I have happily spent the last few weeks playing Darkwinds a blockchain enhanced game developed by the Chilean studio MEGO. For more info about this seasoned five man team check out their website here. If you are reading this I assume you would like to hear what I have learned about the game. Let me start out by quoting the game’s description written on their website:

“Darkwinds is an online trading card game that runs on top of the Ethereum network. More specifically, all Darkwinds cards are non-fungible tokens or cryptocollectibles, a standard (ERC721) for virtual objects where players have perpetual rights to sell, trade and use their items, both within and outside of the game's ecosystem. This is possible thanks to the same technology that makes cryptocurrency possible, as Darkwinds cards exist on the same Blockchain used by all Ethereum tokens.”

If terms like “non-fungible tokens” and “ERC721” have you scratching your head, don’t worry, we can revisit that stuff later. First I would like reminisce about trading card games. I, like many of you, grew up playing Magic the Gathering with my buddies and sincerely enjoyed both the collecting and gameplay aspects of the game. Unfortunately nearly all of my cards are now rotting in a landfill somewhere, I had some good ones too, no Black Lotus but still. When I asked René Mujica, game director for Darkwinds, about where the idea of Darkwinds came from, this is what he said:

“At MEGO we have always been fans of tabletop and physical card games, so we always had the idea of creating a game that resembled what we felt playing physical games. In the other hand, we had become CryptoKitties fans, and became inspired by using the blockchain as a decentralized and cryptographically secure storage, so began to imagine how could we create an online Trading Card Game with all its physical properties, like being able to trade or sell your cards, or even play your own house rules for the game. The Ethereum blockchain allowed us to do all of this.”

Reading this response makes me think of the times, in the last 10 years or so, when I actually tried to get into the electronic versions of Magic cards. The feeling that there is just something missing from that experience, specifically the pride of real ownership. I think the devs behind Darkwinds feel that too and, with the application of blockchain technology, are trying to bring that back that feeling of pride.

Gameplay:

Coming from a long history of playing trading card games, Darkwinds’ gameplay is relatively simple to grasp. Two players, each with a deck of 10 pre-selected cards take turns either hiring buccaneers or buying spells. The resources used (mana to MtG folks) are called bounty. Both players’ bounty pools starts at 1 and increases every turn until it maxes out at 5. Buccaneer cards remain on the field until killed, however spell cards are removed at the end of your turn, I learned that the hard way. There are a handful of special abilities which you can read more about here but that's basically all you need to know. Players start with 10 health so games go by fast.

Collecting:

Collecting Darkwinds cards is fun and, unlike most blockchain games, not at all expensive. When buying packs, players have three choices, buy 1 card, 10 or 25 cards at a time. Each card costs about $0.25 after paying to mine them to your wallet. 10 will get you enough to start playing for $2.50 (at current Ether prices), that is ridiculously cheap when you think about it.

The card art is very well done and fitting with mystical pirate theme. If a player decides they want to start building a collection, there are a few things to consider. This first edition of Darkwinds game cards are limited to one million cards total. That million will be made up of 100 different cards, so 1 mil divided by 100… 10,000 of each card right? Wrong. The official breakdown of the Darkwinds rarity algorithm can be found here but let me give you a brief summary.

There are three different card border colors each signifying a different rarity level. Black for common cards, silver for rare and gold for very rare cards. Half of the 100 available cards are considered rare, which means they have a 1 in 10 drop rate when buying new cards. Of those 50 rare cards there is a subset of 20 very rare cards. The odds of getting a very rare card is again something like 1 in 10 out of an already 1 in 10 rare drop, so basically it is a 1 in 100 chance when buying new cards. Some of the cards are so rare, that they have not been mined at all yet. You probably already know, crypto gaming assets that rare are often very valuable.

Conclusion:

Trading card games and blockchain are the perfect a match made in heaven. The developers of Darkwinds have done a great job using the tech to bring back that nostalgic feeling that tabletop players crave. Couple that with a unique art style and a super agreeable price point, making Darkwinds an easy game to enjoy. And not to mention, as of a few weeks ago, it is out of beta and fully playable to anyone with a Web-3 compatible browser like MetaMask. For more info about getting started, check out this guide available on the Darkwinds website.

It is also worth noting that even though Darkwinds uses blockchain tech, it's developers did not use the any of the prevalent, sometimes sketchy, crypto-startup tactics. For instance, they did not hold an ICO or have any pre-sale of game assets to fund development of Darkwinds. Instead they went the traditional game development route and used funds from previous successful projects ,securing additional funding through a partnership with the game publisher Tapinator.

Giveaway:

To celebrate Darkwinds’ recent launch I am giving away a 10 card starter deck to one lucky winner. To enter the drawing click the giveaway graphic below, extra points go to any steemians who leave a comment to this post. If the winner ends up being one of my steemit followers I will also throw in a share or two of @SteemBasicIncome.

Related Links:

Darkwinds Official Homepage: https://playdarkwinds.com/
Darkwinds Official Game Guide: https://playdarkwinds.com/game
Darkwinds Discord Chat Server: https://discord.gg/TEBX7ZA
Access the Ethereum Blockchain with MetaMask: https://metamask.io/
Keep-up with the Crypto-Gaming Community: https://www.cryptoandgamers.com/