We’re back with another deep dive on a Web3 professional like no other, working hard to bring the future of entertainment into reality.

Community is more than just a collection of people. When like-minded people congregate, it takes exceptional individuals to start the spark of connections that lead to common goals and real community support. These infectiously energetic few exude pure passion for their craft, and their enthusiasm is felt by all around them–spreading like wildfire.

The Gala Games team is leading the charge into the Web3 world, in no small part due to the unrivaled expertise of the multi-disciplined masters behind unprecedented entertainment experiences. Every once in a while, one of these experts also stands as a pillar of the people, driving both creative direction and community spirit to new heights of greatness.

Today we focus on one of those rare individuals–a man who rarely is too busy to experience the small joys of simple human interaction, yet still finds the time to excel in his field with unparalleled efficiency and skill. You may know him as or 1oddgent in Discord… AKA, Todd.

Today we focus on the renowned designer and notoriously vicious defender of all things pizza — Dan!

What is your role at Gala Games?

Lead UI Designer.

What inspired you to do what you do for a living?

It’s hard for chickens to find work nowadays. I wanted to do my part and help them with Town Star.

Favorite part of the Gala Games community?

My favorite thing about the Gala Games community is that it feels like a giant family. Every time I hop on the Discord I feel right at home. We laugh, talk, (respectfully) argue… more like most families do, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The relationships I’ve made on Discord are priceless and as a result motivate me to always do my best here at Gala Games.

What are your favorite games?

There are many but I’m going to go with DOOM.

First and foremost, it’s not afraid to be itself. By that I mean a blood ridiculously violent, unapologetically brutal, and metal game where the objective is simple: rip and tear until it is done.

DOOM knows exactly what it wants to be and makes no excuses, hence why it’s a close favorite of mine.

Biggest role models?

That would have to go to my parents, both amazingly loving people who I aspire to be now that I have a family of my own. Growing up they made sure my brothers and I had what we needed and occasionally got what we wanted, never allowing us to forget the difference between the two.

I still go to them for advice, and as I’m continuously learning from them, they remain as dedicated to my brothers and I as today as when we were little kids doing anything but behaving.

Cool hobbies and interests?

I enjoy lifting heavy things up and setting them down for a long period of time.

Proudest gaming moment ever?

Gifting my nephew a PS5 last Christmas, worth all the trouble in finding one to see his reaction.

Favorite Food?

Oh my… pizza of course!

The real question is what kind of pizza, so here are my top three choices:

1. Stuffed crust pizza with extra cheese, extra sauce, and your choice of toppings
2. Deep dish, simply because it can withhold mounds of toppings
3. Cinnamon dessert pizza, a pure masterpiece!

Least favorite food?

Tacos and Sandwiches, everyone knows they are the inferior enemies to pizza.

Everybody should rush to Discord to thank Todd at once for sparing some of his time to answer our questions. It’s always a pleasure to spotlight a hardworking member of the Gala Games team, and an inside look into the brilliant mind of Dan has been long overdue.

We hope every single member of this great community enjoys these features, because we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. There are more members of the team to showcase, and we can’t wait to be back in two weeks with yet another installment of the Galaxian Highlights for you!

Want to learn about more members of the team and just can’t wait for the next issue? Check out the last few Galaxian Highlights below!

Galaxian Highlights #11 — Wasif

Galaxian Highlights #10 — Abigail and Jonathan

Galaxian Highlights #9 — Warren

Galaxian Highlights #8 — Diana

Join the best Web3 community anywhere, today!

Welcome to the new Pilot training course! Here you can learn the basics of the Spider Tanks arena.

Spider Tanks is a competitive esport that takes time to master, but players of any skill level can have fun competing as they refine their skill and strategy. Anyone can learn the fundamentals to have some fun on the arena floor right away!

This article is meant to walk you through the basics of Spider Tanks, and touch on the depth of individual strategic approaches Pilots can bring to the arena. Did you even know you were a Pilot?

Once you feel like you’ve mastered everything this course has to offer, check out some of our more advanced training materials to up your game!

