When alighting on the Alien Worlds homepage for the first time, you might assume that the mining game is the be-all and end-all. You’d be wrong. While Alien Worlds was once a play-to-earn clicker with NFTs, it’s morphed into something far grander. These days, your NFTs can be lent out to others to generate passive revenue; you can govern planets and allocate treasury resources to exciting up-and-coming projects; and the tokens in your wallet are actually playable in a range of integrated games.
What keeps hundreds of thousands of accounts active years after Alien Worlds’ launch isn’t the core mining loop, popular though it remains. It’s the flourishing community-driven ecosystem that’s grown up around it. While game developers have traditionally held all the cards – owning the servers, building the tools – Alien Worlds players are the ones wielding the power in these parts, presiding over projects, funding tournaments, and generally influencing the direction of travel.
Here’s a closer look at the novel community tools and projects that have sprung to life in recent years.
The Tools That Turned Miners Into Architects
A few years ago, mining could only be done on the main Alien Worlds UI. That all changed when Mission Control stepped in. A Galactic Hubs-funded interface maintained by a committed core of devs, Mission Control combines mining analytics, land insights, NFT tracking, and performance dashboards. Its goal? To maximize mining in every way possible.
Thanks to the collective’s efforts, mining can now be performed from directly within the Mission Control UI; among other perks, users can set Tool and Land favorites, default to the most profitable land for mine attempts (based on current planetary pools and the commission rate of different lands), and optimize for Shards or TLM according to their preference. Mining’s gone from a basic click-and-forget process to a bells-and-whistles strategy play.
Tool Loaning is another example of Mission Control’s bid to modernize mining. Miners had complained for years about the high cost of acquiring heavy-duty tools, whether in terms of the time commitment or financial outlay. Tool Loaning solves this problem, benefitting both tool-rich miners keen to earn passive revenue from loaning out their hardware and enterprising miners seeking to rent them.
To participate in this system, those loaning out their tools simply stake them, whereafter they earn passive Trilium every time someone uses them to mine. Borrowers, meanwhile, get instant access to high-grade tools like the Mythical AI Excavator or Waxtural Processor, without buying them outright. Even better, the Tool Loaning system auto-selects the best rental for your current goal (maximum TLM, Shards, or a balance).
The introduction of the Worker Proposal System has been a welcome step towards greater decentralization. Instead of waiting for Galactic Hubs to green-light a project, anyone can pitch ideas directly to the Union DAOs, which can direct up to 25 percent of their mining reward pool toward community initiatives. With Custodians managing funds and Arbiters mediating disputes, ‘workers’ get to build whatever the community votes to finance.
Two other tools worth highlighting are MSIG Chat, an encrypted on-chain messaging and DAO managing tool for Custodians, and the open-source Unity Mobile SDK, which makes life easier for mobile game developers looking to create Alien Worlds-compatible content.
Games Galore
Battlefleet Armageddon is just one of several interlinked Alien Worlds games. The first multiplayer game built directly on Alien Worlds, it’s a fun mobile autobattler that integrates familiar NFTs and sets the scene for competitive strategy gameplay set in the cosmos. Featuring in-app purchases, exclusive packs for Alien Worlds NFT owners, and Trilium-powered advantages, it’s available on both iOS and Android.
Mercenary Battlegrounds, meanwhile, is a Steam-based tower defence game that, like Battlefleet Armageddon, offers ample opportunities to deploy both TLM and Alien Worlds NFTs. Catering to ultra-competitive strategists, the game’s developers have hosted several tournaments where TLM rewards are up for grabs.
Speaking of tournaments, mobile exploration game Milky Way Miner regularly hosts events to incentivize gameplay. At the time of writing, a five-week-long tournament will see 19,000 TLM will be distributed across all participants. Like the titles mentioned above, Milky Way Miner leverages Alien Worlds sci-fi lore: players are tasked with mobilizing a fleet of Khaured Mechs to drill the planets for Trilium. Earlier this year, permanent boosts were removed from Milky Way Miner to keep gameplay fair and balanced.
From rogue-like deck-builder Meta Battler to the browser games Outlaw Troopers and Planetary Defense, the Alien Worlds ecosystem offers ample opportunity to climb leaderboards, pocket rewards, and earn kudos from the fast-growing Web3 gaming community. Every one of these releases began as a community pitch before gaining the support of GHubs or the Union DAOs. It’s no wonder more developers are actively working on bringing projects to the metaverse.
Incidentally, the best place to stay abreast of the latest tournaments hosted by the above games and others is our socials.
A Bold New Era
Although the core mining game still welcomes new explorers every day, the myriad tools and spinoff releases are turning casual gamers into builders, governors, and competitors.
With the community busy writing the next chapter – both literally through Tokenized Lore and through general DAO participation – players can look forward to more gripping games, rewarding mining experiences, tool improvements, cross-platform integrations, and storytelling initiatives.
The era of decentralized worldbuilding has begun.