As part of the Gala Games strategy to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the blockchain space while also supporting grassroots indie game development studios, we are happy to present for your consideration the next game to join our ecosystem: FASTR!
Over the past weeks, many of you have had the opportunity to play FASTR, teaming up against one another and experiencing a truly early-alpha experience.
Project Name: FASTR
Game Developer: Melbourne Interactive Studios (MI Studios)
Genre: 5v5 Tactical First Person Shooter
Node Drop Mechanism: Up to 8.5% of all NFTs/Tokens Dropped to Node Operators based on the number of nodes online (More Nodes = Heavier Drops)
While no token is currently planned, in the event that a token is developed for FASTR, Node Operators would also receive a drop of this native token. In this event, there would also be a pool set aside for the future development of game specific nodes, though this will in no way impact the Founder’s Node reward pool in a negative way.
Release Date: Alpha early access release estimated to be early Q2–2022
Description: Welcome to FASTR, choose your operator and jump into objective based tactical action. FASTR is aiming to be the first competitive first person shooter available on the Gala Games Network. Each operator offers new ways to play and approach the battlefield with communication and teamwork as the key to a successful mission. Tap into your arsenal and handle a wide range of weapons and attachments to rain hellfire on your foes! FASTR features beautifully rendered maps with immersive and interactive elements, built from both painstakingly handcrafted assets and real world photogrammetry.
Part of the warehouse beta test map from FASTRNew Freight map (in development).
Conservatorship Funding
FASTR will become the first game put up for vote to be funded from the Gala Games Conservatorship funds. This process will be done by Founder’s Node owners using consensus voting that will determine if funds can be released to the developers.
Regardless of the outcome, the significance of this vote will help pave the way for grassroot indie game development studios to receive funding to complete their games all while being done in a decentralized manner.
Potential Voting Options
Question: Should FASTR be funded $1m USD from the Gala Games $100m Game Development Fund and be given an opportunity to be included in the Gala Games Ecosystem?
YES — A vote for funding FASTR and including it in the Gala Games Ecosystem
NO — A vote against funding and including FASTR in the Gala Games Ecosystem
ABSTAIN — A vote showing no preference
To Vote: Open your Gala Game Node Software (PC/Mac) and click on the “Voting” tab
Voting Duration: The Node Vote will run from 12pm PT on Sunday, October 31st 2021 until 11:59 AM PT on Monday, November 1st 2021.
Requirement to Pass: Simple Majority of Votes Cast
Derek Attler was a simple man. He worked his land, he feared the Lord, and he loved his Gloria. His farm was a modest little piece of the countryside, not so low that it would flood in the rainy season or high enough to get bit by the spring gusts. It nestled nicely right into the plains on a little hill, Derek’s own picturesque patch of paradise.
He loved his horses almost as much as he loved his Gloria. They were well fed and well cared for. Derek used to go riding with Gloria, she on her brown spotted Appaloosa, Gerty, and Derek on the jet black Arabian that he called Midnight. They’d spend whole evenings out meandering and watching the fireflies, reminiscing about the old days when their love was young.
Derek grew what he could on his land and he was good at it, but nothing was ever big enough for him. He envied the local boys who took home the blue ribbons from the county fair for their gigantic and perfectly shaped squash, melons and pumpkins, and he swore one day he’d grow something bigger than they’d ever seen. Gloria used to laugh at what she called his pumpkin dreams, saying “pretty big’ll get you there, long as there’s enough to share.” Gloria always had a way with words.
On a terrible stormy night one December, the Lord took Gloria suddenly and quietly in her sleep. Derek was never quite the same after that. His fear of the Lord turned overnight into bitter resentment. He still had his horses and his land, but no one with whom to enjoy his patch of paradise. To pass his remaining time, Derek set out to accomplish the one dream he had left: To win the blue ribbon at the county fair.
Derek decided on pumpkins to go for the prize. He had always been fond of the way they grow, and the fall was his favorite time of year. He made a vow to himself that he’d grow the biggest pumpkin not only in the county, but in the world. He knew it would be tough, but he didn’t care. Darik spent years practicing and failing, growing pumpkins that didn’t quite cut it. Some were misshapen and others were too small. Some had worms and others’ lives were cut short by garden sabotaging varmints who came in the night.
