ChainHounds First Look – Play to Earn

In this ChainHounds first look we will cover this upcoming ‘Play-2-Earn’ Racing Game on the Ethereum Blockchain. We already have games with robotic horses in Pegaxy, chickens on Chicken Derby and now it is the time to race with mechanical Greyhounds.

That is right! Creativity does not stop in the web3 gaming space and, soon, players will be able to race with their Greyhounds in this post-apocalyptic world. But, since this is not a F2P game, users will have to buy one of the 8,200 NFT ChainHounds to be minted on Ethereum. According to their official website, the mint date and mint prices are still to be disclosed.

ChainHounds Gameplay

ChainHounds is a game identical to Zed Run, but instead of horses, players will be racing with ChainHounds. Every race will have eight Hounds competing for the prize and, only NFT holders can participate. If you are wondering then, yes, this is a simulator where players just watch and cheer for their Hounds. Accordingly to their website “You don’t need to be present for each race you join. Races don’t require any interaction on your part and you will be able to watch it any time later.”

Victory chances will depend on a blockchain algorithm (80%) and on hacks, levels, and upgrades (20%).

When joining a race players will have to wait until all eight participants have filled the lobby. Only then the race begins.

Hacks, levels, and upgrades

Each ChainHound will start at level 1. By participating in races, it will get experience that will make it get to the next level. Then, by getting to a higher level, ChainHounds will get a boost in their performance.

Then there are the upgrades. These are NFTs that will also give certain bonuses to ChainHounds, like the Propulsion system which might give a 5% speed bonus if a certain condition is triggered.

Last but not least, there are Hackz. ChainHounds can have one Hack equipped at a time and it can only be swapped after 24h. Hackz also have cooldowns that limit how often these can be used.

But remember, Hackz, upgrades, and levels will only affect 20% of the odds of winning a race.

“Play-2-Earn”

When it comes to tokenomics and earning rewards ChainHounds works in an identical way to Zed Run. Players will have to pay an entrance fee to participate in races (Wagering). There will be also some free races. Then, the top three positions will earn tokens in the following way:

• 1s place gets 50 tokens
• 2nd place gets 35 tokens
• 3rd place gets 15 tokens

The positive side of this system is that ChainHounds economy is self-sustained.

When it comes to the token it will be off-chain at first. Besides the races, players can also earn these as season rewards in a battle pass system. When it comes to their utility, these tokens can be used to:

• Purchase upgrade crates
• Purchase cosmetic crates
• Purchase hack crates
• Pay the entry fee for races with larger prize pools

Then these crates and items can be traded on secondary markets like Open Sea or Looksrare on the Polygon Blockchain. Players will mainly profit from trading these items.

Last Thoughts

Personally, I think that ChainHounds is at least two years late. The era of ‘Play-to-Earn’ simulators is over. Just take a look into Pegaxy, Zed Race, and Chicken Derby. Every one of these titles lost a large amount of its player base. Besides this, these project NFTs and Tokens lost all their value and are now worthless.

ChainHounds is exactly the same as the projects mentioned before, but instead of horses or chickens, players have Mechanical Hounds in a ‘Post-apocalyptic world’. The team should be rewarded with the Nobel Prize of Originality for their idea.

Last but not least, no one wants to ‘play’ a simulator. Or, let me rephrase this, no one wants to buy an NFT and pay a racing fee to ‘play’ a simulator ‘game’.