If you’ve been a long-term follower of ours here at Honest Betting Reviews you will know we occasionally like to venture into territory beyond betting and look at other opportunities like crypto, forex and the like.
We recently took a look at fantasy football game Sorare for example and have been doing very well playing that and earning rewards.
Well today we are going to take a look at another “play to earn” opportunity and this one is called Town Star from a company called Gala Games.
The game is a little like Farmville, which was a very popular simulation game where you built your own farm and sold crops and produce. At its peak it had over 80 million active monthly users.
Town Star actually comes from the same people who designed Farmville, so they clearly know what they are doing.
And the great thing about Town Star is you can actually earn income (in the form Town Coin which you can then convert to fiat currency) by playing it.
Some people are already earning over $100 per day playing it and the game is still in its very early stages.
So it looks like an exciting opportunity and one we’ll do a deep dive into below in terms of what it’s all about, how you can earn income from it and the long-term potential of Town Star.
As with anything else in this sector though, we would issue the usual disclaimer to only put in an amount you can afford to lose in a platform like this because it is risky and lots of things could happen to affect the returns or the game itself.
The Play-to-Earn Gaming Revolution
The play-to-earn gaming revolution has taken the world by storm and is shaking up the traditional video game industry.
Games like Axie Infinity have over 2m users and the Axie token has grown from less than a dollar to over $140 at the time of writing with an $8.6bn market cap.
Most of these play-to-earn games work on the basis that they have their own in-game currency, much like games have done for many years.
However, rather than that currency being worthless outside the game as is the case with traditional games, with these new play-to-earn games the companies making them issue a cryptocurrency that is listed on exchanges like Coinbase and Binance.
As you win this currency in the game for completing tasks or winning tournaments, you can then sell the currency on exchanges and convert it to fiat currency – pounds, dollars and Euros etc.
The play-to-earn revolution is still in its infancy but there are already people making a full-time living from it. Some people have even set up specialist groups – called “guilds” where they pool resources, knowledge and game-time to compete as a team and improve their returns.
Others who don’t have time to spend hours playing video games but do have the resources to buy the crucial in-game assets actually recruit people to play the game for them and then share rewards – apparently popular with Axie Infinity in particular.
It’s very much an evolving space and a “brave new world” so to speak, but no doubt is exciting from the point of view of being able to generate some extra revenue on the side by playing games.
Town Star is at the forefront of this play-to-earn revolution and is still in its early stages so the potential is there to see a lot of growth over the coming months and years.
You can open an account on Gala Games here and start playing Town Star for free!
What is Town Star?
Town Star is a play-to-earn farming game that was launched by Gala Games earlier this year.
It runs on the blockchain and has its own cryptocurrency which you can earn, called Town Star (often referred to as “Town Coin”).
The game looks like this:
If you’re familiar with Farmville you’ll probably recognise lots of the features like the crops, animals, farm houses and so on.
Town Star is actually a really fun game to play, as well as being quite addictive! The 80m users Farmville had at its peak testify to how appealing these types of games can be. They are pretty simple at their core, but building up your farm (or town) from nothing to producing lots of goods is quite satisfying.
In essence the key is to build a sustainable town that produces its own power and gasoline and sells its goods to nearby cities. These sales help to pay your workers and build new infrastructure for your town.
Once you are set up and running there are guides on Town Star to help explain how everything works in more detail.
How do you Earn on Town Star?
As described above, most play-to-earn games issue their own cryptocurrency. The makers of Town Star, Gala Games, have issued the Town Star Coin (TOWN) to reward players for completing a daily challenge or finishing in a high position on the leaderboard.
Finishing high up enough on the leaderboard to win a prize is very tough however so the main way of earning Town Coin is to complete the daily challenge.
In order to earn Town Coin from completing the daily challenge, you will need to own at least one NFT.
An NFT is an in-game item and in the case of Town Star it means the farming and industrial items you use in your town – like wheat storage, solar panels or a water fountain.
Once you have bought your NFT, you just need to place it in your town, complete the daily challenge and then you earn a specific amount of Town Coin based on the particular NFT you own.
For example, if you own the Rare Sugarcane Storage, you will earn 14 Town Coin if you complete the daily challenge.
At the time of writing, one Town Coin is worth around $0.80.
So that’s $11.20 earned per day just for completing a few simple tasks that can take as little as a few minutes, once you have built up your town.
Now some people have very powerful NFTs that are earning them over 100 Town Coin per day, which is quite a nice little bit of extra income!
It’s important to note that in order to place more than one NFT in your town, you will need to have a certain amount of “Power” in your account. This means you need to hold either Gala Coin or Town Coin in your wallet. How Power is calculated is explained further below (see towards the bottom “A word on power levels in Town Coin”).
In any event, you can see that the potential to earn on Town Star is substantial. And if the game grows and the value of Town Coin grows too, those earnings could increase quite significantly (not a prediction, but just pointing out the potential!).
Plus you could compound your returns to buy more NFTs and earn more Town Coin. The possibilities are endless!
You can open an account on Gala Games here and start playing Town Star for FREE.
