4Alpha Research Researcher: 0xamuel

Introduction

Recently, a Tap2 Earn game called The Banana Game has attracted widespread attention. This article will delve into the gameplay, success factors, and potential market performance of the Banana Game, exploring the innovations behind it and its future development prospects. This past weekend, if you frequently browsed X, did you notice a game that was frequently trending—The Banana Game? This game, officially supported by CARV, is a Tap2 Earn mini-game based on Telegram. The core task for players is to collect and trade bananas daily. Tap2 Earn, which refers to earning cryptocurrency or other digital assets through simple clicks or participation in specific tasks, was first proposed by NotCoin earlier this year. Within just three days of its launch, the official account of the Banana Game attracted over 100,000 followers on X, and the subscription count for the official Telegram channel exceeded 400,000. According to Decrypt, within 72 hours of its launch, the user count of The Banana Game surpassed 1 million. In contrast, data from TGStat shows that NotCoin's community user count on Telegram during the same period was far less than that of the Banana Game. These figures indicate that as a GameFi project, the Banana Game has demonstrated outstanding user numbers and community engagement, showcasing its immense potential.

The impressive market performance raises the question: Can the Banana Game replicate NotCoin's success, or even surpass it, becoming a new legend in the GameFi space?

Peeling Bananas for Big Profits

Before diving deeper, let’s first understand the gameplay of the Banana Game.

As mentioned earlier, the core mechanism of the Banana Game is to obtain bananas through clicks. Players can randomly harvest one banana each day, which are categorized into three rarity levels: Unripe (common), Fully Ripe (rare), and Overripe (super rare). Each type of banana can generate PEELs, which are the in-game reward tokens. Players can collect these PEELs by clicking on their bananas. Rarity is crucial in the game. The higher the rarity, the greater the value of the banana. Players who own high-rarity bananas can not only harvest more PEELs but can also sell these bananas at higher prices through the trading system, earning additional PEELs or USDT, making every click and harvest full of surprises.

According to the publicly available banana catalog, the most valuable banana—Matrixnana—can be worth up to 500 USDT, while bananas of slightly lower quality are also valued at several USDT. These valuable bananas can be sold directly from the backpack, and the earnings can be withdrawn to a linked wallet by clicking the withdrawal button. Therefore, finding and collecting unique bananas has become the goal for players.

In addition to collecting and clicking bananas, players can also earn extra banana rewards by completing various social tasks and participating in missions. These tasks include binding CARV ID, following and sharing content on social platform X, etc. Inviting friends to join the game also earns additional banana rewards, which not only incentivizes players to expand their social circles but also gives the game a certain SocialFi attribute.

Rich Rewards Beyond the Game

In addition to in-game rewards, players can also earn extra rewards by completing tasks on the CARV Play platform. The Banana Game is officially supported by CARV, which is a modular data layer built specifically for AI and Web3 games. CARV Play is the first flagship product based on the CARV protocol and serves as a cross-platform game certification system. You can simply think of it as the Galxe for blockchain game tasks or the TapTap game store in the blockchain. The tasks on the CARV Play platform are similar to those within the Banana Game, mainly involving participating in the game or sharing game-related information on social media. However, there are significant differences in rewards. Players have the opportunity to earn GEM shares worth up to 1800 USDT (for redeeming rewards on the CARV platform) or exclusive SBTs for their accounts, making the rewards quite generous.

According to official data, CARV Play has provided enhanced gaming experiences for 2.5 million registered players, with daily active users exceeding 500,000, and has supported over 780 Web2 and Web3 games and ecosystems, such as Illuvium, Off the Grid, Aperion, and Pixelmon. With the platform's strong integration capabilities, CARV previously secured $50 million in funding from top-tier funds and ecosystems, including Vertex Ventures of Temasek, ConsenSys (the developer of Metamask), IOSG Ventures, Animoca Brands, and HashKey Capital. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Banana Game was able to generate such a significant impact within just a few days of its launch.

Comparing NotCoin: Challenges and Opportunities for the Banana Game

From a gameplay perspective, the "tap-tap-tap" mechanism of the Banana Game is quite similar to that of NotCoin. The core gameplay of NotCoin is straightforward; players simply need to keep tapping the screen while they have stamina to earn in-game coins. The success of NotCoin lies in its innovative proposal and promotion of the Tap2 Earn concept, while its large user base and simple operation lowered the entry barrier for players. Features like team collaboration and inviting new users further facilitated the rapid spread of the game and player growth.

In terms of token economic design, NotCoin has shown great sincerity. The project team retained only 5% of the tokens, with the remaining 78% airdropped to all game users, leaving nothing for venture capitalists. This generous distribution has garnered widespread acclaim from the community, and even though some critics labeled it as a meme, NotCoin successfully conducted an IEO on Binance, reaching a market cap of $3 billion. Although the Banana Game has yet to disclose its token economic design, replicating NotCoin's success will be crucially dependent on it. However, unlike NotCoin, the Banana Game has the support of CARV, so it will need to consider how to reasonably allocate a portion of the shares to the platform after the token launch. A clear example is Catizen, which is also a popular Tap2 Earn game on Telegram, but due to only allocating 35% of the airdrop to users while the team and VCs held 28%, it faced significant criticism even after increasing the airdrop ratio to 43%.

