An Intro to Spells of Genesis: Trading Card Game with Pinball-Style Battles

Blockchain gaming has grown in popularity over the past two years and blockchain technology has opened up new gameplay elements for players as well as a way to earn an income through Play-to-Earn systems. One game has taken the trading card game (TCG) style and blended it with a point-and-shoot or pinball style battle system. It’s also created a system for players to convert their cards into blockchain assets.

Spells of Genesis is a trading card game with a pinball-style battle system for mobile devices. Players can collect different hero cards of varying rarity, with some heroes having special abilities. Hero cards can also be fused to enable more powerful abilities in combat.

Players can also fuse multiple cards and level them up to create blockchain versions of their heroes that can be withdrawn to their wallets. This game seems to be focused on gameplay with an emphasis on fusing and leveling cards to make them stronger before they can be converted to blockchain assets.

Now, let’s get straight into how the game works.

Gameplay Elements

Whilst Spells of Genesis is a trading card game, the battles use a point-and-shoot system that is similar to pinball. Players choose their heroes from their deck of cards, then they can equip them with spells and arrange them on the battlefield.

There are three different game modes in Spells of Genesis:

1. There's the campaign mode where players engage in Player-vs-Environment (PvE) battles with over 30 different campaigns and 700 levels to fight through. In return for completing each level, the player receives gold which can be used to buy new in-game cards.
2. The game also has a "Raid" mode where players can engage in Player-vs-Player (PvP) combat with other players based on their rank. Players also receive gold for winning PvP battles.
3. Lastly, there's the "Challenge" mode which is an endless survival mode. Basically, the player has to survive as long as they can whilst taking on endless waves of enemies.

Once players have selected their team of up to four cards, they'll be taken to the battle screen where they'll face their opponent. Here players can battle it out by shooting fireballs at their opponent's heroes which can be seen inside their own orbs.

The attacks take the form of a fireball which can bounce off of other enemy heroes and ricochet off walls to build up powerful combination attacks. Again, this is where battle style shows a major resemblance to a pinball game.

Each attack has a certain damage level and once an enemy hero's health drops down to zero, that hero is destroyed.

The enemy hero's health is represented by the size of the orbs they're pictured in. The smaller the orb gets after every successful attack, the lower their health. Enemy orbs also have numbers which are a cool-down counter that you know when that enemy will attack again.

Certain heroes come with special abilities, known as spells which include fire, healing, poison, shielding, and targeting buffs.

There are six spell elements in the game, with each spell having different effects based on its element:

1. Water - Heals the closest hero to the caster
2. Fire - Shoots a fireball at the closest enemy hero
3. Light - Provides a power buff to the closest player hero
4. Earth - Prevents and reduces damage dealt to the player's team by enemy heroes
5. Ice - Freezes and slows down the closest enemy hero
6. Darkness - Hero cards with this element can cast a targeting spell to increase damage and a poison spell to damage enemy heroes over time

These spells can be seen on the battle screen as icons related to the spell type, for example, you will see ember icons for fire spells. To use these spells, players need to hit the spell icons with their fireball shots once they're visible.

Blockchain Asset Conversion

The game also has a “Blockchainization” feature that allows players to convert in-game cards into blockchain-based cards that can be withdrawn and stored in their wallets. This process works by fusing different cards and leveling them to their max level. The maxed-out card can then be transformed into a blockchain asset, however, a player needs to add their wallet to their account first.

Once an in-game card has been converted to a blockchain card, the in-game version is removed and replaced by the blockchain copy which is sent to the player's wallet. This enables players to own their cards which I think is an interesting feature, especially since players have to fully level up and fuse their cards before this is possible. This shows a gameplay-first approach to gaming since players have to work towards owning a blockchain-based card instead of simply paying for it.

Conclusion

Spells of Genesis is a trading card-style mobile game with pinball-inspired battles. The game takes a gameplay-first approach to mobile blockchain gaming with its focus on battles, fusions, and leveling. True ownership is another interesting feature of the game, with players being able to convert their cards into blockchain assets, only after they have maxed them out.