Many people have thought that when NFTs and games come together, it will create an unbeatably strong area of blockchain interoperability. Yet, even though many different Web3 gaming projects have had varying degrees of success, it seems that none of them has yet risen high enough to reach the ultimate goal of NFT stewards: widespread adoption. But should the blockchain gaming industry really try to get everyone to use it? Taking NFTs from the “niche” market to the “mainstream” market is a good goal that most Web3 people seem to agree with. But who are the real winners of this success? Aren’t games made so that people can have fun and be entertained? Let’s talk about the new uproar Tokenzied NFT minigames.

Some people seem to think so, as the recent rise in NFT minigames shows. Minigames are the simpler brother or sister of traditional games. They are made to be short and fun through their simplicity. Even though Dookey Dash by Yuga Labs is one of the most popular games in this growing market, it is not the only one trying to make minigames stick.

What’s a minigame?

Whether you play games for fun or are a true RPG fan, you’ve probably played a few minigames. Minigames have short play times and simple controls. They are often part of a larger video game or can be played on their own, like the old game cabinets you might have seen in an arcade.

It’s important to remember that NFT minigames, which are also sometimes called arcade games, don’t always follow strict rules. Minigames have been a part of larger games in the past, like the puzzles you have to solve in Final Fantasy. NFT minigames, on the other hand, are standalone games that are either hosted on the blockchain or powered by NFTs.

Who makes the NFT minigames?

Aside from Dookey Dash, which is an endless runner-style game that came out in mid-January and quickly became the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s new hot item, there are a few other notable NFT minigames that have gotten a lot of attention. Levels.art is one such project.

Levels.art

Levels.art is a new project from Jordan Lyall’s Web3 innovation studio Venture Punk and cyberh49, the founder of Animetas. It is an interactive platform for on-chain art where top artists drop exclusive collections of playable NFTs. For the first release of the platform on February 16, Levels and well-known Web3 creator Bryan Brinkman made a minigame called Cloud Poppers. It was made in Brinkman’s brightly coloured, cloud-themed style.

The art-focused pixel-art game Cloud Poppers comes in 100 different editions. It was released through a Dutch auction. Even though the Brinkman minigame collection is a great example of on-chain innovation, it is much more in line with the idea that entertainment is the most important thing than with the idea that NFT tourists should become purists. Lyall says that Levels is really all about having fun.

“I always try to do things that are fun for me. “Like, if it isn’t fun, why do it at all?” nft now talked to Lyall about what he had to say. Lyall was an experienced builder in the DeFi space, but when NFTs started to take off, he changed directions. He found that memes and creativity were a great way to create new ideas and fun.

We’re live! Minting 100 editions of @bryanbrinkman‘s Cloud Poppers.https://t.co/w0U6nShiA3

— LEVELS.𝘢𝘳𝘵 (@levelsdotart) February 16, 2023

He says that with Venture Punk, he wants to try new things with his projects. Levels is one of the first things to come out of the studio. “The idea is to have an arcade that isn’t in one place. He said, “I don’t want to use this example because I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to be better than you, but [Levels] is supposed to be like if Art Blocks and Chuck E. Cheese had a baby.”

Levels is a big deal for fans of fine artists like Brinkman and people who are interested in the slow rise of minigames in the NFT space. It also fills a niche that similar projects have created over the past few years. Before there were Levels, ArcadeNFT and Pl4y.art were the only places where you could play simple NFT games.

ArcadeNFT

When it came out on August 13, 2021, ArcadeNFT combined the fun of old arcade games with the ability to trade NFT. ArcadeNFT is a collection of interactive NFTs that focus on user experience and new ways to use tokens. Each of the project’s playable arcade games looks and feels like a classic game cabinet, but it is actually code on the Ethereum blockchain. The project began with a single release of a simple, playable pinball NFT. Since then, it has grown into a bigger collection of more than 12,000 NFTs and seven different games.

Pl4y.art

Pl4y.art came out on April 17, 2021, on the NFT marketplace Hic et Nunc, which is no longer in business. The series is made up of dozens of NFTs that are somewhere between interactive art and minigames. They were made by a mysterious artist and developer who goes by the name play.

unknown.exehttps://t.co/JKEF8inAlE pic.twitter.com/DdkN82FCZA

— play (@playnft) September 2, 2021

Even though play themself might want to call their releases interactive NFTs (like TheDudes), it makes sense to call many of their Pl4y projects minigames since their full-fledged interactive NFT game is unknown. Exe is more than just ArcadeNFT and Levels. Pl4y seems to be the most unique and well-made NFT minigame so far. It is on the Tezos blockchain, along with a number of influential generative pieces made by an anonymous creator.

Also, read – Top Five Features In NFT Games After Crash Of The Market

Where will NFT minigames go from here?

Other NFT minigame projects on the blockchain are not on this list. As the NFT space continues to develop, there will be more minigame projects. Each one will add a little more value to the slowly growing market sector and get more attention through the gaming charts on popular NFT marketplaces like OpenSea. But to say it again, AAA NFT games may still be the best in Web3 gaming, but projects in the minigame and arcade space seem to have set different priorities.

As Lyall pointed out, interoperability is often talked about as the holy grail of NFT gaming. This means being able to buy assets in one game and use them in a number of other games. However, there is still a long way to go before this becomes a reality. Lyall said, “There’s a lot we need to do before [AAA interoperability], and maybe even things that are more important than that.” “Think about what it would be like to own a level of your favourite game or a screen.”

For Lyall and Levels, this theoretical and detail-oriented iteration, which some might consider a lower level of development for a AAA game, deserves more attention and is what makes minigames fun. “If we keep trying new things and improving, I think we’ll come up with things that are only possible with blockchain technology and that none of us could have imagined,” he said. “At the end of the day, all we want to do is have fun with this technology and show what it can do.”