How do you get set up on Town Star and start Earning?
Okay so that’s the basics of how you can earn Town Coin in the game. How do you actually go about doing so though?
Well below we’ll take you through exactly how to get set up from scratch and starting earning Town Coin in a step-by-step guide.
It can essentially be broken down into six steps:
- Open a Gala Games account for free
- Buy some relevant tokens on an exchange and then transfer them into your Gala Wallet
- Buy Town Star NFTs (non-fungible tokens)
- Place them in your Town
- Complete the daily challenge to earn Town Coin
- Convert that Town Coin into fiat currency via an exchange (e.g. Coinbase or Crypto.com)
It’s pretty simple when summarised like that, but at the outset it can seem quite daunting and complicated if you’re not familiar with cryptocurrency and play-to-earn games, so let’s go through all that in a bit more detail.
Step One – Open a Gala Games Account
The first thing you’ll need to do to get going is open an account at Gala Games. It’s completely free and shouldn’t take long to do. You can open an account here.
Once you’ve opened your account, it’s important to note down your Private Key and Transfer Code as you’ll need them later (it’s worth actually writing these down and storing them somewhere safe, as there’s not much you can do if you lose them.) It’s also worth enabling two-factor authentication to protect your account.
Once in your account, you can click on the “games” tab at the top and it will take you to a list of the current games that Gala have in their portfolio. There you will see Town Star.
You can have a little play on Town Star there if you would like to check the game out and get a feel for it. There’s a free-to-play version just for that purpose.
Step Two – Buy some cryptocurrency and transfer it to your Gala Wallet
In order to buy an NFT on Town Star – which you will need to earn Town Coin – it is necessary to have some relevant cryptocurrency in your Gala wallet.
The three main currencies items are sold in are:
- Town Star (TOWN)
- Gala (GALA)
- Ethereum (ETH)
So you will need to buy at least one of these tokens. Most of the NFTs are sold in either TOWN or GALA, so those are probably the best to have. Although you will also need at least a little bit of Ethereum (say $100 worth) to pay the gas fees when buying an NFT.
GALA token is listed on a number of exchanges, including:
- Coinbase
- Crypto.com
- Binance
- KuCoin
And TOWN is listed on:
If you don’t have a crypto account yet then don’t worry – here is a simple video showing you how to set one up with Coinbase, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of users:
Once you have an account set up with an exchange and have bought some tokens, you must then transfer them to your Gala Wallet.
In order to do so, you will need to click on “Inventory” on the top menu on the Gala website.
It will then show you your wallet and the various coins you can hold in there. Click on whichever coin you wish to deposit into your Gala account.
Let’s say we click on the Gala token. It will bring up this screen.
By clicking “Get Gala [ETH]” under the number at the top, it will then bring up your Gala wallet address, in both QR Code and full format.
You then withdraw from your Coinbase wallet (or whichever exchange you have bought your Gala coins in) to this Gala address.
It shouldn’t take too long for the Gala coins to appear, although sometimes transactions can be delayed if there’s a lot of traffic on the network. Please note you will normally also have to pay a fee (usually in Gala coins) to make the withdrawal.
As we say, in addition to Gala Coin (or Town Coin), you will need a bit of Ethereum in your Gala wallet to be able to buy an NFT, so don’t forget about that.
Anyway, once all that is done you will be all set to buy your first Town Star NFT!
Open an account on Gala Games here and start playing Town Star for FREE
Step Three – Buy Your Town Star NFTs
Next up is the key to being able to earn income from Town Star – buying NFTs.
What are NFTs, you may ask?
Well, NFT stands for “Non-Fungible Token,” which have become quite popular recently in the art and sports worlds in particular, with a Beeple NFT selling for $69m back in March and the NBA Top Shot “moment” NFTs trading volume having crossed over $230m.
At their heart NFTs are blockchain assets that can’t be forged, copied or faked and confer genuine ownership which is provable on the blockchain. They also offer a degree of transparency and there are multiple possible uses for them.
In the gaming context however, NFTs are the in-game assets you use like swords, shields and tanks – or in the case of Town Star, farming-related tools and items.
These NFT assets are not only useful in Town Star to help you improve your farm – certain of them pay out a fixed number of Town Coin per day, as long as you complete the Daily Challenge.
At the time of writing, the cheapest usable Town Star NFT is a Grape Storage, which costs 1425 Gala coins (about $670). It pays out 11 Towncoin per day if used in your town and the daily challenge is completed.
So hypothetically if Town Coin stayed at today’s price, it would take approximately 76 days to pay back the cost of it – plus you would then still own the NFT of course.
To view the available NFTs, click on the “Store” tab at the top of the Gala Games website, this will show you all the NFTs that are available to purchase.
Above you can see some of the Town Star NFTs that are available in the store – a Haunted Main Tower, some solar panels, a skin pack and a “Mr Puddles” (who waters your crops).
Below each item is the cost in Town Coin. Please note that the skin packs do NOT pay out any Town Coin in the game. The other items listed above, and those like wheat and sugar storage, water towers, fountains etc do pay out Town Coin (at the time of writing, but that could be subject to change).
