Learn About Plants vs Undead Crypto Game
Developers in the gaming industry often ask themselves about player retention and motivation. While some dwell deeper into various design concepts, some believe that the answer lies on the surface: a play-to-earn model is a solution for this particular debacle. One of the pioneers in this field is no other than Plants vs. Undead.
The name is purposely modelled after an undisputable hit “Plants vs. Zombies” that became a pop-culture icon at the time of its release. A fast-paced, well-designed tower defence game with a hilarious premise and great sound design deserved its place among the greatest games ever made. The developers of the “Plants vs. Undead” NFT game aim to do the same for crypto gaming projects.
What is Plants vs. Undead?
In a nutshell, this is a simple tower defence title with a meta-progression rooted, pun intended, in the play-to-earn mechanic. You are a gardener caught in somewhat of a pickle as a meteorite of unknown origin brings down an infection turning everyone into mindless zombies. Only the Mother Tree can save the world and you are to guard it using a variety of battle vegetation.
The game has two modes: PvP and PvE. The former is a battle between players while the latter is a battle against powerful zombies. The combat is made after many other popular card-drawing games. Various consumable items, special attacks, and spells can be drawn during fights as plants try their hardest to repel endless waves of enemies.
The meta-progression is a little bit trickier. It involves farming (watering plants, harvesting crops, and developing your farm), as well as a bit of trading since the most important resource in the game, is an NFT token (Light Energy token or LE) that can be traded for another NFT called PVU. The latter is tradable on both Binance and PancakeSwap.
The P2E mechanism is quite simple. You farm crops, receive LE for battling and completing various quests, and then exchange your LE for PVU and sell it on the market for profit. On the other hand, people who want to focus on building a strong defensive team and dominate the PvP realm will have an opportunity to do so by purchasing PVU and playing with more resources than other players.
Let’s discuss the selling points
The team behind the game pushes several ideas on the whole gaming community and some of them have merits that can be seen by a naked eye while others are less convincing. Let’s take a closer look at some of the advantages that the game has.
- The combination of genres. Undeniably, people enjoy tower defence games and love farming simulators. Both genres are staples on social media platforms and mobile devices. PvU aims to fuse these distinctly different genres in a single title with a strong focus on creating a lively financial ecosystem.
- Using a unique in-game currency that is relevant in the real world. PVU tokens are a huge part of the in-game economy and also the only source of potential income for both players and developers creating the game. Sadly, it creates some issues for the longevity of the game as developers often leave projects before they are finished.
- Monetary incentives. It is the main selling point of this particular title as developers emphasize that all players can earn money by being either great strategists or cautious farmers. Since all plants generate some Light Energy, there is potential for anyone to make a decent income by regularly playing and selling their resources.
- Low fees. All NFTs are traded on the marketplace tied to Binance but the fees are kept at a minimum meaning that transactions are cheaper and small-time trades are favoured by the system.
How to start in Plants vs. Undead
The game is currently in active development. This does not mean, however, that you cannot experience it first-hand right now. While some features are still raw and demand additional polishing, the farming mechanic is already in place and tokens are being traded on Binance and PancakeSwap.
Just like Axie Infinity, this game requires some initial investments and patience at the beginning when you just start developing your garden. It is important to remember that returns are not guaranteed and profits depend on a plethora of factors including players’ skills, dedication, and market situation.
Plants vs. Undead is not an intense, action-packed entertainment for hardcore gamers. On the contrary, the game is meditative and demands some time investment without anything flashy happening on the screen. If you are into strategic, economy-oriented games with simplistic yet unexpectedly deep mechanics, you will most certainly enjoy Plants vs. Undead.
So how should you start your farm in this game?
Set up a MetaMask wallet
You will need to purchase LE tokens and initial plants which are NFTs that can be traded on the marketplace on the official website of PvU. If you already have MetaMask, go to Pancakeswap to purchase some PVU tokens that will be used to get in-game resources.
