The Solana Speedrun game jam is here again! Bringing yet another thrilling experience for blockchain game developers of all levels as well as enthusiasts. Speedrun 3 promises to redefine the landscape of onchain gaming, offering devs an amazing opportunity to showcase their skills and originality, and bring all their ideas to life. Starting from June 29 to July 5, 2024, get ready for the exciting, innovative, and adrenaline-filled experience that comes with Speedrun.
Solana Speedrun, is a virtual competition occurring yearly where developers build games from scratch in line with the provided theme of the competition. The theme is kept secret until the beginning of the competition, adding an air of surprise and challenging developers to think quickly and outside the box to craft unique and mind-blowing ideas and then execute them within the stated timeframe. The idea is to see how much diverse ideas can emerge from a single theme in such a short timeframe.
Asides the main track, which is according to the theme, there are also special tracks sponsored by reputable companies offering cash and other rewards for the best implementation of their tech in your game.
While Speedrun is a virtual event, there are in-person game jams hosted all around the world by supporting communities for teams to gather and work together, get support from mentors and experts and generally just have a great time. However this is not a requirement and you’re welcome to participate from the comfort of your home. Whichever you prefer! As long as you have a playable game at the end of the competition that reflects the theme and isn’t a previous idea that’s been recycled (seriously, don’t do that), you have a clear shot!
A clear shot at winning what?
The prize pool for Speedrun is vast! Additionally, multiple entries are permitted as long as they are all unique. This also means that your game(s) can be eligible for prizes in both the main track and special tracks if they meet the requirements. The main track offers the following rewards:
- $5k to the game in first place
- $3k to the game in second place
- $2k to the third place
While games that qualify for the special tracks have a chance of winning prizes from the track sponsors. The special tracks for Speedrun 3 are sponsored by:
- GameShift: GameShift provides a well documented API that allows devs to create a user-friendly and Web2-like game experience for users by simplifying the process of integrating blockchain features into your game with little blockchain expertise and without all the development costs and risks. GameShift is offering a $40k prize pool in USDC and credits for the best games that use the GameShift API.
- Civic: Civic allows devs to implement a verification and access management system by verifying users’ wallets through Civic’s Identity Verification Services. The prize for the Civic track is $5k USDC pool for the best 3 games to efficiently integrate permisioning using Civic Pass — its tokenized identity management toolset.
- Metaplex: Metaplex is a protocol on Solana that reduces the effort needed for the creation and management of digital assets with a keen focus on NFTs. The 3 games that best leverage Metaplex core will share a prize pool of 50k $MPLX tokens.
- Honeycomb: Honeycomb protocol, built on Solana, provides a suite of tools that streamlines and simplifies the on-chain game development process for devs. There is a prize pool of $600 USDC for the top 3 games that leverage the Honeycomb protocol.
- Turbo: Turbo allows anyone to create a game that can run on anywhere within a short period. The prize for this track is $1k for the best game built with Turbo.
- Sonic: Sonic is an SVM L2 on Solana. Sonic offers a prize pool of $6k to the best games deployed to the Sonic testnet.
Tl;dr an opportunity to showcase your abilities, improve your skills, and win prizes and interesting opportunities.
Vietnam is fast becoming a key player in the global gaming market with about $507 million generated in revenue last year. With our vibrant gaming community, these figures are only expected to keep growing with time. The blockchain gaming space is fast-growing as well, mostly as a result of gamers pivoting to play games that generate real-world value to them.
Why build on-chain games then? Building games on-chain improves the gaming experience as a whole. You get enhanced security, true ownership of assets; which is a major problem in off-chain games, and transparency; since game actions are securely recorded to prevent cheating. In addition, users have a chance to participate in how the game is governed. So basically you get to build games that promote community engagement, have value to both the developers and the gamers, and games that people actually want to play.
Solana comes in as a blockchain that offers all the features to make your game more exciting: a highly scalable platform, low transaction costs, secure and transparent transactions, and lots more. And what better time to build your game on Solana than during Speedrun? Connect with like-minded people and industry experts, develop your skills, get the support you need, push the boundaries of your creativity, gain recognition from investors and stakeholders, and of course, win amazing prizes!
While the theme of this Speedrun has not yet been revealed, here are a few ideas to get you warmed up and boost your creative juices.
- Fantasy Sports League: Everyone loves fantasy football, or maybe that’s just me. Now imagine a fantasy sports game where athletes are represented by NFTs whose values increase with the athlete’s real-life value and players can earn additional tokens based on the performance of their chosen athletes. Civic pass can be implemented here to manage access to premium features and tournaments.
- NFT Battle Royale: A multiplayer battle royale game where players use NFT characters each with unique abilities and stats to compete against each other. Players also get to own and trade their NFTs on a marketplace. Here, you can use Metaplex to create, and manage the NFT characters.
- Celebrity Quiz and Task games: An engaging game where players answer quizzes about their favourite celebrities and complete various tasks, such as posting on social media, streaming songs, or watching videos. Each successful quiz or task completion rewards players with unique NFT cards of the celebrities. These NFT cards which can be traded, unlock special opportunities such as concert tickets, meet-and-greet sessions, and exclusive merch.
- Virtual worlds: Create simulations of real-life places where players can explore to find hidden treasures particular to those places. These treasures may then be minted as NFTs and can be traded on a marketplace. Use Civic pass to manage access to high-level arenas.
- Basic combat games: Players can upgrade their warriors with unique weapons and abilities, all represented as NFTs, unlock various arenas and enjoy both PvP and PvE game modes. Integrate the Gameshift API into your game to enable these features.
First, head on to the Speedrun website to register and join the linked discords to join/form a team (if you don’t have one), and so you don’t miss out on anything. Next, familiarize yourself with the provided resources for building games on Solana. Additionally, you can check out the listed special tracks on the Speedrun website to find more resources on how to use their tech.
Once you’ve completed all of these steps, all you have to do is wait for the competition to start and get building!
Don’t forget to have fun and Good luck!
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