Launched in open beta last month, Nifty Island is one of the biggest crypto games of the moment. That’s in part because it delivers a compelling, crypto-infused take on Roblox and Fortnite’s Creative Mode, serving up creative tools and letting people build and play without spending a dime.
The other part of its appeal is the ISLAND airdrop ahead.
Nifty Island’s play-to-airdrop campaign has undoubtedly been key to its recent rise in attention, and the game’s co-founder Charles Smith recently joined Decrypt’s GG for a video interview to detail his mindset towards what he sees as a DeFi-inspired distribution of tokens that can serve as a “booster rocket” for the game’s adoption.
Smith also took the time to share a few tips for making the most of the current wave of the airdrop campaign, which is intentionally limited to people who own certain NFTs and whose wallets have some on-chain history.
Future waves may shift gears, but for now, Nifty Island is eager to avoid the “professionalized farmers”—people who, in his view, are just grinding and grinding to earn potential rewards without really enjoying the game experience.
Nifty Island Co-Founder on Why Play-to-Airdrop Is the Game's 'Booster Rocket'
Nifty Island co-founder Charles Smith joins Decrypt Culture Editor Andrew Hayward to discuss the game's play-to-airdrop campaign, why token incentives are so important to getting crypto games off the ground, and how the team plans to sustain its growth going forward.
You can watch the clip above to learn more about how Nifty Island is approaching token incentives and the play-to-airdrop campaign, or continue reading for recommendations on how to maximize your airdrop-centric efforts as you play the free PC game.
Do the challenges
Nifty Island’s daily challenges are there for a reason, Smith says. They’ll help encourage you to hop around and check out various worlds and games that people have created, but they also play into making progress in the game.
“Show up, do a few cool things a day, play some games, and complete your daily challenges,” he explained. “You'll get an outsized amount of Blooms for doing that.”
'Nifty Island' Is Already Better Than Most NFT Sandbox Games
Tired of voxel-style crypto games? Want a sandbox game that pays homage to your favorite NFTs—and lets you build your own custom island for free? Enter Nifty Island. Nifty Island has already made a splash among crypto gaming fans, many of whom are incentivized to check out the game because of its promised future airdrop where gamers could, basically, get free money in the form of tokens. But airdrops aside, Nifty Island is actually a good game given its current beta state, living up to my expect...
Play around
The world of Nifty Island is constantly expanding, since anyone can create and share their own worlds and playable games. That means you’ll potentially never run out of new things to see and play, and that’s good news—because you’ll make progress towards the airdrop by sampling various games. You won’t get endless benefits, but it pays to play.
“Play a lot of games up to some limit,” Smith said. “Eventually, there's diminishing returns. That's to avoid farming—and when I say farming, [it’s] the cynical kind of drudgery of farming that isn't really fun, right?”
Bring people in
If you’ve created a playable world in Nifty Island and you’re happy with the results, then why not share it widely? Not only might that be a fun and gratifying experience that can bring friends new and old into your world, but it will also pay off with play-to-airdrop progress.
Someone Recreated 'Diablo III' in NFT Game 'Nifty Island' Amid Airdrop Campaign
Diablo is coming to NFT game Nifty Island—but not officially. It’s all thanks to a pseudonymous AI game developer adding and shaping land based on the popular dungeon crawler “Diablo III.” A longtime fan of the Diablo franchise, pseudonymous island creator Dav said he was drawn to Nifty Island because of the ability to expand the creations continuously. Nifty Island just launched its open beta last week with a play-to-airdrop campaign enticing players to jump in. “Diablo III is my all-time favor...
Smith said to expect some enhancements in how social media sharing works around Nifty Island, calling it “one of the most important things” that they want to improve.
“If you really want to level up, [it’s about] sharing your island, getting foot traffic—like, create a really cool Island and host a lot of games,” he said. “In the future, that system is going to get deeply refined, like the way the island links are shared and why they're shared.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