Note that you will also need a MetaMask wallet to create a new account in Plants vs. Undead. Other methods exist, but using a wallet is the quickest and safest. PancakeSwap allows you to swap BNB tokens for PVU and vice versa.
Purchase PVU
PVU is used to buy all sorts of in-game items including consumables, improved quests, and Light Energy. Without a small starting capital used to purchase your first seeds, you won’t be able to efficiently farm and create a strong, competitive team.
The whole network exists within the Binance ecosystem meaning that you will have to buy PVUs at the current market price which may change as all other financial assets do. Since any transaction in BNB is subjected to a small system fee, make sure to keep at least some to pay for transactions. In the case of just starting, 0.5 BNB is more than enough to cover all initial costs and then some.
Get your first plants
The “battle vegetation” can be purchased on the marketplace. All prices are in PVU. Note that you can exchange PVU for LE (1PVU = 1LE) to use them in-game for various purposes including leveling up. All new players receive a plot of land to start playing for free. However, additional plots must be then purchased with PVUs.
After receiving plants, place them in empty beds to start growing them. The process may seem quite tedious at first, but with enough resources, you can achieve results swiftly.
Use their client… or don’t…
Developers put some effort and time into creating an independent game client that works on Android and Apple devices. Compatibility with Windows is also on the table but this particular goal is not on the priority list. You can use Android emulators such as BlueStacks to bypass this limitation. Although, we would recommend sticking to the browser version.
The browser version works in all modern browsers including Edge, Firefox, and Chrome. It comes down to your personal preferences in terms of which you want to use. In essence, this is how to get started with Plants vs. Undead.
Plants vs. Undead: how much to start
Price often becomes the main cornerstone for many games but it is particularly true for play-to-earn games. Axie Infinity demonstrated that initial investments can be recouped easily when you start lending your in-game resources instead of trying to get something out by playing alone. This strategy is usually reserved for those who see such games as quick investments.
As you calculate risks and rewards, you should understand that Plants vs. Undead is a game with a strong focus on gameplay. Successful players must participate in various gaming activities while defending their crops from bad weather and crows. While it may look like a relaxed gameplay loop, the time commitment for serious players is significant.
Let’s do some quick math. Note that all numbers are relevant at the time of writing (June 2022) and may change dramatically as the price of the PVU token changes.
- The cheapest NFT plant on the marketplace goes for about 10 PVU
- You need a couple hundred LE to start (let’s say 210 LE for beginners)
- You need 6 plants in total to fill your first plot of land.
- PVU currently costs $0.018 on the open market.
The calculations bring us to roughly $1.16 to set up your first farm. Note that the price changes regularly and moves together with the whole market. Since the whole crypto is experiencing a dip right now, the entry-level is also low. At its peak, the farm would cost you at least $18.6 or more depending on which rarity of plants you wanted.
Consider rarity
One of the key aspects of gameplay that developers emphasize is that plants differ not only in looks and utility but also in rarity. The whole catalogue is packed with unique plants but some of them are “more unique” than others. Rare plants are priced at 10000 PVU and more.
The total cost of an investment may also change due to various balance patches and alterations of various mechanics that are aimed at improving the economy. While the PVU team did not yet implement any such changes, the story of Axie Infinity was something to learn from as their economy could collapse unless drastic measures were implemented.
How to farm in Plants vs. Undead
Now that you know how to register in Plants vs. Undead, you need to understand the basic mechanics forming the fundamental gameplay loop of this game. On the surface, PvU is a tower defence strategy but the meta-game surrounding it makes it akin to your average farming simulators with lots of simplification and streamlining of features.
There are several things to keep in mind when trying to harvest the best crops:
- Yields of LE and quality of plants depend on the rarity of planted NFTs
- You need to regularly water plants and protect them from crows and bad weather
- Keep in mind that there is a global season change that you can track in the farming menu
- Using various tools and consumables is preferable to achieve better yields.
