The Seventh Seal, a labor of love started in late November of 2020 by two software developers, hosts its first land sale on Friday, August 27th. Four different size packs are available, with different amounts of cards and rarity chances. Though land sales are incredibly popular in the NFT gaming space right now, The Seventh Seal is shooting for something a bit different from the rest.
Seventh Seal is an upcoming hex-map, turn-based computer game made by Legacy Gameworks. Players expand their empire and exert their dominance over the land. Built on the Wax blockchain, The Seventh Seal will have a play-to-earn aspect for both players and map makers.
First, the map makers. Anyone who owns map tiles can take the role of Cartographer and build game maps. A cartography tool allows tile owners to arrange them into a game map. Each map requires six keep tiles, one for each player's starting location. Otherwise you are free to design it however you wish -- as long as you have the tiles. And now for the interesting part. When you put the final seal of approval onto your map and release it, you will also burn all of the NFT tiles used in making that map. Forever! When players wish to join a multiplayer game, they pay a token entry fee. The owner of the map receives a portion of the entry fees every time someone plays on their map.
(note: there was some discussion during an AMA about possibly locking the NFTS into a smart contract instead, allowing maps to be broken apart later).
Once someone makes a map and locks it, they will gather Mana. Every tile on the map generates Mana, with the more rare tiles receiving a Mana generation bonus. So what do you do with this Mana? Well, this leads into the second part of the play-to-earn aspect. Players receive a portion of the Mana gathered onto a map when they play, with a larger portion going to the winner. Players can use Mana to buy more game tokens.
The Seventh Seal team released a video showing off the alpha gameplay. Players create builders, soldiers, farms, and villages to try and defeat their opponents. Some terrain is impassable while other terrain can be removed by builders. Builders create farms and clear tiles. Farms support troops. Troops fight and conquer.
Fairly basic gameplay, but for strategy games, design can often trump complexity. The team mentioned their ideas for future expansions with different troop types, more terrain types, and tile elevation. But for the moment, they are focused on getting this first iteration out the door and into the players' hands.
As a leadup to the sale, Legacy Gameworks has dropped 'promo tiles' on a regular basis. These tiles are used in mapmaking also, and function as different rarities based on their mint number. For example, any Promo Tiles that are mints 1 to 5 count as Celestial level tiles when added to a map.
Owning at least one of every promo tile grants you status as a 'True Fan'. True Fans won't have to pay to join matches and also get the first chance to pick up any promo drops. The team said that the True Fan status will be an NFT so that it can be traded and sold. You can also acquire a 'New Fan' status by owning 12 or more promo tiles, with at least 6 different tile types. New Fans will be able to play certain maps for free. The snapshot for the Fan distribution takes place sometime soon after the land sale.