This Week in Crypto Games: 'Flappy Bird' on Telegram, 'Dookey Dash' Returns, and New 'Hamster Kombat' Season

The crypto gaming space is busier than ever lately, what with prominent games starting to release, token airdrops piling up, and a seemingly constant array of other things happening at all times. It’s a lot to take in!

Luckily, Decrypt’s GG is all over it. And if you need a quick way to get caught up on the latest moves around crypto video games, we’re happy to present This Week in Crypto Games.

Our weekend roundup serves up the biggest news from the past week, along with a few other tidbits you might have missed. We also showcase a few of our original stories from the week.

Biggest news

Flappy Bird on Telegram: Iconic mobile game Flappy Bird has officially returned as a crypto-tinged Telegram game after disappearing 10 years ago. The Flappy Bird Foundation acquired the trademark for the game after it was considered abandoned and passed through the hands of a couple of other companies.

In collaboration with Notcoin, the tap-to-earn Telegram game that kickstarted the craze, the strategic partnership aims to introduce the game to The Open Network (TON) ecosystem—the blockchain that most Telegram tap-to-earn games use. While a token hasn’t been announced, there are a number of details that point to a future FLAP token being launched.

Despite buzz around Flappy Bird's return, however, there's also been quite a lot of controversy and pushback regarding how it returned to life without the involvement of original creator Dong Nguyen.

‘Flappy Bird’ Returns as Telegram Crypto Game But Creator Denies Involvement

Following days of speculation about the nature of the game’s return, it’s now official: After disappearing 10 years ago, mobile game Flappy Bird has first relaunched as a mini app on the Telegram messaging platform with an apparent token in the works on The Open Network (TON). Flappy Bird’s return is being done in collaboration with Notcoin, the tap-to-earn Telegram game that kickstarted the craze earlier this year. Notcoin is billed as the “strategic publishing partner” for the Telegram version...

Dookey Dash returns: Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs and partner studio Faraway have released the sewer-based game Dookey Dash: Unclogged as free-to-play game on iOS, Android, Mac, and PC in selected regions. This comes more than a year after Yuga Labs rolled out the original NFT-gated version of the game during a limited play period.

Dookey Dash: Unclogged will have three monthlong seasons as players battle for a "Golden Plunger." These will act as a ticket to the end-of-season tournament where $1 million worth of prizes will be up for grabs. The iOS version has already shot to near the top of the free game charts, so it appears that there's real interest in the Ape competition.

 NFT Revolution

Bored Ape Game 'Dookey Dash: Unclogged' Launches With $1 Million in Prizes

Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs and partner studio Faraway have released the sewer-based game Dookey Dash: Unclogged as a free-to-play download on iOS, Android, Mac, and PC in selected regions. With this players will compete to enter an end-of-season tournament with over $1 million worth of prizes. This comes more than a year after Yuga Labs rolled out the original NFT-gated version of the game, with the highest-scoring players earning valuable prizes. The winner of the top prize—a one-of...

Hamster Kombat's interlude: We're just four days away from the Hamster Kombat token launch and airdrop, and the largest Telegram game by far ended its first season on Friday ahead of sharing airdrop allocations over the weekend.

What's there to do in the meantime before the next proper season launches? Hamster Kombat has introduced an "interlude season," offering a simplified version of the familiar crypto exchange simulator but with a more startup-centric vibe. In this new version, you can earn diamonds that will apparently give players some sort of advantage in the next full-fledged game season.

'Hamster Kombat' Telegram Game Launches New Season Ahead of Airdrop

As expected, Hamster Kombat took a season-ending snapshot of players’ progress Friday as the Telegram tap-to-earn game gears up to launch its HMSTR token and airdrop on September 26. And now we know what’s next for the game, at least for now: an “interlude.” Hamster Kombat’s “interlude season” rolled out in the Telegram game on Friday, scrapping many of the familiar features while the developers calculate players’ airdrop allocations. Gone are the familiar in-game coins, and tapping on the main...

