The crypto gaming space is busier than ever lately, what with prominent games starting to release, token airdrops piling up, and a seemingly constant array of other things happening at all times. It’s a lot to take in!

Luckily, Decrypt’s GG is all over it. And if you need a quick way to get caught up on the latest moves around crypto video games, we’re happy to present This Week in Crypto Games.

Our weekend roundup serves up the biggest news from the past week, along with a few other tidbits you might have missed. We also showcase a few of our original stories from the week.

Biggest news

Flappy Bird on Telegram: Iconic mobile game Flappy Bird has officially returned as a crypto-tinged Telegram game after disappearing 10 years ago. The Flappy Bird Foundation acquired the trademark for the game after it was considered abandoned and passed through the hands of a couple of other companies.

In collaboration with Notcoin, the tap-to-earn Telegram game that kickstarted the craze, the strategic partnership aims to introduce the game to The Open Network (TON) ecosystem—the blockchain that most Telegram tap-to-earn games use. While a token hasn’t been announced, there are a number of details that point to a future FLAP token being launched.

Despite buzz around Flappy Bird's return, however, there's also been quite a lot of controversy and pushback regarding how it returned to life without the involvement of original creator Dong Nguyen.

Dookey Dash returns: Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs and partner studio Faraway have released the sewer-based game Dookey Dash: Unclogged as free-to-play game on iOS, Android, Mac, and PC in selected regions. This comes more than a year after Yuga Labs rolled out the original NFT-gated version of the game during a limited play period.

Dookey Dash: Unclogged will have three monthlong seasons as players battle for a "Golden Plunger." These will act as a ticket to the end-of-season tournament where $1 million worth of prizes will be up for grabs. The iOS version has already shot to near the top of the free game charts, so it appears that there's real interest in the Ape competition.

Hamster Kombat's interlude: We're just four days away from the Hamster Kombat token launch and airdrop, and the largest Telegram game by far ended its first season on Friday ahead of sharing airdrop allocations over the weekend.

What's there to do in the meantime before the next proper season launches? Hamster Kombat has introduced an "interlude season," offering a simplified version of the familiar crypto exchange simulator but with a more startup-centric vibe. In this new version, you can earn diamonds that will apparently give players some sort of advantage in the next full-fledged game season.

Parallel first-person shooter: The creators of the popular NFT trading card game Parallel announced a 3D first-person shooter codenamed “Project Tau Ceti.” Set on a sci-fi planet, the shooter will use Parallel’s library of 3D assets and will let Parallel NFT owners use their own avatars from the card game.

Tau Ceti will use Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base on the recently launched B3 layer-3 network. Project Tau Ceti, the team said, represents an effort to expand the world of Parallel with an entirely different kind of game. It is expected to launch into early alpha testing on PC in 2025 with possible future mobile and console versions in the future.

ICYMI

• Gold Rush, a new Telegram tap-to-earn game, launched with a future “skill-based” airdrop in the cards.
• Zynga’s crypto gaming team spun out, formed a new company called D20 Labs, and announced a new game.
• Pixelverse expanded from a Telegram tapper to a web-based cyberpunk game with its beta launch.
• The Catizen token launched on Friday. Some players were angry about the size of their airdrop allocations.

• Another new Telegram game launched called SynQuest, which requires players to answer questions as they navigate a dungeon, rather than just tapping the screen.
• Ubisoft held another beta test for its upcoming Champions Tactics game on Oasys.
• Ethereum gaming chain Ronin announced seven new games building on the network.

• Also, the Japanese role-playing game Tatsumeeko is migrating to Ronin after previously building on Immutable X and Solana.
• Telegram tap-to-earn game Captain Tsubasa: Rivals launched last week with TON token plans ahead. It's like Hamster Kombat, but with a soccer anime IP.
• Sports brand Puma collaborated with soccer game UNKJD to create in-game skins and more.
• Oasys layer-2 gaming network SG Verse launched to support Kai Battle of Three Kingdoms, a game licensed by gaming giant Sega.

GG spotlight

Here are a few of our original stories from this past week that we think are well worth a weekend read:

Edited by Andrew Hayward