The 2024 GAM3 Blockchain Game Awards have been announced, with “Off The Grid” winning Game of the Year (GOTY)!
Last year, foreign blockchain game media “GAM3.GG” announced the 2024 GAM3 Game Awards, which were jointly judged by over 70 professional judges from the traditional gaming and blockchain gaming fields, including representatives from giants such as Amazon, Google, Samsung, and Ubisoft.
The judging process adopted a mechanism where 90% of the votes came from the judges’ votes and 10% from community voting. The “People’s Choice” and “Best Content Creator” awards were completely determined by community voting.
In this selection, “Off The Grid” swept four major awards, including the most important Game of the Year Award (TGA). “Parallel” closely followed with three awards, while “Pixels” and “Pirate Nation” each won two honors.
Here is the complete list of winners:
Best Fighting Game: Champions Ascension
Best Art Direction: Moonfrost
Best Web Game: Pirate Nation
Best Mobile Game: Fableborne
Best Role-Playing Game: Big Time
Best Strategy Game: Parallel
Best Action Game: Off the Grid
Best Casual Game: Pixels
Best Sports Game: Sparkball
Best Adventure Game: Ravenquest
Best Card Game: Parallel
Best Shooter Game: Off the Grid
Best Content Creator: YellowPanther
Best Full-Chain Game: Pirate Nation
Best Ecosystem: Ronin
Game Developer’s Choice: Wildcard
Best Esports Game: Parallel
Best Multiplayer Game: Off the Grid
Player’s Choice: Pixels
Most Anticipated Game: MapleStory N
Game of the Year: Off the Grid
The winners of the 2024 GAM3 Blockchain Game Awards, comprising 21 awards, have been announced.
Introduction and Evaluation of the Winners of Best Web3 Game Award
The aforementioned award-winning blockchain games have been introduced and reviewed by “GAM3.GG.” Here is a summary by “Cryptocity”:
1. Game of the Year, Shooter, Action, and Multiplayer Game: “Off the Grid”
“Off the Grid” is a battle royale game directed by Neill Blomkamp, the director of “District 9” and “Elysium.” The game combines stunning visual effects with rich narrative content, perfectly integrating tactical shooting, survival, and exploration elements.
“Off the Grid” has released an early access version, offering a 60-player battle mode where players can form teams of three. The game features an innovative “cybernetics” system that allows players to customize different leg and arm attachments, each with unique abilities.
Although it is currently in early access and has some optimization issues, the game’s overall performance and potential have received unanimous recognition from the judges.
2. Most Anticipated Game: “MapleStory N”
“MapleStory N,” developed by Nexpace, a subsidiary of NEXON, is a MapleStory Universe game that inherits the 2D art style and gameplay features of the classic “MapleStory.”
The game retains core gameplay mechanics such as endless monster hunting, job systems, and guild socialization, while introducing an NFT system. The game’s story revolves around the search for MapleStory heroes, and players can choose different career development paths.
“MapleStory N” integrates a gas-free NFT forging system and introduces an economic system that removes cash shops, allowing players to fully immerse in the game world. The game is scheduled to be released in the first half of 2025.
3. Best Strategy Esports and Card Game: “Parallel”
“Parallel” is an NFT trading card game (TCG) developed by a team with experience in developing multiple AAA games. The game is set in a world where humans return to Earth after a disaster caused by excessive resource exploitation, engaging in a battle for their homeland after ten thousand years.
“Parallel” has received praise for its exquisite card design and deep strategic gameplay. Each card has voice acting and carefully designed animation effects, and the combat system is well-balanced, providing players with a wealth of strategic choices.
4. Best Casual Game and Player’s Choice: “Pixels”
“Pixels” is a pixel art-style farming simulation game with over 900,000 players. It adopts a free-to-play model, allowing players to own their land and engage in farming. The development team includes developers from well-known game companies such as Gamehouse and Ubisoft.
The main gameplay of the game is resource collection, farming, and item crafting. Players can cultivate on other players’ land through the sharing mechanism, and landowners can receive resource sharing. The game’s pixel art style and sound effects are of a certain standard, but there is room for improvement in the beginner’s guidance system.
5. Best Web and Full-Chain Game: “Pirate Nation”
“Pirate Nation” is a web-based game with a pirate theme, where players need to control an island and recruit pirate crew members. The game is built entirely on the blockchain and adopts an innovative gas-free transaction system, making the game interaction fast and smooth.