At the local feed store, Derek bragged to the local boys whenever they’d listen about the pumpkin he would make before long, how big and glorious it would be, how it would show them all. Sometimes they’d laugh in his face and call him Ol’ Pumpkinhead, a name that cut to his soul like the edge of a dull and rusty scythe. He’d walk away grumbling with his pumpkin seed pouch in hand, fantasizing about rolling over them with his combine, crunching straw hats, moustached faces and overalls into a ghastly fertilizer that would finally make his pumpkins grow the way he wanted. Five years after Gloria’s death, Derek was a bitter and broken man.
One day in late summer an afternoon hailstorm came out of nowhere and decimated Derek Attler’s pumpkin crop when he had been sure this was his chance to win the ribbon. The hail broke the vines beyond repair, and there in the sloshy muddy aftermath, Derek fell to his knees and cried the salty and stinging tears of a defeated man. He pounded the pumpkins with his fists, he threw them into the air. He smashed them open on one another and watched the undeveloped guts spill out onto the muddy ground. He kept at it like a madman for ten or twenty minutes, until his muscles burned and he could barely lift the damn things. Finally stepping back and surveying the destruction of his favorite garden, he felt a glimmer of giddy satisfaction.
This was it for Derek Attler. Without his pumpkins, he had nothing left. Since Gloria died, everything good in his life had vanished. If he could just win the godforsaken blue ribbon at the county fair, then Derek could leave this world. But how could he do it? He went over to visit his horses, who had been curiously watching his tantrum from the fence line. They were the only friends he had in the world and maybe they could bring him some comfort and reassurance, the way Gloria used to do. Ol’ Midnight just nodded and whinnied toward the driveway, where a rickety horse-drawn wagon was approaching with a hunched old driver and a small covered load.
The driver pulled to a stop not far from where Derek stood, and there he waited motionless. Midnight took off like he was spooked by something unseen and ran to the other corner of his yard. Derek started to make his way toward the stranger and his wagon.
The wagon looked like it came from a different time, like it had been through the storm of the century and in some places, like it had been on fire more than once. The horse pulling the wagon was a majestic creature, blacker than Midnight. It stamped and dragged its hooves on the ground like it was in a hurry to carry the dark stranger off to other important business.
The stranger was old, older perhaps than anyone Derek Attler had ever seen. The old man cleared his raspy throat and Derek’s heart skipped a beat. He suddenly found himself afraid and wished he was holding a weapon. Still he continued approaching the old stranger, his curiosity taking complete control. The cloaked old man turned and looked at Derek. His face was wrinkled as the stones at the quarry and almost a solid shade of white. His eyes were bloodshot to the point of almost pure redness. His mouth opened into a painfully wide grin, revealing several missing teeth. The man slowly reached out a vile and bony hand toward Derek Attler, looking for a shake.
A handshake was everything where Derek was from, and he wasn’t about to shy away from this one. Hoping the old man didn’t have some contagious leprosy, he reached out and clasped the white hand. Firm shake, his daddy had always said. When Derek clasped this hand, he swore he felt bones cracking beneath his grip, but the old man revealed no pain or discomfort.
The stranger spoke his name simply in a voice that would haunt Derek’s dreams for decades. “They call me Scratch,” he said.
“Wagon’s worse for the wear I see,” Derek replied to Scratch, attempting to break the old man’s awful gaze. It didn’t work. Scratch laughed and coughed, but kept staring with his piercing red eyes deep into Derek. “Alright,” he said, “what you got for me old man?”
“Pumpkin seeds,” said Scratch. “But not just any pumpkin seeds. These are the pumpkin seeds you been waitin’ for boy.”
“Alright,” said Derek. “I figure one of the guys from the feed store put you up to this. I’ll take your damned pumpkin seeds. How much?”
There was a pause that lasted a long, long time, then a cold wind blew over the fields, causing Derek to shiver to his core. Finally Scratch spoke. “Your immortal soul.”
Derek wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t find the energy. Instead he replied “Fine, friend, but you’ll have to guarantee these seeds will make the biggest pumpkins anyone in these parts have ever seen.”
Scratch chuckled and spoke again. “A hard bargain, boy, but throw in your favorite horse and you got a deal.”
Derek Attler reached out and clasped the bony and nightmarish hand once again. As soon as he did, there was a flash of powerful blinding lightning and the loudest thunderclap he’d ever heard. Then the stranger and the wagon were gone. He was all alone, and in his hand were six pumpkin seeds. Assuming he was in some kind of dream, he walked over to the garden field where his desecrated pumpkins were strewn, tossed the seeds onto the ground and kicked some dirt on top of them, sealing his eternal fate.
