Web3 game developer Pixelcraft Studios has announced the launch of a big new update to Gotchi Guardians, a free to play tower defense survival game that is part of the Aavegotchi ecosystem.

What’s New in Gotchi Guardians Patch 0.7.0?

Patch 0.7.0 is a major release that is packed with loads of new features that help deliver a significantly more strategic blockchain gaming experience. It’s described as the web3 game’s “most ambitious update yet,” and includes the release of a new Event System, Lickquidator Squads, Lickquidator Bosses, Guardian rewards, Upgrade Seeds, quality of life improvements, item changes, and various tower changes.

The Event System changes how rounds work by giving players choices to make that add more challenge and strategic depth. Basically, rounds are now grouped into in-game days, with each day consisting of 5 rounds. At the start of each round, you have to pick one out of 2 randomly-generated choices, with each option upping the game’s difficulty in some way while also providing you with a reward, such as increased armor or attack for your character. One choice could unlock you a new tower while leveling up a specific enemy type, and another might increase your tower’s critical damage, but also buff the speed of a certain enemy. You can reroll the choices if you want to in hopes of getting a modifier with a better combination and balance of reward and difficulty. Overall, by introducing this system, players now have to constantly be on their toes, as each round is now way more unpredictable than ever before, requiring constant tactical tweaks to successfully win the match.

As a result of this new system, the developers have introduced Lickquidator Squads. This means that you no longer have to place enemies individually at each spawner, but now instead form Squads by choosing one of 3 types of Lickquidator at the start of each match: Dire Tire, Funguy, or Steady Lad.

The new Gotchi Guardians Event System

At the final round of each day, get ready to fight the new Lickquidator Bosses. There are only 2 bosses for now: The Licker and Mamaship. These are more powerful versions of regular Lickquidators, which have been turned into bosses instead of staying as normal enemies. They’re randomly chosen at the start of each day, and gain a bonus special ability from day 2 and onwards to make them even tougher to beat.

Adding further variety to gameplay and the new Event System are Guardian rewards. The game consists of 5 different playable characters called Guardians that you can choose to play as before starting a match. Each Guardian now has 2 of their own exclusive buffs that can only appear for them when choosing a modifier at the start of each round. Only the Knight Guardian can get an armor or attack increase, and only the Farmer gets to increase the critical chance and critical damage of their towers.

Speaking of towers, say hello to Upgrade Seeds, a new currency used to buy special upgrades for towers. This means that you can no longer use the same currency that is used for leveling up towers, but now need to acquire Upgrade Seeds if you want to add a special upgrade or two to them. Upgrade Seeds can be gained by purchasing the new Seed Breeder item through the in-game shop during a match. You may have to reroll the shop offerings to have the item appear. The consumable initially has only one Upgrade Seed, but if you keep it for multiple rounds, its value will increase by 1 Upgrade Seed per completed round, allowing you to get more seeds to upgrade your towers with. This item may appear as one of the 2 randomly-generated choices, or they could even outright give you one or more Upgrade Seeds instead.

Tower upgrades now also have a new system to deliver “more varied upgrade paths." There are also 7 new special upgrades, making each tower more distinct than before.

Learn more about all the new special upgrades, items, quality of life enhancements, and more changes introduced to this game-changing update in the official patch notes.

How to Play to Airdrop in Gotchi Guardians

With the launch of this new update, the community can actually start their play to airdrop journey across various games set in the same universe, as part of Aavegotchi’s GOTCHI airdrop campaign that launched on the Geist blockchain (previously called Gotchichain) almost a month ago.

You can do this by earning Badges in-game, that you can then use to spin the GOTCHI Wheel. Badges are earned by achieving certain objectives while playing online matches. The wheel contains 6 offerings, one of which gives you zero points. If you’re lucky enough, you could win up to 50k GOTCHI Points. A limited number of points are available from this pool, with the number currently at around 8.4 million at the time of writing. Collect as many GOTCHI Points as you can each season to climb the leaderboard for a bigger allocation of the upcoming $GOTCHI token, described as a “culture token” that will launch on Geist and serve as the main currency for gameplay activities such as questing, crafting, and more in the Gotchiverse. The $GOTCHI airdrop and TGE is planned for early 2025.

While the game itself is free to play, spinning the GOTCHI Wheel requires becoming a Geist VIP Member. To become a member, you need to get an invite code that you can then redeem on the Geist dApp. You can get an invite code through a giveaway, from one of the project’s partners, as well as from an Aavegotchi owner. All holders were airdropped 1 invite code for each Aavegotchi NFT that they held “during our initial Geist Invite airdrop”, with more invites to potentially be given in the future, according to official documentation. Since that snapshot is over, purchasing an NFT now probably won’t give you an invite code, so you’ll have to find someone with a spare code or participate in giveaways. Asking in Aavegotchi’s official Discord server could be worth a shot. The invite code will grant you membership with a 7-day free trial, after which you will have to pay a subscription to extend your membership.

Try out the new update for yourself and play to airdrop in Gotchi Guardians right now by downloading the game on Windows or Mac for free through the official page on Aavegotchi’s dApp. A mobile version is in the works.