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Our competitive advantage is that nobody else is mentally ill enough to write about NFT drops every day of the year.

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

This is actually cool

Context

Sammybauch.eth launched a unique gen-art game called Speedtracer this week that coincides with a 366-supply mint on January 18 priced at 0.0875 ETH each. 

The mint is launching on highlight, on the Base L2 chain. 

Our take

We are gathered here today to discuss Speedtracer, a niche fully onchain browser game with only 200 Twitter followers. 

For the record, I’m not doing this because I’m some sort of onchain brooklyn hipster that glorifies indiecore projects over anything mainstream. 

I’m covering Speedtracer because:

1. it uses NFTs in a really interesting way 

2. it’s a great example of onchain gaming, with all its virtues and flaws 

3. it’s free to play

TLDR on Speedtracer 

Speedtracer is the latest project from sammybauch.eth and was launched as part of Optimism Foundation’s We ❤️ The Art contest

It is both a long-form generative art collection and a game. 

The art

The racetrack visuals are admittedly bland, but the real ingenuity is under the hood.

Sammy uses a series of rule-based instructions to create cohesive tracks (think: a highly technical “connect the dots” technique) and does so in a way that makes it fully composable.

For a full rundown of the algorithm and math involved, check out Sammy’s really in-depth overview here. 

The game

The game itself is a free and extremely simple game that works across desktop and mobile and doesn’t require any logins or downloads. Completely frictionless. 

You play by dragging your mouse or finger across a racetrack as fast as you can without touching the walls. A leaderboard shows the best times, and new records can be added by minting your saved time as an NFT for roughly $2 (this is optional). 

Every day a new generative racetrack is selected and all players compete on the same track, with leaderboards refreshing daily. 

But here’s where things get really interesting: 

Track ownership

On January 18, people will have the chance to mint the 366 racetrack NFTs that will be used for the game throughout Season 1. 

So you can buy a racetrack which, at some point this year depending on your id number, will show up as the daily track that everyone plays on. 

Why is this cool? A few reasons: 

1. You can customize the track. Add your own background art, change the track layout, make it as easy or difficult for other players as you want. 

2. You can get sponsors. Monetize attention by adding a brand logo on your track (for example, see PartyDAO’s sponsorship today). 

3. You get half of ALL fees on that day. You’ll automatically receive 50% of the mint fees whenever someone logs their score while playing on your track. 

In other words, the NFTs are customizable art pieces that double as yield-bearing assets, all working autonomously via smart contracts. 

Bottom line 

I really like the incentive design behind Speedtracer. It uses speculation but does it in a way that doesn’t bog down the game or limit any fun – which is rare. 

The racetrack NFT shenanigans are all happening in the background, isolated and out of sight from the typical user who just wants to drag their finger across their screen for a few minutes at their bus stop. 

Holders and creators are aligned with the same incentive: make the game grow. But not in a way that uses players as exit liquidity or makes false speculative promises to promote a pump-and-dump in disguise. 

Here everyone can coexist in harmony, with holders focusing on gains if they want, and players focusing on fun. More games should do this! 

Unfortunately, it’s not all positive. Speedtracer already shows signs of perhaps the biggest challenge that all onchain games will face: bots. 

It’s obvious that people are already botting their scores, even though it’s super low stakes. Like, I’m no pro at this, but I’m pretty sure the human hand can’t trace around one of these tracks in 0.01 seconds (which I saw on yesterday’s leaderboard). 

I don’t know how game creators will get around this. But if it’s happening here, then you can imagine how severe it’ll be when players have even more to gain.

While I’m not sure this will fully sell out on Base, adding it to the Top 25 because I personally like it and will probably mint one… and that’s the way the list works sometimes.

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨

NOTE: These drops are lightly curated. Our only requirement is that they have recognizable founders. As usual, DYOR. To learn more go here.

ScheduledProgramming by Frank Manzano

One of the best-selling artists in Fellowship’s various AI art initiatives, Frank Manzano, will make his Verse debut today with the 30-supply ScheduledProgramming.

These AI videos showcase Manzano’s distinctive and polarizing style, featuring bizarre urban scenes that extravagantly highlight modern life’s afflictions, this time focusing on the role of media in American excess culture.

As always, you can expect some well-seasoned, deep-fried schizo delirium vibes from some of these pieces, perfect for enjoyooors of this aesthetic.

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨

PixelPals

Pixelmon is back with a new hypercasual mobile game PixelPals, which follows their first release late last year, the flappy-esque Kevin the Adventurer.

While details are still scant, we know a couple of things about PixelPals:

• It’ll be on the Mantle L2

• It features some sort of tamagotchi-like pet system (pets = Pals), alongside base building, a card game and P2E mechanics

• There will be items that grant in-game boosts, like these Pioneer Boxes (not an NFT)

LALIGA NFT

Fantasy Fútbol is heating up as we just got some officially cosigned La Liga NFTs coming.

These will be part of an upcoming title developed by GameOn, a studio focused on web3 fantasy games since its founding in 2018.

And it looks like they’re on a roll: they have an ongoing collaboration with the PFL and just late last November announced a round of grant funding from Arbitrum.

Vamos!