Web3 game developer Sonzai Labs has officially announced the launch of their first game: TeleMafia. Here’s everything you need to know about this new Telegram game and how playing it might help you get whitelisted for an upcoming NFT mint.

What Is TeleMafia?

TeleMafia is a social mafia game ecosystem on Telegram in which you can play and earn rewards that are distributed from an AI-powered anime-styled concierge. It's free to play and anyone can easily jump in and fight their friends to earn Respect, a currency that could help you earn rewards and a potential whitelist spot.

This is very much a social-focused game, with all gameplay taking place in the messaging app through combat commands that you send as messages inside Telegram groups that have the game’s official bot added in, so you’re not restricted to playing through mobile or PC for this one. Anyone can add the bot their group, so you can set up a group chat together with your friends, or try and join an existing one to start earning Respect. 

Once you’re inside a group, you can start using the /fight command, choosing the specific user you’d like to battle to earn Respect. You can enter a specific username with the command, or just use /fight with the bot tagged to have the bot give you a list of players of similar strength. Once you challenge someone using this command, the bot will automatically determine the winner based on combat stats, earning Respect even if you lose, while draining stamina for each fight.

Next to the /fight command, you can also enter a battle with the /slap and /execute commands, though you will need to tag a specific user to use them. Those options also drain a certain amount of your stamina. Every time you use the /slap command you also earn Respect, with additional rewards received if you use this command to completely drain a user’s health. The /execute command can be used against players with 20 HP or lower, but it uses up 10x more stamina than /slap and only has a 30% success rate, but if it actually works, you will get some big rewards. Winning fights is rewarded with XP, in-game money, and Respect points, with the losing side potentially having some of their in-game money deducted.

Health, stamina, and energy all automatically regenerate every 15 minutes, but eventually, all that fighting could get your health to zero. If you have 0 health, your stats won’t regenerate. What happens then? Well, you need to use the /heal command to head to the healing center to recover your HP. Healing however comes at a price. If you have enough in-game money, you can heal yourself. If not, you will then have to make a purchase through the shop using Telegram Stars. One purchase should put you back to full health.

The shop is where you can get more stamina in order continue playing more. There are 5 different Stamina Packages, with the cheapest option providing 1 Stamina for 35 Telegram Stars. You also get Respect points for every $1 spent. The store also has Mob Packages up for grabs. Buying Mobs increases your fighting power.

Each player has their own stats that not only include health and stamina, but also money, level, attack, defense, and energy. You can view the stats of other players by adding their username alongside the /stats command to figure out if you stand a chance of winning the duel. You can increase combat stats by using skill points, which are awarded when leveling up.

This initial launch of what is also referred to as a mini experience titled Mafia: Fight represents Phase 1 of Sonzai Labs' first game. While you can simply hop in and play in any group now, in the future, private Telegram groups called Families will have a significantly larger importance, and it seems that Families will only be run by NFT holders.

You can start playing TeleMafia for free right now by heading to the game’s official Telegram bot and either adding it to your group or joining an existing one that has the bot included.

Valentina, an AI character that will distribute rewards to Families in TeleMafia

Play and Earn in TeleMafia to Get WL Spot for Upcoming NFT Mint: the Sonzai Diamond Genesis Pass

Players can play and earn Respect in TeleMafia, which is a points system used to rank you up on the weekly and all-time leaderboards. For the game’s initial launch, your goal is to collect as many Respect points as you can as soon as possible. If you manage to rank among the players with the highest number of Respect points, then you could end up receiving a WL spot for the upcoming NFT mint of the Sonzai Diamond Genesis Pass.

The Sonzai Diamond Genesis Pass is a Factory NFT that is set to generate Respect for you, provide day 1 Family creation, and more ongoing perks that will be revealed in the future as more AI-powered social on-chain gaming experiences are added to the Telegram-based ecosystem.

Aside from collecting Respect, anyone interested in getting whitelisted for the NFT mint will also want to complete the Genesis Pass registration process. The registration page can be found over at the studio’s official website, which is also linked by the game’s Telegram bot. Details on when the NFT mint will take place do not seem to be available at the time of writing. More allocation for the community was recently given, with the same tweet teasing that the full game is coming soon, which is where Families look set to have a crucial role in play to earn rewards, as an AI anime character called Valentina will manage the on-chain treasuries of these Families and distribute rewards accordingly.