Ethereum NFT project Goblintown hosted a pop-up in New York City, showcasing its Really Hard Driving Game ahead of its release next week. It offered $10,000 in prizes to anyone who could complete the game on their first try—but everyone failed.
Goblintown: Really Hard Driving Game takes a stab at the ultra-difficult platformer genre that has seen viral success through titles like Getting Over It, Chained Together, and Only Up. Players must navigate their Goblintown vehicle through a treacherous obstacle course. Even just one tiny slip-up would usually result in instant death. As such, its creators hosted a 3-day competition out of a truck parked in Union Square in New York, challenging anyone to complete it for $10,000.
Three hours into the third and final day, a player was finally able to beat the game in 26 minutes and 12 seconds. However, they were ineligible to claim the $10,000 prize as they had been part of a previous play test of the game. By the end of the competition, no eligible player had completed the game.
“One kid got 90% there, so we are going to give him a nice gift of a Steam Deck,” Alex Taub, co-founder of Goblintown, told Decrypt. “[Because] he doesn’t have a PC or device to play [the game] when it comes out.”
Aside from the competition, it appeared that most attendees were positive about Goblintown: Really Hard Driving Game.
“I was really impressed with this game,” crypto gaming influencer Kyroh said in his video. “If this game doesn’t get picked up by all the popular streamers and creators, and turned into another version of Only Up, I will be surprised. It has all the makings to be a super viral game.”
AJT said a few hundred people gave the game a spin each day and that the majority of players weren’t crypto natives. Instead, the eye-catching truck was what drew in players.
“For us, it was super successful to see people from all walks [of life] play the game,” he said. “After seeing it turn heads and pull people in in the busiest city in the world, we are confident the setup will be a hit with a captive gaming audience.”
This stunt was a test run ahead of the truck’s tour of American conferences starting with Pax East in Boston, Massachusetts, and ending with DreamHack in Dallas, Texas. While technically a crypto game, due to its IP being tied to an NFT project, the game itself doesn’t have any crypto elements. That’s why the team will be able to make it available on Steam, which bans games with crypto elements.
“Web3 makes sense for a lot of things. But for our flagship first game that we are publishing, we focused on making a fun game anyone would want to play, not just crypto people and NFT holders,” AJT told Decrypt.
“We have ideas of how digital collectibles can play a role in our gaming strategy,” he added, “but if we don’t make a good game that is fun, something people want to continue to play, and is expansive—having Web3 entangled isn’t going to save it.”
Goblintown: Really Hard Driving Game is set to release on Steam and the Epic Games Store on Wednesday, April 30.