The years turned into decades and the decades faded into the past. Some old farmers still tell stories of the magnificent pumpkins grown by ol’ Derek Attler and how he sold his soul to the devil. The old mansion was later built on the little hill and since deserted. They say that under the old mansion’s porch is where Derek first sowed those evil pumpkin seeds. They say that he still haunts those grounds, a headless ghost carrying pumpkins forever. He rides the horse that was part of the bargain and his only friend, Midnight, and only the devil knows when the Headless Horticulturist will be free.
The Haunted Mansion is a set of modular NFTs currently for sale in the Town Star store. Each comes with in-game benefits (Passive oil and more), and each is eligible for Town Star Play-to-Earn daily rewards!
“I dare you to hop the fence,” shouted the red-faced boy with the helmet.
Easy for someone who always wears a helmet to say, Amy thought to herself as she surveyed the half-rotted tree branch that swayed in the wind some eighteen feet off the ground just over the jagged black iron fence surrounding the creepy old mansion. It wasn’t fear of trespassing that made her hesitate, nor was it a very reasonable worry of repercussions in the form of grounding. Her parents had warned her repeatedly not to go near this old house on the hill. It wasn’t even the stories she’d heard around school that told of phantoms, witches and headless horsemen that haunted these grounds. No, this was simply a healthy fear of heights and a good head full of common sense.
The house was there as long as anyone could remember. It looked down on the town from the top of the hill like some boogeyman monster that was just waiting for darkness to fall. As the sun set behind the mansion, its shadow turned into a jagged spear that threatened and pierced the little town nightly in a ghoulish dance of dying light. Kids and grownups alike were all terrified of this place, and not a soul around would dare set foot inside it.
Amy had always been the brave one in this motley group of little friends. She was the first who rode a bike without training wheels, she always picked the scariest hidden places in every game of hide-and-seek and she would sometimes sneak out her window for night fishing at the McAlister pond. The others were too scared of the night noises, but Amy felt at home there, even when all alone.
Kevin (the red-faced helmet boy) was now doing a ritual dance that he imagined looked like a chicken clucking about the coop. It did not. Lucy was ignoring the embarrassing show and nervously looking back toward town, obviously worried that someone would see the kids and presume they were up to no good. She looked like she could hop on her bike (with training wheels) and take off toward home at any second.
Brad picked up a scoop of ashy earth and flung it toward the clucking helmeted bully, who breathed a bunch of it in mid cluck and started choke-coughing humorously. Brad was a year older than the others. He was also a full six inches taller, enough to get him on the scariest rides when the carnival came to town. Amy envied him a little for that, but she knew she’d catch up by next summer when they saw the carnival again.
“Don’t worry about that idiot,” Brad said casually in Amy’s direction as he brushed the wave of blond hair away that always seemed to find itself perfectly in front of his left eye. Then he looked at her and smiled. Something inside Amy melted and she suppressed a giggle. She felt a sudden urge to do a thing that was daring and impressive.
“Get over yourself, Kevin,” said Amy with an eye roll as she dusted off her Levis in preparation of climbing the gnarly tree. She spit on her hands and rubbed them hard across the soles of her shoes and stepped up to the trunk.
“You don’t have to do that,” said Brad with a slight chuckle as he kicked another cloud of ashy dirt in Kevin’s direction. Amy nodded in acknowledgement, but started climbing the tree anyway. The other three kids watched quietly with mouths wide open as Amy quickly worked her way up the old tree.
There was a slippery and black substance coming from the tree’s bark. It stained Amy’s hands and made it tougher to get a good grip. Fortunately there were enough grooves in the knotty old trunk to get her shoes worked in and she made her way up to the branch that hung over the fence.
There was another tree on the other corner of the property that looked easier to climb. That would be her way back once she had crossed over. She pushed away the thoughts that some ghoul would grab and pull her kicking and screaming into the house, that she would never be heard from again, that her disappearance would make the papers, that she would become a lost spirit cursed to wander the grounds of the old haunted mansion. There were more important things to worry about right now, things like not falling to her death and not getting impaled on that rusty fence.
A thick and oily smell filled Amy’s nostrils as she stood and balanced on the horizontal branch, testing its sturdiness. The stuff was all over the tree. Ahead of her was a seven foot tightrope walk over the treacherous fence and into the haunted property. Will she be the first living soul to encroach on these grounds in years? Probably. Her dad would have mixed feelings about this if he were here. He’d be proud of her bravery, but disappointed in her foolishness. He had a look that was perfect for that mixture, and Amy had seen it many times before. Hopefully he would never find out where she’d been.
