Crypto game aggregator and discovery platform Earn Alliance announced Thursday that it has launched Magic Muffins, a combat game playable through messaging platform Telegram.

Magic Muffins lets players create and customize a team of five muffin characters, then tap to battle and defeat various enemies while earning upgrades and rewards. Like other tap-to-earn games on Telegram, Magic Muffins will let players earn crypto rewards, with Earn Alliance’s ALLY token set to launch on October 10.

Earn Alliance said the game’s soft launch drew over 5,200 players, who averaged 10-minute play sessions. Players spent 1.3 million gold, Earn Alliance's in-game currency, plus 45,000 ALLY tokens were used to purchase chests.

Earn Alliance CEO Joseph “Coop” Cooper told Decrypt’s GG that the “viral growth and network effects” seen in the Telegram tap-to-earn boom remind him of the “golden era of Facebook games.” Furthermore, putting games within Telegram—an app preferred by many crypto builders and traders—provides significant crossover potential.

“In this case, it is the people leading the movement in blockchain technologies,” he said. “That kind of progress and attention is powerful, and we want to be a part of it.”

Magic Muffins is attempting to paint a target on leading Telegram game Hamster Kombat with the launch, with an announcement claiming that the game offers “better rewards and action than fighting rodents.” But that’s an ambitious bet, given that Hamster Kombat has amassed some 300 million players ahead of its HMSTR token launch ahead on September 26.

Editor’s note: This article was written with the assistance of AI. Edited and fact-checked by Andrew Hayward.

GG Newsletter

Get the latest web3 gaming news, hear directly from gaming studios and influencers covering the space, and receive power-ups from our partners.