Pilot Orientation 2: Knowing the Battlefield

-In this lesson we discuss basic team tactics and the different game modes you’ll encounter in the arena.-

Pilot Orientation 3: Rising Through the Ranks

-In this lesson we tie all your training together into advanced team strategy and discuss how to upgrade your Tank and climb the arena leaderboards.-

Playing to Your Strengths

Any Tank and Weapon combo will have certain things it can do really well and some things it struggles with. Weaknesses are ok — you have a team standing with you. Identifying what your strengths are is the first step towards forming a winning strategy.

First, let’s review how to customize your Tank. Each Tank is made up of several Tank Parts, each of which can be player-owned items.

• Body
• Weapon
• Prop
• Skin

To round out their build, players also choose two Abilities that all Pilots have access to.

Through the Pilot Program, players can grab a random Body and Weapon to play with. For our purposes here though, let’s assume we’re building a Tank from scratch.

It’s important to note that if you own a Hero Tank like Snoop’s Bumpin’ Lowrider, or the JACKED O’ Lantern, these are package deals that contain both a Body and a matching Weapon. Though each can be used independently, they are designed to complement each other in an excellent prebuilt combo.

Tank Body

The Body of your Tank determines the movement behavior of your Tank, as well as three key statistics:

• Armor: The amount of damage you can take before your Tank is a pile of rubble
• Speed: How fast your Tank moves
• Energy: How fast your Tank gains Energy to use Abilities

Each Body has an assortment of these stats that favor different playstyles. A heavy duty, high-energy Body like Nomad can take more hits and use Abilities more often, but don’t expect to be rolling around the arena in a hurry. A small, agile Body like Flea lets you zip around the battlefield with dizzying speed, but you better be able to translate that into dodging enemy attacks, or you’ll find these lightly armored Tanks are a recipe for a fast respawn.

Each Body has certain strengths that can help form the foundation of a successful strategy. In a Titan you may not be running people down, but if you can use a Stun Grenade or Relay Drone to get the drop on them, a smaller tank won’t be able to stand up to your bulk in close quarters. Conversely, a smaller Tank like a Scout offers you a chance to position yourself more deliberately and outmaneuver your foes, but you’ll need to invest a lot more effort in dodging incoming attacks to stay alive.

Some Tank Bodies will be easier to get the hang of for you than others. No two players have the exact same strategy, and the best way to figure out what you like to play is to just play! Maybe you’ll discover that you love a quick little murder machine, or you could learn that something with a little slower pace lets you more calmly exact your plans and follow through. The best Tank Body is always the one that plays to its Pilot’s strengths…that’s you!

Tank Weapon

The Weapon that you choose to combine with your Tank Body will have a big impact on how you play. There are tons of Weapons available in Spider Tanks, and they each have their own distinct style. Every Weapon has different firing patterns, rate, range and damage.

Each Weapon brings new strengths and weaknesses to the arena. Some weapons like the Shotgun or Flamethrower do massive damage, but have very limited range. The Gatling Gun can throw out huge storms of bullets, but will leave you helpless while it reloads. The Repair Artillery or Repair Gun won’t do much damage to enemies, but will heal your allies.

Many Weapons have totally unique behavior — like the Finisher from the WhaleShark Tank. This Hero Tank Weapon launches torpedoes that swim across the arena, homing in on your opponents before exploding.

This Titan’s Shotgun doesn’t have the range to keep up with the Scout it’s chasing, but a little help from a Relay Drone teleport lets it close in for the kill.

Since every Weapon has its own signature style, the best way to learn what works best for you is to hop into the game and get experimenting! Did you know you can try out every Tank Body and Weapon that exists in the Shooting Range?

Props, Skins and Abilities

Now we get to the bells and whistles. Your Tank is mostly assembled now that you have a Weapon and Body, but those little extra customizations can often be what help you edge out the competition.

First, there are Props and Skins. These are both cosmetic additions to your Tank. They can be player-owned items, and some impart special passive bonuses when worn. Props are an extra feature that your Tank will wear like a hat, and Skins are a total paint job for your Tank– some with intricate patterns.

