This Week in Crypto Games: 'Rumble Kong' to Ronin, 'Farm Frens' Airdrop Snapshot, AI Chess Battle

The crypto and NFT gaming space is busier than ever lately, what with prominent games starting to release, token airdrops piling up, and a seemingly constant array of other things happening at all times. It’s a lot to take in!

Luckily, Decrypt’s GG is all over it. And if you need a quick way to get caught up on the latest moves around crypto video games, we’re happy to present This Week in Crypto Games.

Our weekend roundup serves up the biggest news from the past week, along with a few other tidbits you might have missed. We also showcase a few of our original stories from the week.

Biggest news

Rumble Kong League drops Avalanche: Arcade-style basketball game Rumble Kong League had been building on Avalanche for some time, but no more: Last week, the developers announced that the game is shifting over to Ethereum sidechain network Ronin instead.

Recently released on iOS and Android, Rumble Kong League is extending its soft launch phase with rewards for Ronin wallet holders, ahead of the planned FAME on-chain token launch later this quarter.

Farm Fens snapshot: The developers of wholesome Telegram game Farm Frens and soon-to-launch strategy game Everseed announced a final snapshot date ahead of the token launch and airdrop. Set for Monday, January 20 at 3am UTC, players don’t have much longer now to secure their final boost to their airdrop allocation.

Specifically, the developers confirmed, airdrop allocations will be affected by the total historical amount of NUTS, DIRT, and DUNG that players have accumulated in Farm Frens. Plus, those holding NFTs related to the upcoming tower defense game Everseed are also accounted for in the snapshot—namely, the Everseed Ranger, Sprout, or Diddit NFTs. 

The token launch on Ethereum layer-2 network Base is set for sometime in January.

ChatGPT loses at AI chess: International Master Levy Rozman gathered some unlikely opponents for a chess exhibition this week: artificial intelligence chatbots. The tournament included the likes of ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and X's Grok. The results were a mixed bag of mostly decent opening moves followed by increasingly chaotic attempts to bend the game's laws.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT made it to the final after beating MetaAI and Copilot to face off with Stockfish, a model specifically designed to be a whiz at chess. Unsurprisingly, ChatGPT lost after Stockfish cornered its king.  

ICYMI

• Nostalgic gaming-themed Solana meme coin MLG is holding a $50,000 Call of Duty trickshot competition.
• Iconic video game Doom can now run in PDF files.
• Forgotten Runiverse held its "Crash the Runiverse" stress test last week.

• OpTic Gaming's Call of Duty esports legend Seth "Scump" Abner has his own content pack in crypto shooter Off the Grid.
• Japanese arena shooter Dark Machine launched its token on Thursday.
• Solana AI agent game Genopets announced that the upcoming ELITE token will be airdropped to GENE stakers.
• Metaverse platform Nifty Island announced that crypto AI agents will get their own world on the game.

• Crypto gaming content creator known as CryptoStache leaked an upcoming Off the Grid cyberlimb to be ‘Shockblockers’ that will deploy portable cover
• If you download Overwatch-style top-down shooter The Machines Arena on Steam, you get a free character skin.
• Jade City announced the launch of a new Telegram game called Flappy Jade, inspired by iconic mobile game Flappy Bird.
• The Immutable-based Cooking Norma: Burger IMXpress has launched on iOS and Android, with IMX, GRAM, and other rewards for players.

• The founder of crypto farming game Pixels released a 2024 metric overview of the game’s PIXEL token.
• AI agent game Monsters.fun launched its early access title.
• Berachain MMORPG BeraTone raised $2 million in a seed round led by Animoca Brands.
• Telegram sleeping game Sleepagotchi added a Bonk meme coin character into the game.
• Deadrop content creator Midnight Mayor released a short film inspired by the crypto shooter.

GG spotlight

Here are a few of our original stories from this past week that we think are well worth a weekend read:

Edited by Andrew Hayward