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

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