There’s a wide array of Props and Skins available, and they’ll often add small but useful bonuses to your stats. This can help cover some of your weaknesses, or it can pump up your strengths.

Last we come to Abilities. These are not player-owned Tank Parts, but instead a wide array of tools and tricks that every Pilot can use on any Tank build. Some abilities will help repair or protect you and allies, some will debilitate or slow down opponents, and some just pack some extra firepower.

Each Tank can choose two Abilities. Each Ability has an Energy cost you must pay to use it during a match and every Ability has a cooldown. Otherwise, you’re free to use Abilities as often as you have Energy for them.

Choosing the right Abilities to complement your playstyle is crucial for victory in many matches. Everybody has access to the same pool of Abilities. Watch and learn from how other Pilots use their Abilities, and get in there and try out every combo you can think of!

Ready to Rumble?

You now have the basic knowledge you need to start your rise to glory as a Pilot. There’s a lot more that you’ll need to learn along the way, but the arena itself will be your best teacher.

While we’ve tried to give you the crash course on constructing your Tank here, we haven’t spent much time talking about what makes a great team and a winning strategy.

To dive into that, it’s time to hit part two. Hopefully you already feel a bit more comfortable getting in the driver’s seat and taking your education into your own hands!

Pilot Orientation 2: Knowing the Battlefield

Pilot Orientation 3: Rising Through the Ranks

Spider Tanks

Spider Tanks Official OpenSea Collection

Join the Discussion

Gala Games recently visited the Champions Arena team for an up close look at the development of the upcoming turn-based RPG.

We haven’t shared much news regarding Champions Arena since its initial announcement at Galaverse last June, but that doesn’t mean that the team hasn’t been working hard on development..

Ready Your Champion

Champions Arena is a turn-based RPG where you’ll play as any of over 100 Champions, each with their own style, skills and strengths. As you progress, your Champion can adorn a wide array of gear and auras to further customize how they battle, and each can be upgraded into several more powerful versions of themselves.

Gameplay is based around tactical, turn-based battles, but Champions Arena also features both individual and guild PvP. Any of your Champions can be dispatched for exploration and adventure to find vital resources, or they can stay close by your side to be used in PvE campaigns, PvP or Co-Op mode.

As your Champions win glory on the battlefield, they’ll gather new spell and skill cards to help them in battle. Weaker abilities can be combined to make more powerful versions, but no matter how powerful their spells, players will have to manage their Energy properly to win the day. Players will have to carefully cultivate the best decks to send their Champions into battle with if they want to be the best, and timing will be critical in rising above the crowd.

Visiting the Arena

Development on this upcoming turn-based RPG has been progressing rapidly since the summer, and our own Jason “Bitbender” Brink recently visited the team for an early sneak peek and an AMA alongside a small group of community members.

Champions Arena is being crafted by the team at Uniflow, a subsidiary of OneUniverse. During this meetup, the Uniflow team walked Jason and the other attendees through the development environment and had an AMA on the state of current development and future plans.

In an industry where we so often connect only through a screen, it was great for Jason to get a chance to spend some quality face-to-face time with the team.

While we haven’t caught up with Jason on the juiciest parts of what was discussed just yet, we have a feeling you’ll have a chance to hear details very soon…

Upcoming AMA

Speaking of additional details, this Friday, October 28th, Gala Games will stream an Ask Me Anything (AMA) with the devs from Uniflow to get answers straight from the source! This will be a prerecorded AMA based on the questions the community submitted on Discord.

This will be a Korean language AMA so that the devs can communicate completely in their native language, but will have English subtitles available as well. Look for the video on the Gala Games YouTube channel on Friday.

See You in the Arena

Even if you don’t catch the upcoming AMA, keep an ear open for a lot more news coming out about Champions Arena in the months ahead.

Did you notice we’re on a new Champions Arena account here on Medium? We’ll keep publishing our latest content to the Gala Games blog, but if you want to be notified each time we post, make sure and subscribe!

