Monster Taming Era
The monster taming game genre has found its decade to shine. After a long domination of the Pokemon series, several games has surfaced that are in no way comparable as a clone (despite being called that way sometimes). With a few being already released, there are many more in development, such as Skyclimbers and Ova Magica, which I recently backed on Kickstarter. In the coming week, we have two huge things coming:
- Temtem's Cipanku Update
- Chainmonsters Alpha Release
Temtem's Cipanku Update
For anyone who knows me, I love Temtem! It is my main game, with over 2400 hours logged in-game, as well as having streamed it on several occasions. The last big content update for Temtem was on the 27th October, and that was the Bread and Butter Economy Changes, which introduced weekly quests such as fishing, dojo rebattles and radars. The update has improved the existing endgame drastically, but with almost 6 months without any big patches, certain content (like PvP) was at times monotonous or repetitive.
The Cipanku update on the 13th of April will change everything. Being the 5th of out of the 6 main islands in the Airborne Archipelago, this new island will home 24 new Temtem that we could not yet capture. We expect the majority, if not all, to be either Digital or Electric type, as these are the two main typings for Cipanku.
At last, we will be able to continue the story which we left off at the end of Kisiwa with a massive cliff-hanger (I won't spoil it here.) A lot of the players are very curious to where the story will head into. We expect to encounter more Belsoto Clan (the villains), and we will get to discover more about the Digital temtem and how they were created. The patch notes and trailer will come out on Tuesday 13th of April before the patch goes live, and that is when we will find out some new features perhaps. It has already been revealed that a Fast Travel system will be implemented, which is a teleportation free of charge to airship terminals, but may have a cost to use to other locations.
Chainmonsters Alpha Release
Another creature collector game on the horizon is Chainmonsters, an MMO game with blockchain integration. Chainmonsters has been announced to launch its Alpha on Wednesday, 14th of April, with 3 out of the 25 Alpha exclusive NFTs to be already obtainable. NFTs are non-fungible tokens, which people who have been on the blockchain already have heard about, and this is something that set Chainmonsters apart.
The game itself will be playable without any extensive knowledge or activity in blockchain, so it should stand as a well balanced, fun game for players who are interested in the genre. The fact that each monsters will be an NFT and can be traded on the blockchain is only a bonus, and I expect Chainmonster to be the first to lead other games into this direction.
The initial Alpha will have limited features, which you should read on the dev's post Alpha Launch Information. In brief, players should be able to explore areas and encounter wild chainmons, but we are only limited to our starter and a second companion. So for the initial release, there will be no way to capture new chainmons or to gain experience. I expect the focus to be mostly on ensuring the account system works in-game and cross platform (being released on Steam, Android and iOS), as well as the basic battle system, NPC interaction and quest system. I cannot wait for more updates in Chainmonsters and to see it grow into the next big game!
202X is the Decade for Monster Catchers
With Temtem being in Early Access, Chainmonsters in Alpha, and with several other games in the genre already released or in development, this is only the beginning of the next Monster Taming / Creature Collecting game genre. For a long while, most monster-taming games were either subpar (and yes, I am kinda looking at you Digimon - I love you, but you can do better) or solely developed by giants (like the Pokémon series, which is pretty exclusive to Nintendo Consoles). The new wave of high-quality games is coming at us like a Tsunami, and I am hoping it brings a healthy competition for all games to both thrive and hold themselves to a higher standard.
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