Amy didn’t realize how far she had come until she was over the fence and above the yard. Knowing that jumping was the only way, she lowered herself to hang from the branch to put her feet closer to the ground. The three others were all shouting things in an attempt to coach her, but they were all talking over each other and she knew what she was doing. After a final look down at a tuft of what looked like soft grass below, she dropped into the haunted mansion’s yard.
The landing could have been better. She didn’t break anything, but she also didn’t land on her feet. Climbing to her hands and knees and preparing to stand, she checked out her surroundings. There was a strange hum in her head that seemed to get louder with each passing moment. She ignored it and looked up at the mansion, which seemed at least five times taller and more terrifying than when looking from the outside.
Her hands and knees were strangely displacing the soft earth, and where they sat, the dark bubbly stuff oozed from under the surface and seeped out onto the ground. She jumped up to her feet and immediately found it hard to keep her stance. The more concentrated her weight, the more quickly she was sinking into the earth, and the more quickly she was sinking in, the more of the dark bubbly stuff oozed out.
Amy suddenly panicked to realize she was standing on some sort of oily sinking sand. Her parents had told her sinking sand was a myth. She looked back toward the other kids and was completely horrified at what she saw. Everything on the other side of the fence was blurry, like looking through a thick and foggy window. It looked like Kevin, Lucy and Brad were shouting at her, but she couldn’t hear anything they were saying. Instead all she could hear was the humming that still grew louder with each moment.
Brad was trying to reach her through the fence with a log he found on the ground. Kevin was trying to climb the tree, but Amy knew she was the strongest climber in the group. Lucy was taking off on her bike, hopefully going to town for help. Looking down, Amy noticed that she had sunk in up to her shins. It took some serious pulling to get her feet out of the ground.
Amy started running toward the exit tree on the other side of the property, but she could hardly cover any ground. The dark bubbly stuff was almost sucking her in with every step. The more afraid she began to feel, the harder it pulled until she could barely move at all. Facing straight at the mansion’s front door, she slipped and fell forward. Her arms went straight into the oily ground instantly up to her elbows and her face was almost sucked in as well.
The terrible humming sound was now so loud that she could barely stand it. The awful noise was building up to something, but she didn’t know what. Amy suddenly wished she had not decided to impress the boy on the other side of the fence. This dare should have been ignored and the stories were true. There was nothing that could help Amy now. She would suffocate, or worse.
To keep her face out of the dark bubbly stuff, she craned her neck to look up at the mansion’s black front door. Suddenly the unbearable humming stopped. With a nightmarish creak, the door slowly opened, revealing a new sound, quiet at first but growing louder as the door continued to swing ajar. It was the cackling laughter of an old lady coming from inside the dark and cavernous mansion. Amy hoped she was dreaming. She could resist the stuff no longer. It bubbled and slurped over her shoulders, her back, her neck, her chin… Amy’s last thought before her face was completely absorbed was dares are stupid.
The Haunted Mansion — ModularNFTAvailable in 6 different pieces while supplies last, but only for a limited time!
You already know that you can scrap the competition in style with skins for the upcoming PVP brawler, Spider Tanks. Now, GAMEDIA and Gala games are proud to announce that Tank Skins will also come with in-game benefits!
More than Skin Deep
Wearing new outfits when you humiliate your opponents in the arena is fun on its own, but in the spirit of the player empowering revolution created by Gala Games, we wanted to do more with skins.
First, Tank Skins are player owned items in the Gala Games ecosystem. They can be transferred and traded, so you can use them when you want, then sell them when you’re done!
In addition to the sellable aspect, all Tank Skins will now come with boosts to actual gameplay, so dressing up for arena carnage will actually help you win!
Check out the specific battle boosts below on each of the following Tank Skins. The more rare the skin, the greater the boosts, all the way up to the incredible benefits to the Alpha Gold Ancient Skin!
Price Increase Coming!
With this powerful boost and the addition of in-game benefits to owning Skins, there will also be a 25% price increase taking effect on November 8th. Skins that will increase in price include Uncommon Noxious, Rare Gridlock, and Epic Arcane only. You have a little more time to get some at the lower price. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
Skins and Esports
Spider Tanks will be the first play-to-earn esport, so GAMEDIA and Gala Games want to make sure you’re equipped to make your teams look good. That’s where Legendary and Ancient Tank Skins come into play.