Join the Discussion

Town Star just gave away a huge pile of in-game items to Founder’s Node operators, then burned the surplus.

TL;DR

• Town Star is really growing.
• A large quantity of unsold game items has been permanently burned.
• 2.5% of the burn list was instead given as rewards to Founder’s Node operators.

Town Star Memories

Town Star is the flagship game of Gala Games, and the very beginning of our player-empowering Web3 vision in action.

The first players of Town Star will always fondly remember its early days. As the game continues to evolve, you’ll be able to look back and see the fascinating journey of Town Star as a reflection of the much larger Web3 paradigm shift happening all over the world.

Getting nostalgic about Town Star doesn’t mean that we’re taking it easy at all. Gala Games has huge plans for its flagship game of town and city builders.

The Town Star team is hard at work, rebuilding the game on newer, more advanced tech, with tons of exciting changes! Some of these plans are currently taking shape before your eyes, and others are shared directly with the community in the weekly Friday Discord AMA.

Economic Adjustments

As originally announced in this article from July, major economic updates are on their way to Town Star, designed carefully to stay up-to-date in this rapidly changing industry while promoting the ecosystem’s long-term sustainability.

Today, we’re announcing one of these economic changes in action.

What Happened?

On 10/19, there was a Town Star item bonfire, the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

We have previously stated these items were minted in surplus, and that problem would be rectified with a large virtual bonfire. This is that bonfire.

In this burn, certain in-game Town Star items were permanently destroyed.

Check out the Ethscan link below for a complete list of Town Star items that were burned. Prepare for some strangely mixed emotions as you look at the list.

The Burn List

But Wait… There’s More…

We didn’t actually burn them all. The Town Star team set aside exactly 2.5% of the total items to be burned. Then we distributed them to the operators of active Founder’s Nodes as a daily distribution reward.

Why?

Why Give Anything Away?

We love to look for opportunities to reward our community, especially our early adopters and Founder’s Node operators. Early adopter rewards can often be greater than rewards for those who arrive later, so we want to offer as many of these early adopter rewards as possible.

If we find a way to hook you up in a responsible and sustainable way, we’ll always take it.

Why Founder’s Nodes?

We are proud of the decentralized gaming Ecosystem we’re creating together, and our Founder’s Node operators live at the core of our success. We have always said that to operate a Gala Games Founder’s Node is to step up and power this network, and we could not be more grateful for our pioneering Founder’s Node operators.

This surprise distribution is just another example of the ways Founder’s Node operators can earn rewards for their important contributions to the Gala Games Ecosystem.

Why Not Town Star Nodes?

We understand that this announcement may sting a bit for those who operate Town Star Nodes, but not Founder’s Nodes, and we’d like to offer a few reminders of what we continue to work towards.

Your time will come — As mentioned above, Gala Games loves to reward early adopters. If you own a license and operate a Town Star Node today, you are an early adopter. With Town Star Nodes still less than a year old, you’re even earlier than Founder’s Node operators. Your Nodes will have their time, and your rewards will come.

Other plans — Town Star Nodes have their own development plans for workloads, rewards, and utility, so attaching an unanticipated item distribution to their operation would have been irresponsible. Additionally, item distributions have long been established as a reward mechanic for active Founder’s Node operators.

People would miss out — Because TOWN distribution is currently paused, Town Star Node operators have a greatly reduced incentive to operate their Nodes right now. As a result, too few Town Star Nodes would be active for a fair distribution of rewards in this way.

What’s Happening in Town?

If the creepy fall chills weren’t warning enough, Halloween is coming. The Farmer has donned his yearly jack o’lantern helmet, and is now hard at work on his Haunted Maze — a Halloween decoration gone incredibly wrong.

Learn more about the Haunted Maze and other Halloween fun in THIS ARTICLE, and collect all four pieces of the Haunted Maze to more than double the in-game bonus!

Today speed and agility take center stage as we unmask some of the most reliable strategies with the Bandit Body!

