Grand Combat Game and Its $GRAND Token Highlight The GameFi Success on TON: Review

A new successful game is built upon Telegram messenger and TON blockchain. It’s a part of the recent Telegram Mini Apps (TMA) GameFi trend.

Grand Combat is a new game that has already attracted more than 5 million users. Its token $GRAND had a very successful launch on the TON blockchain, rising +8000% in price during the first hour. What this fuss is all about? And what is the deal with all the new Telegram-based games?

The gameplay of Grand Combat may seem very simple at first: you can just tap on the screen and get points for that. Looks like the simplest game mechanic in the world: you can just tap again and again, and the number keeps on rising. That’s the clicker mechanic well-known since the Cookie Clicker (2013). 

But while Grand Combat uses the clicker mechanic, it’s not limited to it. The game character is a crypto startup founder who can “invest” the points in different things, creating a “passive income” revenue stream: now you don’t even have to tap to get points. In the long run, you can get much more points by that than by tapping. So when a person gets deeper into the game, the focus shifts to different things.

Other things bring points, such as quests. Grand Combat already made a partnership with the well-known Trust Wallet app, so the players can get points with tasks like “provide the USDT BEP-20 address you have in Trust Wallet”. So the game doesn’t require any crypto knowledge at the beginning but encourages players to get more into the crypto world.

$GRAND token airdrops

And the best part: users will get rewarded with the $GRAND token airdrops. A part of the total $GRAND supply was set aside for this purpose from the start, it’s included in the tokenomics. How much does a player get? That depends on the size of the “passive income” stream achieved in the game.

You may have heard of such mechanics this year because other successful projects like Notcoin and Hamster Kombat used similar mechanics too. Both of those also use Telegram messenger and TON blockchain. And you might have heard of some other games playable in Telegram, such as Catizen or Gatto. So it looks like a trend — and it is. What should you know about it? 

It’s well-known that WeChat is a successful “superapp” where users do a lot of things inside the messenger, including gaming. But WeChat is limited to China and has nothing to do with crypto.

Now Telegram messenger is pumping up its Telegram Mini Apps platform. It also aims to be a “superapp”, where users do all kinds of things inside the messenger, from playing web-based games to buying digital goods. 

The difference is the integration with the TON blockchain. It makes sense for Telegram Mini Apps to use it. Because of that, many Telegram-based games and apps have created their tokens on the TON blockchain.

And it turned out to be a success. The $NOT token, created by the Notcoin project, is listed on exchanges such as Binance. The global audience of Hamster Kombat has surpassed 100 million. New GameFi projects are emerging such as Lost Dogs.

Why is it such a success? It turns out that the viral mechanics used in the games work very well with the social nature of the messenger and the rewards provided by the blockchain. You can get more points in a game by inviting your friends. And it’s easy to invite friends in a messenger — that’s the very app you use to communicate with your friends. And the more people you invite, the more chances you get in a future airdrop.

Because of that, Telegram users started to invite each other a lot. That helped to propel such games to millions of users. This year it spread like wildfire.

Possibly some of the game mechanics, such as tapping, can get less attractive in the future when the players get tired of them. But the whole integration of the games, the messenger and the blockchain looks like a win-win-win scenario: all of the parties involved help each other to grow. So if you’re looking for hot trends of 2024, this is one of them.

And regarding Grand Combat specifically: you might be interested not only in the game itself but also its token $GRAND on the TON blockchain. It rose sharply immediately after the listing several days ago, and it keeps on rising since then.

The game is available for free on Telegram, it also has an official Telegram channel. 

The token is available on STON.FI DEX (on TON blockchain), and there is a TON/GRAND liquidity pool anyone can participate.