For the Banana Game, if the platform and project team hold too high a proportion of tokens, players may worry about the risk of a price crash, leading to dissatisfaction; conversely, if the holding amount is too low, it may fail to meet investors' expectations. Therefore, designing a token distribution plan that satisfies both parties will be a key challenge moving forward.

The Banana Game: Capturing the Market with Simple Gameplay

Beyond token design, gameplay also plays a crucial role in game promotion. In March of this year, a Tap2 Earn game called Hamster Kombat attracted significant attention, and by the end of July, it had over 300 million users. Compared to NotCoin's simple gameplay, Hamster Kombat features a more complex background setting and gameplay, with richer content. Players manage an exchange in the game, earning points by consuming energy to click the screen, which they can use to upgrade the exchange, enhancing its functions and influence, etc. From the data, Hamster Kombat has performed quite successfully: the official announcement in June indicated that there were already 47.6 million active users. It recently announced the largest airdrop in cryptocurrency history, with 60% of HMSTR tokens specifically allocated for players, while the remaining portion is used for providing market liquidity, ecosystem partnerships, grants, rewards for teams, and other projects.

However, why did Hamster Kombat fail to gain widespread attention like NotCoin? Aside from being a copycat project of NotCoin and lacking a novel narrative, the main reason lies in its overly complex gameplay. For example, as a nurturing game, players need to frequently log in to click the screen to earn coins; earning one coin requires 1000 clicks if the energy is 1000; although there is passive income from idle play, it is only effective for three hours after logging out, after which players must re-enter the game. Despite Hamster Kombat's carefully designed background and gameplay, this also means players need to invest more effort. Therefore, while Hamster Kombat's design and user base are strong, its complex gameplay limits broader user participation.

In Web2 games, players primarily come for the enjoyment of the game; even if the operations are complex, as long as there is an attractive element, players are willing to invest time to explore. For instance, games like World of Warcraft can attract a large number of players despite their complexity. However, in Web3 games, most GameFi projects attract users through massive airdrops and point rewards, with players' primary motivation being "making money." In this context, overly complex gameplay becomes a burden for "zero-cost" players. In the current volatile crypto market, players are more focused on the cost-to-return ratio, making low-cost, straightforward airdrop projects more appealing. Therefore, while Hamster Kombat might attract a certain number of players in Web2 due to its interesting design and gameplay, in the Web3 market, such complex gameplay instead becomes a burden, making it difficult to surpass NotCoin.

Similar situations have occurred multiple times in the Web3 space. Last year around this time, the explosive popularity of Friend.tech attracted a lot of attention, leading many to believe that SocialFi would support another bull market. However, even a year later, despite clear airdrops, Friend.tech remains lukewarm. The reason is similarly that complex gameplay and high entry barriers limit widespread user participation. In contrast, Tip Coin, launched in September last year, gained significant attention due to its simple gameplay. Users only need to bind their X accounts and interact with relevant topics daily to earn points, making it easy to get started and quickly gaining popularity. The project team launched three rounds of airdrop activities within a month; although the returns for later participants decreased as the number of participants increased, many still made a small profit, and the project team received positive feedback.

It must be acknowledged that Hamster Kombat is a well-designed game project, but in the current crypto market, "low cost" may be more important for most players. In a volatile market, many simply hope to make a small profit and recover their investments. The Banana Game capitalizes on this, clearly informing players of the value of each banana, allowing players to earn rewards by clicking every few hours, making it more competitive.

In Conclusion

To summarize the potential success factors of the Banana Game:

1. Retaining the core narrative of Tap2 Earn, with transparent rewards: The game continues the core of the Tap2 Earn model, allowing rewards to be obtained through simple clicks, with transparent and open rewards enhancing players' trust and engagement.

2. Official support from CARV, ensuring reach and influence: Thanks to CARV's official support, the Banana Game has a strong backing in promotion and dissemination, ensuring its exposure and influence within the community.

3. Simple gameplay, with a very low entry barrier and a high cost-to-return ratio: The game is designed to be easy to pick up, requiring players to spend only a little time to participate, with opportunities to earn high-value rewards, attracting a large number of players due to its low-cost, high-return nature.

4. Token economics likely favoring players: Although the specific token economic design has yet to be announced, if it leans towards players like other successful Tap2 Earn projects, with fair token distribution, it will further enhance player engagement and loyalty.

5. Community interaction and social attributes: The Banana Game encourages players to engage through social media interactions and inviting new users, which not only increases user stickiness but also promotes communication and interaction among players, reinforcing the game's social attributes.

However, the success of the game depends not only on initial popularity and appeal but also on its ability to continuously attract players and maintain activity levels. As of now, aside from the clear airdrops, the official team has not announced any upcoming updates for the game. Considering that the game has just launched, this strategy is understandable, as it is still in the process of expanding its influence. However, if the project wants to maintain long-term vitality, more advanced game designs will be essential in the future. Otherwise, like other "one-hit-wonder" games, once the airdrop ends, players may quickly leave, and the project could become a fleeting moment.

For players, even if they are just looking to "zero-cost," this is an opportunity not to be missed; for the entire GameFi market, the rise of the Banana Game and its strategy of collaborating with major platforms for promotion will have a certain impact on future game projects.