Common, Uncommon, Rare and Epic Skins will be applicable to a single Tank at any given time.
Legendary and Ancient Tanks on the other hand will be applicable to multiple Tanks at a time. More specifically, a Legendary Skin will be applicable to 9 concurrent Tanks and an Ancient Skin will be applicable to 30 concurrent Tanks. This means that a Tank owner who is building an esports team will be able to delegate Skins for their teams to wear, ensuring that each pilot will be wearing the same uniform while enjoying the stat boosts that come with that uniform.
Skins are available now in the Spider Tanks store. Pick them up to get the boosts above, and to really make your Tanks stand out in the crowd. We are incredibly excited for some amazing Spider Tanks esports action in Las Vegas at Into the Galaverse, and the game is coming so soon we can almost taste it!
About Spider Tanks
Spider Tanks is an upcoming PVP arena brawler from GAMEDIA and Gala Games. This expertly crafted and brilliantly competitive game will be the world’s first internationally renowned play-to-earn esport! Learn more at Spidertanks.game.
About GAMEDIA
GAMEDIA is an award winning game studio from the Netherlands, with an extensive track record and history. The long list of games they have developed are mostly based on well know entertainment IP’s and have seen the light on a wide range of platforms and hardware. Currently they are focused on creating our own high quality multiplayer games for PC, consoles as well as mobile.
We hope you’ve all enjoyed the extra gasoline storage and additional supply for the past couple weeks. As we said before, this change was only temporary, designed both to gather data surrounding the new player Town Star experience and to allow existing players to freely experiment with different types of builds.
We hope you learned something that will help your game during this time. We certainly did! Now it’s time to revert that change back to the original 40 units of gasoline and Fuel Storage limit of 40 units. Read on to learn why.
A Game of Strategy
As you know, at Gala we love games. Above all, Town Star is a strategic game of planning that should be as challenging as it is rewarding. As we have said before, the gasoline challenge is one of the most central strategic challenges in the game. Everyone must accomplish this unifying goal in order to keep up with expansion and compete with other players.
We are confident that our players are as passionate about gaming as we are, and we have always pledged to put the games first. We’re giving you back the gasoline problem, but we’ll also equip you with the resources to solve it for yourself.
Even with the changes brought in by the addition of TSP2E, the central goals of Town Star remain the same. Players must build, produce, grow and expand. To unlock play-to-earn rewards, each player must complete a Daily Challenge. While that challenge is currently fairly simple (Earn 1000 Stars), it will soon become more complex, changing on a daily basis and involving more difficult goals. To continue accomplishing these goals, players must learn how to overcome the basic obstacles of the game. The most important of these obstacles is the difficulty in producing gasoline to fuel all your expansion.
Parallels to Blockchain
Whether you are new to blockchains and cryptocurrency or an old veteran of the space, you have certainly noticed that there is always a cost. The Ethereum Virtual Machine with which we’re all very familiar has its network fees, which are more commonly known as “gas.” No one loves these network fees. In fact, Gala Games is working hard on the development of long term solutions to the blockchain “gas problem.” We view this problem in the same way that you may view the gasoline challenge in Town Star, and like you, we intend to solve it through our passion for strategy gaming.
Some blockchains call them transaction fees, while others call them gas. For others, they are resource costs or power. No matter the label, the obstacle is the same. Just as you must produce gasoline to deliver your Town Star goods, there is always an energy cost for blockchain transfers.
Since this idea of blockchain “gas” draws such an appropriate parallel to the Town Star gasoline challenge, we feel it is important to keep that challenge in our minds and our strategies. While we have plans to solve the blockchain gas challenge by minimizing fees and creating our own blockchain with fast and easy transactions, the challenge will always remain as a central mechanic of Town Star.
Get an eyeful of that gas hoard because it won’t last much longer!
Back to 40
Starting with the new weekly competition on November 2, new players will once again receive 40 units of gasoline as their initial supply. This gasoline will be stored in a Fuel Storage unit whose maximum capacity is 40.
We are currently rethinking and rebuilding the first time player experience to help guide newcomers toward learning these lessons easily and effectively. We are building written and video guides that will help with not only the gas challenge, but many others as well.
Good luck out there on your Town Star builds. Hopefully you’re all taking advantage of #TSP2E by playing with owned NFTs and completing your Daily Challenges!