It’s also important to note that some items are listed in Town Coin, some in Gala Coin and some in Ethereum. You can check the relative dollar value of these currencies (and therefore the cost of the item you are buying) on a site like Coinmarketcap.com
Some items will be more expensive because of the currency they are listed in, so it is worth checking and ensuring you are getting value for money. On some items they give you a choice of currencies to pay in and on others there is only one currency you can use.
Once you have selected the NFT you wish to buy, you click on “Place Order.”
It will then take you through to the payment page:
Here you will have to select the sending speed, which is how much “gas” is necessary to complete the transaction on the Ethereum blockchain.
We normally select a little less than half way, but it doesn’t seem to matter too much.
The most important part is making sure you have enough Ethereum in your wallet to cover the gas fees and obviously enough of the relevant currency to purchase the item.
If it’s all gone through okay you will get a message saying “processing” and then a few hours later the item will appear in your “inventory” (which you can view by clicking on the tab on the top menu).
Alternatively you can also buy Town Star NFTs on the OpenSea marketplace. Make sure you only buy from the verified collection though (with a blue tick) as those unverified could be fakes.
Step Four – Place the NFT in Your Town
Well done if you’ve made it this far! You will now be locked and loaded to start earning some Town Coin in the game.
All you need to do is place your NFT and you’ll be good to go.
To do so, just click on a square on your Town, click the blue icon in the bottom right corner and it will bring up your available NFTs from your inventory.
Select the one you want to place in your town and it will place the NFT on the square you have selected.
It doesn’t matter exactly where you place your NFT in terms of earning Town Coin, but it makes sense to try and optimise the position in terms of the gameplay.
Step Five – Complete the Daily Challenge
The final step to earning your Town Coin is to complete the daily challenge.
What the daily challenge consists of will be explained to you when you enter the game each day, but at the time of writing it consists of hitting 1,000 stars by selling items from your town, which is pretty straightforward.
The daily challenges may become harder as time goes on, but for now they are very achievable and can be done in just a few minutes per day, once you have built up your town to a reasonable level.
Once you have completed the daily challenge, the icon on the middle right with the timer and blonde lady will go green. Just click on that and then on “claim rewards.”
It’s important to actually click on claim rewards as if you don’t remember to do so, you won’t actually earn the Town Coin!
After doing so though, it will tell you the rewards have been claimed and they will appear in your inventory.
Step Six – Convert Town Coin into Fiat Currency on an Exchange
Finally, it’s time to cash in! You have earned your Town Coin and decide you want to convert it into real money.
Just go to your Gala account, click on Town Coin, click “convert” and then you will be able to send it from your wallet to your exchange account.
On the exchange you can then sell the tokens, thus converting them to fiat currency.
Job done!
This can all sound very complicated to those new to the platform and unfamiliar with cryptocurrency, so our advice would be to take one step at a time and not try to do everything at once.
A Word on Power Levels on Gala Games
As mentioned above, in order to place more than one NFT in your town, you will need to have a certain amount of “Gala Power” in your account. This means you need to hold either Gala Coin or Town Coin in your wallet.
How Power is calculated is as follows:
⚡Gala Power⚡ Equation:
Gala Power = Gala Coin + (Town Coin*2)
⚡Gala Power⚡ Scale (Subject to change)
Levels 1–20: Every 5K ⚡Gala Power⚡ held increases your level by one
Levels 21–35: Every 10K ⚡Gala Power⚡ held increases your level by one
Levels 36–45: Every 25K ⚡Gala Power⚡ held increases your level by one
Levels 46–55: Every 50K ⚡Gala Power⚡ held increases your level by one
…and so on.
What this means in practice is that you just need one Gala token in your Gala wallet to be able to place one NFT in your town.
But to place a second NFT in your town, will need 5,000 Power to move up a level. And to place a third NFT, you will need another 5,000 Power, and so on.
So you need either 5,000 Gala tokens, or a combination of GALA and TOWN that add up to 5,000 points to move up a level.
That could be 1,000 TOWN and 3,000 GALA for example (3000 GALA plus 1,000 TOWN x 2 = 5,000 power points).
With the big increase in the price of Gala recently it has become very expensive to move up the levels, so hopefully Gala will address this soon and make it more affordable. For the time being though this is what we have to work with.
Conclusion – Town Coin Play-to-Earn
The play-to-earn gaming revolution is taking the world by storm but it still very much in its early phases. Most gamers haven’t cottoned on to it yet, but will surely do so when they realise you can earn revenue from playing video games.
One of the first play-to-earn games is Town Star, which is a lot like the very popular game Farmville and actually comes from some of the same people.
You can earn income from Town Star by owning NFTs and completing daily challenges. It’s a fun game to play as well.
As with anything else in this sector though, we would issue the usual disclaimer to only put in an amount you can afford to lose in a platform like this because it is risky and lots of things could happen to affect the returns or the game itself.
As long as you stick to that though, we hope you enjoy playing Town Star and happy gaming!
Open an account on Gala Games here and start playing Town Star for FREE
