We’re saying goodbye to TownCoin (TOWN), which can now be burned for GALA at a rate of 1.25 TOWN = 1 GALA.

The new Town Star economy is right around the corner, with a grand relaunch of Gala Games’ flagship game coming soon. Under the leadership of Farmville visionary game creator Mark Skaggs, the Town Star team has an exciting roadmap in store, along with a brand new economic model that will breathe new life into the beloved game while paving the way for new players to enjoy adventures around Town.

We’re saying goodbye forever to TownCoin (TOWN) in preparation for Town Star’s big launch. With the many brilliant changes coming to the game, we decided to remove the game-specific token in favor of a better reward model.

You can check out the latest version of the Town Star Lite Paper for more details!

TOWN -> GALA

All holders of TOWN will have a significant time window during which they may swap their tokens with Gala Games at a fixed rate of 1.25 TOWN = 1 GALA.

The opportunity to burn has already begun, and TOWN holders will have at least 180 days to make the swap.

After the conclusion of the burn window, there will be no future utility for TOWN and it will be removed from all exchanges.

A Gala Games account will be required to swap. If you do not have an account, you can create one at Gala.com, or check out this support article for more information!

NOTE: Any TOWN in your Treasure Chest will first need to be minted before it can be swapped for GALA.

Gas Token

Now that Gala Games is able to publish games on its own blockchain (currently called Project GYRI), GALA is the “gas token” of transactions on that blockchain (like ETH on Ethereum). One of the core ways that Node operators will be rewarded in our ecosystem is with a distributed portion of the collected GALA gas fees.

Town Star Nodes

The burn-to-mint model described above will be employed across our entire Node Ecosystem, so Town Star Nodes will operate in a similar manner. When players make in-game Town Star purchases with GALA, Town Star active Node operators will receive a portion of the GALA spent on gas. This is only one of the benefits to operating a Town Star Node.

Look for more information coming up on Town Star Nodes and how they’ll function going forward.

A Bigger, Better Town Star

We understand that this is a big change, but we hope you’ll agree that it’s an exciting one. Mark Skaggs and the Town Star team are creating something extraordinary, and these folks know how to make games that bring in millions of players.

Within the next few weeks, Town Star players will have a chance to playtest tons of new game features. As 2023 moves forward, we’ll be getting ready to hit the ground running with incredible new features, like…

• A new economic model
• A new decoration system for cosmetic customization of your Town
• New social system, such as viewing others’ towns
• Upgradeable NFTs
• Enhanced Competitions
• and more!

Expect to hear more news and details as these exciting new developments approach!

All information in this article is subject to change at any time.

For the latest information as soon as it becomes available, join the Gala Games Discord community and watch #global_announcements

The community has chosen the first Generation 2 Tank and a slew of fixes, updates and new features have arrived!

Over the past few weeks, a dedicated band of community testers has been working alongside our internal team testing a massive update to Spider Tanks. A huge thanks to all those who helped! In no small part to all your efforts, version 1.1.1 is now live in the arena!

There’s a lot of content updated, added or tweaked in this patch, and you’ll be able to read the full patch notes in the changelog section on Discord. Today, we’d like to walk through the biggest changes you can expect to see from this new version so that you’re ready for the new challenges the arena has to offer!

New to the Arena

There are several new features added that will improve quality of life and general player experience, but also some that have the potential to have a major impact on strategy for Pilots everywhere.

The arena just got a little more real. Explosions will actually leave marks on the battlefield, and there are interactable objects throughout each Map… just waiting to be destroyed. To add a little personality to your machine of mayhem, each Tank will now have custom idle, defeat and victory animations that show up in the garage and match up screens before and after the battle.

Players will now have the opportunity to select their abilities in the match up screen before the battle begins. While this means that every player can adjust to specific game modes and opponents, Pilot Program players are also now able to adjust once they see what Tank they’re using. We’re excited to see how this transforms the strategy employed throughout Spider Tanks.

Players now see extra details about their VP gain after matches. This should help everyone understand what factors helped arrive at their total VP.

Supercharge

Supercharge has been added to the game. With this new feature, players can massively boost the VP potential of a single NFT Tank Part for a limited number of matches.

Each Part can only Supercharge once per day and Supercharge will only last 5 matches… win or lose! Be sure you make the most of your boosts!

Improvements and Pest Control

A large number of improvements and bug fixes have been made with this patch as well. The full list will be available in the patch notes, but some of the biggest highlights of general improvements to gameplay include:

• Visual improvements throughout the game; including prop animations, HUD effects and interactive vegetation in Maps
• Added chat and social functionality to the exhibition lobby
• Players with poor connections should stutter much less from the perspective of other players
• Forsaken City’s teleporters now lead to the opposite outlet
• Game install size and RAM usage has been significantly reduced
• Props will now also be part of the rubble ragdoll flung around after your Tank is destroyed
• The icon for the game will now indicate in your tray when a match is found.
• Chicken spawns in Chicken Chaser no longer occur randomly

Along with many others, the following bugs have also been fixed:

• Repair Artillery can no longer repair themselves
• Friendly turrets can now be healed again
• Relay Drone can no longer get you to impossible places
• Fixed the dreaded “GAME DOES NOT EXIST/Recently left an active match” loop

Balance Adjustments

Some serious adjustments to the balance of Tanks and overall gameplay have been made. Many of these suggestions have been long awaited by players, and will increase the viability of playing with a wide range of builds. Again, this is not all the balance changes included with the patch notes, but some highlights of major alterations.

Brambler

• Slows the player on use (50% slow, diminishing to 0% in 1 second)
• Effect zone damage per tick decreased from 125 to 100

Rocket Artillery

• Slows the player on use (50% slow, diminishing to 0% in 1 second)

Beat Blaster

• Knockback on hit chance increased from 8% to 11%

Stinger

• Projectile Speed increased from 18 to 20

Crossbow

• Charge damage falloff minimum damage reduced from .5 to .25

Reactive Plating

• No longer detonates on death
• Now shows a timer that indicates when detonation will occur
• Damage absorption reduced from 35% to 30%

Air Strike

• Energy Cost increased from 7 to 8
• Range decreased from 25 to 20

Shield Projector

• Now also blocks projectiles that normally penetrate Tanks
• Energy cost decreased from 6 to 5

Repair Drone

• Repairing now scales with the armor upgrade level of your Tank’s Body

Repair Zone

• Radius decreased from 5 to 4.5
• Repair tick rate decreased from 2.5/second to 2/second

In addition to all these adjustments to Tank Parts and Abilities, the respawn timer for all modes has been increased from 6 seconds to 8 seconds. We have also already introduced a balance measure to lessen the disparity between maximum level and minimum level Tanks to promote better matchmaking throughout the game.

The Beginning of the Next Generation

Recently the community was given the chance to vote on the first Tank that would be available in Generation 2. The results are in, and The Shaman dominated the vote. This build features the Crab Body, Railgun Weapon, Captain’s Hat and Craggy Skin.

The Crab is a Medium Body, with a lot more emphasis on Armor than others. Perfect for scuttling around the arena and causing some carnage.

The Railgun launches single shots of pure elemental destruction with amazing force. Capable of being charged up to massive levels of power, few Weapons can compare to its massive damage potential.

Keep an eye out for more information coming soon about when these inaugural Generation 2 Tank Parts will be available.

The Arena Awaits

This update is now live, and we just can’t wait to see how battles change and evolve inside the Spider Tanks arena.

If you have questions or feedback about this upcoming patch, let us know on Discord or in the comments below. We’ll see you in the arena!