Bringing the experience of handheld consoles like Switch onto the blockchain? HypeSaints might be another way to play DePin

The first Web3 project led by STEPN's parent company FINDSATOSHI LAB ------ HypeSaints has recently quietly launched the first test of its App. Surprisingly, this test is deployed on the Polygon mainnet, which means that users' assets will be fully retained. From the information gathered, the official release test of the App is an important milestone for HypeSaints, providing users with a more practical experience and allowing them to start earning tokens.

We will provide a quick overview of the highlights and future roadmap of the HypeSaints project from four aspects:

Web3 Gaming Track: Combining Handheld Gameplay with DePin Concept

The gaming track has always been a popular sector in the current cycle, with many industry competitors, including elites from the traditional gaming industry. From a traditional perspective, handheld and console products typically position themselves as gaming platforms, attracting various game studios and producers to aggregate content and distribute it to more players. We can also see that many Web3 gaming platforms are building according to a similar logic.

HypeSaints has taken a different path: all game cartridges (NFTs of different game types) will revolve around the HypeSaints IP. The project team has established a relatively complete worldview, story, background, and characters, which will provide players with a consistent experience and form a more unified understanding of HypeSaints. In the future, the asset usage rights of HypeSaints will be given to players, allowing them to create richer game card content.

The most important step in HypeSaints' roadmap will be at the end of the year, when the project team will officially announce a physical handheld product, truly bringing the DePin concept to life. According to official information, this will be a hardware product that integrates a wallet, content OTA updates, play-to-earn, and social and computing power sharing based on geographic location.

NFS: NFTnomics Beyond Token Economics

Non-Fungible Story, a unique feature that HypeSaints has been emphasizing to users. Simply put, the game cartridges launched by the project team are an important carrier of NFS. When players participate in the creation of NFS, a large amount of unique content will be generated within the entire product ecosystem. Player creators can package, chain, price, and sell the game cartridges they create, and even include advertisements and bounty tasks. This not only brings more income possibilities for creators but also provides more experiences for users consuming the content.

Yawn, the co-founder of STEPN, serves as the core advisor for HypeSaints and has provided valuable experience from STEPN for the design of HypeSaints' economic system. The project team explained in multiple AMAs that another purpose of designing NFS is that it is NFTnomics beyond Tokenomics, which will bring players a richer "optimal solution." Each player excels in different game cartridges, and the optimal solution required for different game cartridges also varies, which means there is no absolute unique optimal solution in the entire system, allowing all NFT assets in the App (such as different components) to have their "place."

Quick Start with the App: Similar to Playing a Switch

The HypeSaints App is both familiar and fresh. Buying a handheld, DIYing a handheld, purchasing game cartridges, and inserting game cartridges are operations that gamers are well accustomed to, similar to playing a Switch or GameBoy handheld. The novelty lies in the NFTization of assets, which brings higher freedom; DIYing the handheld can enhance performance while changing its appearance, and the buying and selling of handhelds and game cartridges will become more efficient and free.

In the current test version, the project team has opened up gameplay such as nurturing the handheld, DIY, mining, and plundering, and functional tokens have also been launched, which can be earned during the experience. In the first week, players only need to pay 50 MATIC to purchase a handheld to start playing and earning. The App is in PWA format, accessible via PC or mobile browser without the need for download, and the wallet supports Gmail registration without requiring a mnemonic phrase, providing convenience for new players.

Future Roadmap: TON Will Be the Next Realm for HypeSaints, TGE in Summer

The HypeSaints project team announced in March that it has been selected as a member of the first phase of the TON Foundation's Asian incubation accelerator. After the graduation season in May, the TON version will be delivered, allowing HypeSaints to launch on Telegram in the form of a Mini App, officially opening up this new realm after Polygon.

Following this, the governance token $HYPE will be launched, i.e., TGE. Among the first round of investors in HypeSaints, we noticed the presence of CEX, and it is expected that the project team will announce more TGE information in Q2.