The farming part of the game is the only fully implemented feature of the game as of the time of writing. The recent change removed seeds from the game to prevent market dilution but it is still a profitable game mode where you can earn Light Energy which can be directly exchanged for PVU tokens on the market.
Using a variety of plants is preferable. It is especially true for people who plan to eventually start battling other players in the PvP 1v1 arena where players can earn not only LE and consumables but also PVU tokens.
While rarity alone is a great indicator of value, some new mechanics make some plants better than others in niche cases. The elements update in 4.0 introduced resistances to certain types of damage and growing plants with specific types of damage is a great idea if you are interested in creating a diverse battling team.
The PvE mode in Plants vs. Undead
The newest addition to the PvE system is an expansion of undead monsters that attack the player in the tower defence section of the game. There are more types of enemies each with its unique skills and resistances which should be accounted for when building a strong defensive formation.
All creatures can be buffed and debuffed with skills and consumable items. PvE grants loot. The loot quality improves with each level of the ascension of undead enemies which you also control. You choose when to put resources into upgrading your enemies for better loot and rewards.
Plants vs. Undead: how much can you earn?
The biggest question bothering people who are interested in the game is what kind of returns one could expect from a play-to-earn game? Honestly, there is no right answer. Your earnings depend on a plethora of factors, some of which are acknowledged by the team:
- PVU prices change regularly and volatility is quite high
- Developers and team members can leave the project making it less financially viable
- Exchange prices can be manipulated by large stakeholders;
- Some legal issues may prevent players to use their PVU assets to their fullest potential.
When it comes to the game itself, the quantity of LE generated by plants depends on both the rarity of the plant and the level of skill and dedication a player demonstrates when tending to their virtual gardens. Your ability to protect the farm from crows or react to weather events efficiently determines the amount of money you can earn.
Since players can lend their NFTs, there is also a potential to just be a virtual landlord and provide other players with resources for a cut of their income or fixed fees. Calculating potential rewards in these cases is even harder as more variables start affecting the outcome.
Some information about Plants vs. Undead token
The whole in-game economy is based on the PVU token and using plants as NFTs. PVU is a token native to the BSC (Binance) token and the total amount is fixed. Here are some important facts and numbers about PVUs:
- The total supply is capped at 300 million
- 50% is reserved for rewards and the ecosystem itself
- 50% is reserved for the development team and sales.
Initially, some funds were locked for 6 months but after the expiration period ended, most of them were sold which caused some issues with the price of the token. Nevertheless, it is still relevant. At the time of writing, the trading volume was about $400 thousand which indicates that there is enough liquidity for active trading.
PVU tokens are traded on Binance and PancakeSwap as well as some other exchange services. It means that you can use it as an asset in crypto trading. As some investors noted, there is value in using automated methods of trading when dealing with PVU. Using crypto automation could be another way of making money with this particular asset. While focusing on gameplay mechanics is something that any gamer would prefer, investors and casual players may want to focus on trading.
The future of Plants vs. Undead
It takes some time to learn how to start playing Plants vs. Undead let alone understanding how the market works and how one can earn money while tending to their virtual farms. Even determining whether the growth potential exists in this game is quite hard. The number of volatile variables is just too high to account for all of them.
The roadmap indicates that some features and mechanics will be added at some point and many people are eagerly waiting for the introduction of the arena mode. However, the hype for P2P titles is less noticeable compared to just a year ago. Developers must pick up the pace and finish their core systems before it is too late for the game to acquire more players to boost the economy.
On the other hand, existing mechanics are enjoyable and deserve praise. The UI/UX is great and people have been positive on the matter of implementing changes proposed by the community. The design is appealing, their marketplace is active and something is sold every 5 — 10 minutes. The demand is here and many players are enjoying both playing and earning in Plants vs. Undead. The question is whether it will be enough.