembled for spare parts forever. Like Bots, each Ship has its own class and model with its own strengths and weaknesses, but unlike Bots, Ships can hit several times per turn and have a common energy bar, which creates more space for a variety of strategies. Developers already released the Spaceship Battles in the second season of the testnet!
👥 Alliances. Players can form Alliances. On the testnet, they open up opportunities to win more prizes and compete for them with other Alliances. On the mainnet, Alliances will open up a whole new layer of gameplay: they will control territories, have their own Treasuries and Lands, and they will also fight among themselves with entire fleets of Spaceships!
At the moment, about 3,000 people compete in the testnet. Public registration is already closed, but Itez users have an exclusive chance to get into the testnet for free.
When we invited Cryptobots to write a piece about them, they not only agreed but also prepared gifts! The second season of the testnet started on August 4, and registration closed on the same day. However, Itez readers will be able to join the game and get three basic Bots for free until the end of 2nd season of testnet, as well as to take part in the giveaway of three NFTs from the Cryptobots Companions collection. Fill out the form and get access to Cryptobots and an invitation to a closed channel on discord.com. And join our Alliance «Itez crypto frens» to participate in the Pet raffle and get other prizes!
❗ After the Bots required to play are sent to you in the testnet network, you need to register in the testnet and install a progressive web application (PWA), add the Rinkeby test network to your wallet and add BITS and OIL tokens. It's simple and takes no more than 5 minutes. Instructions are here. If you have any questions about registration and game mechanics, ask them in our discord chat, and we will try to help.
Gameplay
Finally, let's talk about the game itself. The legend is as follows: humanity died out for reasons long forgotten, and only 3 technocratic corporations remained in the entire explored universe. There is no government in this world, it is plunged into chaos, and all that remains of civilization are Cryptobots. However, even robots understand that it is not profitable to fight alone, so they create teams, produce ships, and unite in alliances to fight for resources.
The first thing you can do after logging into the game is to create a team to play the first fight. Each Bot belongs to one of three corporations:
🔴 Hyperion (red) – attackers;
🔵 Faraday (blue) – tanks, they have a lot of armour and health;
🟣 Tormund (pink) – supporting units.
Each corporation has 5 classes:
Assault: primarily attacks;
SpecOp: attacks and defends well;
IntOp: has high level of protection;
SecOp: interferes with the enemy's strategy;
CleanOp: strengthens allies.
It is better to create teams in which Bots will be from different corporations and classes, so they will complement each other well.
In addition, all Cryptobots have 4 main characteristics:
💊 health,
🛡 protection,
🗡 damage,
🌪 speed.
Those are the first things you need to pay attention to when making teams (especially health and damage). When the team is made up, you can start the battle. Bots have 3 types of abilities: basic, advanced, and ultimate (passive ability will also be added in the future updates). In turn, each ability has 3 levels, depending on the overall strength of the Bot. The damage inflicted depends on the level of the ability. At the same time, strikes may have additional features: you can provoke the skipping of an opponent's move, non-recovery of health, or cause additional damage with a retaliatory strike.
Tokenomics
For fights, players are awarded rewards (you can pick them up in the «claim» section). There are two game currencies in Cryptobots:
🔥 OIL – accrued only for battles.
👾 BITS – accrued for battles, and sales.
Players have equal chances of earning: each person has 10 possible wins out of 20 attempts per day. Thus, with equal rights of players to win, both tokens regulate the in-game economy. In addition, both BITS and OIL will be needed to create Bots and Ships.
Until the mainnet started, almost all game actions also give a third “currency” – testnet points, which determine the player's place in the top 500 and the Alliance's place in the top 25 and for which honours are awarded. Additional testnet points can be obtained for the sale/purchase of Bots, their selection, and the construction of Ships. In the first season, the players battled for the valuable NFT Lands on the starting planet, and in the second the total prize pool is 500,000 BITS tokens!
The market is one of the most important sections of the game. It is there that you can buy and sell Bots and Ships, and in the future – parts, Lands, resources, and much more. It is important that transactions are carried out between players (and not between developers and players) – this also affects the stability of the in-game economy. Transactions are concluded using smart contracts, which are signed using test ETH, and the creators of the game take a commission from each transaction in the amount of 4.25% BITS, which is why players should carefully consider their actions in the market.
When you have already joined Cryptobots, Bots can be bought for BITS on the marketplace or created by manufacturing. It is impossible to say the price of each manufacture – it depends on the strength of each particular Bot. Building Ships also costs tokens: from 1200 BITS and 1200 OIL per ship.