Welcome to another installment of The Spider Tanks Showcase! This week we’ll be looking at a Body that excels in quickness, but unlike other super speedy Bodies — likehttps://links.gala.com/1AwOxqLF — the Bandit still brings balanced gameplay to the arena.

The Bandit gives up some of its Armor for an extra Speed advantage, but it doesn’t quite go to the extreme of some other Tank Bodies. Bandit still maintains a fairly respectable amount of Energy and Armor to ensure that Speed isn’t the only weapon in its arsenal.

Unlike its smaller cousins, this makes the Bandit not only capable of running down enemy tanks, but means they control the situation more when they actually catch them. A Bandit isn’t heavily Armored, but it can take a shot or two if it means unleashing destruction on multiple opponents. It still has the speed to dictate pace and positioning in most matchups… without feeling like it’s made of glass that drank too much espresso.

Hot Pursuit: Bandit/Lava Launcher

Bandit finds that nice middle ground where it can run down most fleeing Tanks without having to go out of its way to dodge every single hit. Whenever your team can get an enemy Tank separated from the support of their teammates, a Bandit can usually run them down and force them into further disorganization.

While we had the burning balls of the Lava Launcher in mind for this, it can work with any linear weapon that has decent range and gets more threatening as you get closer to the enemy. Cannon, Beat Blaster, Gatling Gun and many others could all potentially be great combos here!

This isn’t the cleanest strategy, and you’re going to take some hits. Remember to use your speed to run around and pick up some Armor after you go toe to toe with someone, or pack a Repair Drone to keep a repair on you when you need it most.

Tactical Assault: Bandit/Rocket Artillery

We’ve talked about controlling from a distance before, but compared to larger Tanks with heavier Armor, a Bandit brings a totally different feel to this playstyle. Laying down fire from a distance can be much more versatile at applying pressure to your foes.

Those enemy Tanks won’t let you just rain down rockets on them forever without coming for you. With a Bandit, you can outrun most everyone who gives you chase but you still have enough Armor to take the random shot. This flexibility allows you to focus on repositioning, rather than having to worry about dodging every single hit or running away from the action when someone comes after you.

This strategy can also be adapted to work with Repair Artillery. You’ll still do a little bit of damage to keep pressure on your opponents, but your efforts will be more dedicated to keeping your allies’ defenses hard. Bandit’s Speed is especially important playing this way, since annoyed Tanks will be chasing you around once they find they can’t destroy your teammates.

Look at Me: Bandit/Beatblaster

Bandit isn’t an impenetrable mass of metal like a Titan or even thehttps://links.gala.com/063Pku51, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t meat shield up to provide openings for your teammates! Grab your opponent’s attention, then keep it by closing in on them while your squishier allies sneak up behind.

Since Bandit isn’t a super bulky Tank, a lot of opponents will prioritize attacking you to remove a threat from the field. With Bandit’s maneuverability though, quickly getting you out of the way may be easier said than done. The less ridiculous speed of Bandit compared to faster Tanks can actually provide a benefit here, since you’ll have a little easier time controlling your weapons and quick cornering.

We chose the Beat Blaster from Snoop’s Bumpin’ Lowrider for this one, since it pushes the opposing Tank around when you get up close — further making the walls close in on your enemy. This could really be done with anything that keeps you maneuverable though. Keeping a Tank’s attention glued to you is more about positioning than what type of firepower you bring.

Out Like a Bandit

The Bandit may not be the fastest Tank around, but it packs more than enough Speed to be a versatile contender in any matchup. There are tons of cool and effective ways to play a Bandit. Try out different ways and see what works best for you!

Some rarities of Bandits are still available for purchase in the Gala Games Store!

Next week, things are going to get a little spooky around here. We’ll be zooming in on the harrowingly horrifying king of Halloween in the arena– The JACKED O’ Lantern!

Got builds for this fan favorite pumpkin? Let us know on Discord or in the comments below! We love to feature community feedback on strategies in these spotlights, so give us a shout to share your pumpkin wisdom!