SteemKnights For The Win?? (Battle Video, Game Rundown & Honest Review)
SteemKnights is the brand new kid on the Steem block(chain). Read my honest review and watch how the game is played and free Steem can be earned as I walk you through the game.
It's been all over Steem(It) these last couple of days. The brand new SteemKnights game is the latest hype. It is announced as 'The first ever 3D mobile multiplayer game on the Steem blockchain!'.
One of its strengths is probably just that: it can be played on both Android and IOS devices, as well as on your PC. Also, it has a free-to-play version, so you can get to know the game without having to invest a single penny.
The game only went live earlier today, and I did read about some bugs (like people not being able to play on an older laptop), but personally, I didn't run into trouble.
How To Play
When I first read the rules, I wasn't sure I was going to get the game. It is being compared with chess, and since I don't play chess - I'm awful when it comes to strategy games - I thought it would be a disaster. Fortunately, there's also a lot of luck involved. I've only played 5 battles, but I managed to win 3 of them. If I can do it, I'm sure you can too.
Now,... to get started, you need to sign up for the game using SteemConnect.
Once logged in, click the 'Play Now'-button and in the bottom menu, select your preferred way of playing.
Once logged in, you'll land on the SteemKnights start screen, which allows you to read through the tutorial, or start a free-to-play battle.
I'm not going to copy the tutorial in here. It's all pretty straight-forward. (You can watch the video at the top to see how to game is played.)
In short:
- Click one of your knights to turn it into your King. You need to protect your King. Once your opponent gets to your king, you've lost the game.
- Click a knight again to set your trap. When one of your opponent's knight steps on your trap, he is killed instantly. (You can't detect a trap when you're playing - it is disguised as a knight).
Neither your King and your trap can't be moved.
- When the game starts, you and your opponent will take turns. In a turn, you can move a knight one field at a time. You do so by clicking it, then clicking the field you want your knight to go to. Available fields are highlighted, so it's a bit of a no-brainer. You have 30 seconds to decide what you want to do.
- If there's a knight of the other team at an accessible field, you can attack it.
- Fights are determined by the sort of weapon the knights carry. This is either a sword, a bow or a magic wand. The fights are fought according to the rock-paper-scissors - system:
Sword defeats bow Bow defeats magic wand Magic wand defeats sword
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The catch is that you can't see which weapon the opponent's knight is carrying, until it has at least fought once. That's the 'luck' factor.
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If two knights carry the same weapon, you will get to see a popup in which you need to choose a new weapon. You need a little luck to pick the weapon that can kill your opponent's knight.
- The player that get's to the other one's King first, wins the game.
How To Earn Steem?
We wouldn't be on the Steem blockchain if there wouldn't be a way to earn free crypto with the game, right?
There are multiple ways to earn Steem by playing SteemKnights.
The most obvious way is by wagering Steem.
In your profile, you can find a 'deposit'-button. You first need to use that to deposit a couple of Steem.
I started with depositing 5 Steem.
You'll need to enter your private active key into SteemConnect to make the transaction go through.
Once you've deposited some Steem, you get to select how much you want to bet on the start screen.
What you and your opponent wager will be put in the battle pot. if you win, you will get he battle pot -10%, which is taken by the developers of the game.
Next way to earn: the loyalty bonus.
The game says:
For each battle fought, whether you come forth victorious or not, you will receive 1% Loyalty up to a maximum of 120%. With a Loyalty value of 120% you will receive 20% more Steem on your next payout. If you don't find the time to fight for your kingdom you will lose 1% Loyalty per day!
Not entirely clear to me, but it's obviously a way to get people to play daily. My best guess is that - if you want to optimize your earnings - you have to battle 120 games a day to get that 20% bonus.
Update: You can read more about the Steemknights reward system in this post.
Third way: **revenue sharing**.
The game will share 20% of their daily revenue with players. How much you receive depends on what is called 'your Knight Emblems share'. To be honest, this is still a mystery factor for me. Maybe you can figure out what is meant...
And then last but not least: referring other players.
As you can read above, you will receive 10% of the Knight Emblems every one of your referrals collects on a potted battle. As for anything, the more active referrals you have, the more you'll earn.
This being said, if you haven't got an account yet, I would be very grateful if you would want to sign up through my referral link **here*.
Review
Now, I don't have a while lot of experience yet. At the time of writing, I played like 5 games.
However, I can share my initial impression with you.
I can see how this game can be addictive. The elements of skill and luck come together nicely. Even if strategy is not one of your strengths, you can win battles - since you don't know which weapon your opponent's knight will have.
Also, for now, it seems to be fairly easy to earn some extra Steem. I started with 5 Steem, wagered 1 Steem in 3 battles, and have 10.6 Steem in my in-game wallet. It looks like I'll get an extra 2.419 Steem at the end of this day, I assume that's because of my collected Knight Emblems.
*Update: apparently, I deposited 10 Steem instead of only 5. My mistake.
I say 'for now', because we all know how Drugwars turned out, don't we?! So I'm still a little cautious when it comes to earnings.
As for the game and graphics... sigh... yes, you can call me spoiled.
I'm a dedicated Steemmonsters player, and I kinda miss the awesome graphics, but mostly the speed and the adrenaline that game brings me.
Also, it took the game almost 5 minutes to find me an opponent. I assume this waiting time will be reduced once more players will jump on board. (I cut the waiting part from the video.)
As you can see in the game video at the top of this post, a SteemKnights battle takes almost 12 minutes.
Thanks to the habit of playing SM, I get bored easily. Halfway through a Steemknights battle, I get bored to death and all I wish for it is to be over.
But hey, that's just me. I assume not everyone is such an adrenaline junkie as I am, lol.
Honestly, if you're into strategy games, you will probably like it.
I'll definitely give it some more of my attention. LMAO... I wanted to say: 'when I get bored of Steemmonsters', but that is like... never. :0)
All I can say is: check it out, and decide for yourself whether you like it or not. And remember: don't invest anything you can't afford to lose!!
Graphic created with The Logo Creator Software