Collections of Cryptobots
As mentioned above, in order to join the testnet, you need to be registered and get testnet Bots during registration or directly from another player. To play on the mainnet, the player needs to hold at least 3 Genesis Cryptobots. The collection was launched in January 2022. These are the main NFT game characters. Average price in August 2022 is 0,07-0,2 ETH ($113-$323).
📍The most expensive Cryptobot from this collection is now (15:00 04.08.2022) being sold for 4,88 ETH = $7907.
📍The cheapest one is being sold for 0,05 ETH = $81.
In addition to the main collection, the project has several secondary ones. The first is Cryptobots Classic Collection. This is a collection straight from the original 2017 game. Classic Bots will not be directly playable in the new game but all holders will receive free 3D Heroes, which can be binded to the team and inventory to receive unique bonuses to combat and economy. And you know what? They look awesome!
📍Now the price of bots from the first Cryptobots Classic Collection is on average 0,1-5 ETH ($170-$8584), and lately, it has only been growing.
📍The most expensive Cryptobot from the first collection is now (15:30 31.07.2022) being sold for 225 ETH = $386732.
📍The cheapest one is being sold for 0,02 ETH = $34.
Besides free 3D Heroes, owners of Classic Bots receive other advantages: Bots can be wrapped in a modern ERC721 Token and receive bonuses to bot stats for every wrapped Classic Bot! Due to the OpenSea bug, it is not possible to buy Classic Bots directly, but to get bonuses to stats, you can buy wrapped Classic Bots directly.
There is also a collection of Pets – Cryptobots Companions. They are not for sale, but are only issued by developers exclusively to the best players. We will give away three characters from this collection between the members of «Itez crypto frens» Alliance. The conditions will appear in the closed channel on discord later.
To be continued
Now the game is especially interesting because it is under development and continuous improvement, which means that Cryptobots are updated every day. For example, in the 1st season of the testnet, the principle of competitions has improved: if before, when an opponent missed a move, it was necessary to wait every time for all 50 seconds that are given for one move, now the waiting time for the second, third and fourth passes of the move has been reduced to 15 seconds. In addition, previously, a weak player sometimes came across strong teams that, with all the desire, it was impossible to win, but now the participants in the battles are relatively equal.
What updates can we expect from developers in the near future? Now we can assume that there will be a lot of new things. That's just what's on the surface:
🚀 Ship battles. Ships can already be manufactured, bought, and sold, but competitions between them in season one were not available. With the release of the second season, the developers have also added Ship battles – they are similar to Bot battles, but Ships can hit several times per turn and have a common energy bar, which creates more space for more flexible and diverse combat strategies.
🦾 Bots upgrades. In the first season, the characteristics of the Bots were constant. In the second season, this will change! Bots will get upgrades. How this will be implemented – through tokens or the parsing of bots into parts – is still unknown.
👣 NFT Lands. In the testnet, prizes are awarded to players in the top 500, as well as to Alliances from the top 25. In the first season, the awards were NFT-Lands. Lands are the basic part of the game, they will be needed by players and Alliances in order to produce resources, as well as to create various types of buildings to provide services to other players – for example, repairing Bots and Ships, manufacturing upgrades and consumables, etc.
⚖️ Balance. The stability of the economy is a priority for the team. Obviously, the reworks of the combat system, characteristics, and skills of Bots will follow.
📐 A change in the Cryptobots market. It is likely that with the launch of the second season, and later the mainnet, the prices for Bots will change: most probably, they will grow, as the number of people willing to enter the game will increase.
🖥 Interface tweaks. There will be other small changes: we assume that the application will work more stable, perhaps the UI will change a little, and all the problems that users complained about during the first season will disappear.
Fans of cryptobots chat in the Telegram channel, as well as on the Discord. The community is quite large – about 60 thousand people. Join us!
Exclusively for Itez readers, Cryptobot developers have extended the registration period for the second season until its completion. Fill out this form, start playing and join our Alliance «Itez crypto frens» to participate in the drawing of three unique NFTs in a closed channel on discord.com and get other prizes.
The earlier you start playing, the faster you will enter the top and get an advantage for the subsequent stages. And if you don't have time, you can always buy ETH from a bank card on itez in order to purchase your first Cryptobots.
This article is not an investment recommendation. The financial transactions mentioned in the article are not a guide to action. Itez is not responsible for possible risks. The user should independently conduct an analysis on the basis of which it will be possible to draw conclusions and make decisions about making any operations with cryptocurrency.