The game features a pixel art style, and players can accept challenges and rewards through the mission bulletin board, build their ships, and participate in sea adventures. The game also includes world events such as monster attacks, allowing players to cooperate against common threats.
6. Best Fighting Game: “Champions Ascension”
“Champions Ascension” is set in the Massina theme park metaverse, where players’ heroes come from different worlds and battle to conquer the Eternal Arena. The game is currently in the testing phase, offering a variety of mini-games and PvP arena combat systems.
The game includes various interesting mini-games, such as crab races and dice battles. The arena combat system is well-designed, with characters from different backgrounds having mutual restraints, adding strategic depth to the battles.
7. Best RPG Game: “Big Time”
“Big Time” is a multiplayer cooperative RPG game that combines fast-paced action combat, NFT collection elements, and an adventure story spanning history. The game emphasizes teaming up with friends to explore procedurally generated dungeons.
The game offers a rich NFT looting experience, although the distribution mechanism is relatively random. Players can expand and personalize their bases through the time machine system, while the SPACE NFT system provides rich gameplay features and practicality.
Although the monster spawning process in the game can feel repetitive, it still provides a relatively complete multiplayer cooperative RPG experience in the context of Web3 games.
8. Game Developer’s Choice Award: “Wildcard”
“Wildcard” is a 1v1 competitive game where players use deck-building abilities and in-game skills to defeat opponents. The game is currently in the testing phase, offering two selectable heroes: Bolgar & Burr from the Nature faction, and Locke and his mechanical dog Wotchy from the Tech faction.
The game’s visual effects and mechanics are excellent, with each hero having unique skills and summon combinations. The development team revealed plans to introduce a 2v2 mode and innovative features such as audience interaction in the future.
9. Best Sports Game: “Sparkball”
“Sparkball” (formerly Edenbrawl) is a MOBA-style sports game that completely redesigned the UI and art style, transforming the originally dark world into a bright and lively arena. The game features a top-down perspective and 5-player team-based competition, with the main objective being to seize the ball and score in the opponent’s end zone.
The game offers 8 unique hero characters, each with their own special abilities. The NFT system does not affect game balance and is mainly used for collecting and showcasing in the community.
10. Best Adventure Game: “Ravenquest”
“Ravenquest” is a highly freeform MMORPG that features a unique job system, allowing players to choose 3 combinations from 8 prototypes to create 56 different career combinations.
The game offers 10 professional skills, including blacksmithing, carpentry, and weaving, forming a complete player-driven economy system. Through the NFT system, players can own in-game assets such as estates, mounts, and ships.
11. Best Mobile Game: “Fableborne”
“Fableborne” is a mobile game that combines base building and raiding gameplay. Players strategically place defense towers and monsters to protect their islands while choosing three heroes for raid battles.
The game’s feature lies in randomly generated island terrains that affect the difficulty of defense. It offers rich upgrade options for tower defense and hero systems. Although there are some balance issues at higher levels, it provides a deep strategic experience for mobile players overall.
12. Best Art Design: “Moonfrost”
“Moonfrost” is a simulation game similar to “Harvest Moon” and “Stardew Valley.” The core gameplay revolves around tending to a farm and growing better crops, with multiple customization options for decorating the farm. Players can also enjoy the fun of farming and earning in-game tokens.
“Moonfrost” stands out in terms of art design and sound performance. Even with pixel art-style graphics, the detailed environments enhance the overall gaming experience.
The GAM3 Blockchain Game Awards ceremony attracted 48,000 simultaneous online viewers and surpassed 450,000 total views within the first 24 hours, setting a new record. The event also showcased trailers for several upcoming blockchain games, including “Golden Tides,” “Unfettered,” and “Elumia.”
This year, the total prize pool for the GAM3 Awards has increased to $5 million, with grants, product services, and marketing support provided by partners such as AWS, XAI, and Thirdweb. In terms of community voting, over 143,000 players participated, with a total of over 1 million votes cast, generating over 60 million impressions on social media.
“GAM3.GG” stated that the GAM3 Game Awards, held for four consecutive years, has become the most influential annual event in the Web3 gaming industry, showcasing the promising development prospects of the blockchain gaming industry. This year, the GAM3 Blockchain Game Awards are expected to be held again in November.
This article is authorized to be reprinted from “Cryptocity.”
