High-frequency trading and gaming are two of the two leading focuses for Solana.

Last month, Solana Ventures and FTX created a $100 million investment fund for blockchain gaming. With the current growth of the blockchain gaming industry and metaverse narrative, their bet on games can have a big payout.

Many qualified teams have announced potentially good games on Solana. Today, I will share my three favorite picks from the recent launches.

Even before introducing the games and the details of NFTs, have you ever wondered why gaming projects launch only a limited number of NFTs?

It was quite understandable when JPEG artists sold around 10,000 unique NFTs. The number represented scarcity. However, wasn’t the purpose of games to onboard a large user base?

Gaming projects solve this dilemma by a simple yet powerful multiplication tool: breeding. As explained in our previous newsletter, games like Axie Infinity start with a limited number of NFTs, and users can breed them to mint new ones.

Thus, owning the ancestral spot in a lineage of a broad community will ideally give a lot of monetary benefits.

A tree diagram to explain the breeding process of NFTs. Source: researchgate.net

Another effective arrow in their quiver now is metaverse. Along with other items in the game, you can also own digital lands, which allows you to earn passive income based on the activities in the virtual space similar to the rake amount house earns for hosting Poker tournaments.

Given that we haven’t even seen quality games so far, one can only assume that the success of Axie Infinity earlier this year was a trailer to what clones of popular games can achieve. The Solana games that I am going to introduce today are.

The first game is: Photo Finish 2 

Photo Finish 2 is a digital horse breeding and racing game that will launch in 2022. It is built by the same team that developed Photo Finish (mobile) Horse Racing Manager, the mobile versions of the same game with over 13 million users. Their third version with NFTs for complete ownership in a digital pet game is only a natural evolution.

Moreover, the success of Zed Run on Ethereum stands as a testament with digital horses from the game selling for millions of dollars. The Photo Finish developing team brings experience from their earlier versions of the game with lifelike animation.

Photo Finish’s team conducted a drop of 10,000 Stylish Stud NFTs on Sept. 26 for 0.2 SOL each. These 10,000 Studs will form the first generation of horses in the racing game. Currently, the floor price of the NFT collection is 1.7  SOL ($314.50).

Stylish studs NFTs on sale. Source: digitaleyes.market

You can purchase these NFTs from Solana marketplaces like Digital Eyes, Magic Eden, or Solsea.io. Connect your Phantom wallet to either of the marketplaces to make the transaction. Make sure you have enough SOL tokens to pay for the NFT as well as for fees to complete the purchase.

As I mentioned before, the current Studs represent the first generation of horses from which new horses will be bred, allowing new players to join the game.

The team issued 5,000 units of the Fine Fillies (female horses) collection that needs to be paired with the Stylish Studs for breeding. Half of the Fillies were airdropped to Stud owners and the rest sold in a public mint.

You can purchase Fillies from the marketplace here. The floor price of Fillies is greater than Studs at 5.27 SOL.

The next game on my list is: Mini Royale: Nations

It is a browser-based shooting game that imitates the gameplay of popular brands like Counter Strike, and Fortnite.

Mini Royale’s development team, Faraway, raised $21 million last month in an investment round led by Lightspeed, FTX, Sequoia Capital, Pantera Capital, Jump Capital, Solana.

The open beta of the game is live with a time locked team-based battle mode with five players on each side. They have developed mini-versions of popular gaming modes like the Battle Royale from Fortnite.

After a few rounds of battles, I can testify that the gameplay is smooth. I also did not have a problem finding active online players.

Mini Royale gameplay. Source: miniroyale.io

The beta version does not include the monetary aspect just yet. That bit starts with NFT sales that are happening this week.

The first 2,500 items dropped in the pre-sale Monday for 0.69 SOL (worth $127.65 at current prices). The next NFT drop for 7,000 Mini-Royale NFTs will take place on Dec. 9 for the same price. Currently, the floor price of the NFTs is 1.8 SOL ($333).

In the future, NFT holders may also get airdrops of their in-game currency, CHEDDAR, and governance token, ROYALE, which will be launched in Q1 next year. They will also have land sales for their metaverse in the future.

How to participate: To participate in their NFT drop watch out for the countdown to begin on their website.

You can also purchase the ones on sale from the pre-sale drop on the marketplace here.

Connect your Phantom wallet to the Magic Eden marketplace, add SOL tokens to pay for fees and NFTs, and make the transaction.

As I mentioned earlier, the owners of these NFTs will be eligible for in-game token CHEDDAR airdrop, new NFTs representing weapons, and other specialized game items. Finally, they enable breeding of characters to form a Mutant with increased in-game ability and rarity.

Lastly, Nyan Heroes.

The word ‘Nyan’ comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia for a cat’s meow. Still, the gameplay has nothing to do with cats. The Nyan cat NFTs come inside a robot suit and will engage in a Battle Royale-style shooter game in the future.

Nyan Heroes NFTs on Solanart marketplace. Source: solanart.io

The Heroes will also provide special privileges to NFT holders, like a whitelist for IDO sales. The team recently launched an NFT Staking Expedition that will distribute $1.5 million in rewards to holders.

Last month, the team raised $2.5 million from notable investors in 3 Arrows Capital, Alameda Research, Yield Guild Games, and Merit Circle.

You can purchase Nyan Heroes NFT from the Solanart marketplace. Currently, the floor price for the 11,111 Nyan Heroes NFTs is 6 SOL. During the drop in October, the original minting price was between 3 SOL (worth $555) and 6 SOL ($1,110).

In the future, the Heroes will possibly allow breeding of new NFTs to accommodate fresh players. You can also benefit from the staking feature launched earlier this week.