Parallel first-person shooter: The creators of the popular NFT trading card game Parallel announced a 3D first-person shooter codenamed “Project Tau Ceti.” Set on a sci-fi planet, the shooter will use Parallel’s library of 3D assets and will let Parallel NFT owners use their own avatars from the card game.

Tau Ceti will use Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base on the recently launched B3 layer-3 network. Project Tau Ceti, the team said, represents an effort to expand the world of Parallel with an entirely different kind of game. It is expected to launch into early alpha testing on PC in 2025 with possible future mobile and console versions in the future.

 NFT Revolution

'Parallel' Ethereum Game Studio Reveals Shooter on Base Network B3

The makers of Ethereum NFT card game Parallel—which hit the Epic Games Store in June—are rolling onto yet another new project, announcing a 3D first-person shooter game codenamed “Project Tau Ceti” at Token2049 in Singapore on Wednesday. In Tau Ceti, players will battle across a sci-fi planet using their Parallel NFT avatars. Unlike the upcoming AI-centric game Colony, which will be launched on the Solana blockchain, Project Tau Ceti marks a return to Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base—thi...

ICYMI

• Gold Rush, a new Telegram tap-to-earn game, launched with a future “skill-based” airdrop in the cards.
• Zynga’s crypto gaming team spun out, formed a new company called D20 Labs, and announced a new game.
• Pixelverse expanded from a Telegram tapper to a web-based cyberpunk game with its beta launch.
• The Catizen token launched on Friday. Some players were angry about the size of their airdrop allocations.

'Catizen' Telegram Game Reveals Airdrop Pass as CATI Token Launches

Feline Telegram game Catizen has announced that its token can be used to gain a ticket to future airdrops through a season pass. This comes amid the launch and airdrop of its CATI token on The Open Network (TON). Catizen’s initial airdrop plans to reward players of its swipe-to-earn game with 15% of its total token supply. The token launch and airdrop is taking place today.  Players weren’t entirely pleased when this was announced last week as they believed, as per the game’s whitepaper, 34% wou...

• Another new Telegram game launched called SynQuest, which requires players to answer questions as they navigate a dungeon, rather than just tapping the screen.
• Ubisoft held another beta test for its upcoming Champions Tactics game on Oasys.
• Ethereum gaming chain Ronin announced seven new games building on the network.

• Also, the Japanese role-playing game Tatsumeeko is migrating to Ronin after previously building on Immutable X and Solana.
• Telegram tap-to-earn game Captain Tsubasa: Rivals launched last week with TON token plans ahead. It's like Hamster Kombat, but with a soccer anime IP.
• Sports brand Puma collaborated with soccer game UNKJD to create in-game skins and more.
• Oasys layer-2 gaming network SG Verse launched to support Kai Battle of Three Kingdoms, a game licensed by gaming giant Sega.

GG spotlight

Here are a few of our original stories from this past week that we think are well worth a weekend read:

What Is ‘Eve Frontier’? How to Start Playing CCP's Survival Game on Ethereum

Legendary game developer CCP Games this week lifted the lid on Eve Frontier, a space survival game set in the Eve Online universe that features blockchain integration.  Initially referred to as Project Awakening, Eve Frontier appears to have a lot of similarities to the massive Eve Online game, but with more of a survival focus—and the ability to use crypto tokens and blockchain code to impact and reshape the game in new ways. With such a prestigious development studio behind it, hopes are high...

What is ‘Flappy Bird’ on Telegram? Iconic Game Returns With Crypto Twist

Flappy Bird is back! And it's a Telegram crypto game—who’d have thought? The iconic mobile game took the world by storm in 2014, but went dark after its mysterious creator decided it was gaining too much attention. At its peak, Flappy Bird had attracted 50 million downloads, topped the charts in 100 countries, and was allegedly raking in $50,000 from ads every single day.  When the game was removed, the world went nuts. Devices with the game still installed were offered for sale for upwards of $...

Edited by Andrew Hayward