Is Town Star on Gala Games still a worthwhile play to earn game?
An analysis
I want to take moment to deliver my latest prognosis about Town Star. As I’ve said before, I love the game itself. It’s unique in that it’s essentially a cashflow simulator, as well as an efficiency puzzle game. You must develop your town using a limit amount of space to deliver the maximum amount of output. And, early on, you must maintain positive cashflow to keep your town running as you build.
In other words, the game in concept is a great one. I don’t agree with YouTuber Jauwn’s dismissal of the game. I don’t think he gave it nearly enough of a chance.
Despite my defense of the game concept, and that I still think it’s an excellent game, things are far from perfect in the land of farming. I thought I would take a second to lay out what I like and dislike about the game.
Good
Persistent town is now working: One of my biggest frustrations is the need to leave the game playing on your computer non-stop. As in, 24/7. Now, with the new Godot game engine version, you can have it auto update so you can actually turn the game off while your town runs. Good for the environment and your computer’s health.
Pretty easy to earn free NFTs: It’s actually pretty easy to earn free NFTs and Gala in their May Mayhem competitions (the very last one just finished up, so May is really just the start). Though it might be challenging to earn Gala coin awards, it’s usually pretty easy to place high enough to win free NFTs.
Game concept is unique: Most play-to-earn games are copies of other popular games (and frankly, usually poor ones). But I’ve never played a game like Town Star before, that’s like a cashflow business simulator. It’s why I keep playing it despite all the frustrations I’ve outlined below. Some of the team was involved in Farmville on Facebook back in the day, and I never played it so I don’t know how similar it is to Town Star, if at all.
Bad
Barely a beta game: I’ve revised my assessment of the new version of Town Star to “beta,” but just barely. What do I mean? First, it’s important to know Town Star, which has been around a couple of years now, has never not been in beta. A game people have been playing, and some people have spent thousands of dollars on, is still not fully released. When the team switched Town Star to the Godot engine, it became something closer to an alpha build, where a lot of things just didn’t work. Several things have been fixed, but some basic things like your items showing “sleeping” inconsistently persists. (Which is annoying because that’s one of the indicators that you haven’t set that item to do anything. ie your cakery isn’t producing cakes, etc).
Earn still not on: It’s been months since the Godot engine version was released and the ability to play and earn is barely being talked about. I think most assume it’s just gone for good, or they’ve decided to forget about it. It was supposed to coincide with the release of the Godot version, but Godot came out months ago.
What chain? Right now Gala has three wallets with each account: Galachain, Gyri and ETH. How they all interact and what does what is a complete mystery. It’s a hot mess. I have TOWN that I need to convert to Gala before the time runs out in September but it would cost me more in ETH fees to convert than the TOWN is worth, since I have to move it from one chain to another. So even when Earn turns back on, I’m not sure how worth it it will be. (Update: fees were low enough that I should have been able to convert. It doesn’t work. So I’m guessing that Town will just go bye bye.)
Over-priced NFTs: While I think the prices have come down a bit compared to the mania inspired by play-to-earn (funny how Gala officials back away from this now, like they never intended Town Star to be a play to earn game!). I still think they’re overpriced. An advanced fishing platform will cost you about $173, for instance. (Roughly a median-priced NFT.) This is for a game that’s barely in beta, remember.
Overall analysis
Basically, I do love the Town Star game as far as a game concept. As a web3 game, it fails in the way most web3 games do right now: there’s simply not enough incentive for developers to deliver a top-notch experience. With money already coming in for a game that’s not finished, the game just continues in a state of not being finished.
It’s too bad, because I think it might be a fun non-web3 game. I would actually pay a few bucks for items in-game to help me be more competitive. But as it stands, because of the communication issues and how poorly the game has been developed, I won’t be spending a cent on the game for the foreseeable future. Even though I find myself continuing to play it.