Alien Worlds is a play to earn game built on the WAX blockchain. It features a universe of six worlds, each with 500 land plots. Every plot is player owned and represented by an NFT. Players can earn Trilium in-game, transfer it to Binance Smart Chain, and earn more Trilium through a staking system.
In this game guide we’ll provide some details about the game, a general overview of its features, and explain how to get started exploring the Alien Worlds metaverse.
Each plot of land in Alien Worlds is owned by a player. That player receives a percentage of the Trilium mined on their land. On top of all of this, are the Syndicates, player-run, planetary governments that can submit and vote on proposals for the Alien Worlds ecosystem on their planet.
Alien Worlds features a number of NFTs including Land Plots, Tools, Minions, Avatars, and Weapons. All game NFTs live on the WAX blockchain.
About Alien Worlds
Alien Worlds is one of the elder generation of WAX games. They first announced in July of 2020 and followed up with several NFT sales in October, and their first and only land sale in December of that same year. Mining on land plots opened up not long after the land sale, and the team has slowly and steadily improved their website and added new features since then. Alien Worlds is a member of the Blockchain Games Alliance.
Alien Worlds Play-to-Earn Mechanics
There are three ways to earn Trilium in Alien Worlds. The first is by mining on land plots using tools, the second is passive income from owning land, and the third is a game-ified staking system on Binance Smart Chain.
Initial Investment
Getting started with Alien Worlds is completely free. Every new player receives a Shovel which they can use to start mining immediately. However, the payout is extremely low.
To earn with Alien Worlds, it should be treated as a finance system. And for that, you will need to buy Trilium tokens. And at that point, the investment amount is up to what you’re willing to risk.
Alien Worlds Rewards System
Basic rewards in Alien Worlds come in the form of Trilium tokens, though players also earn NFT points when Mining
Mining and Land Ownership
Any player with a WAX account can equip Tools and start mining for TLM tokens. Each tool and land plot has factors that affect the result. But the main ones that matter are TLM mining multiplier, and the Charge time. The multiplier affects the amount of TLM mined, and the Charge time affects how often you can mine with that Tool on that plot. There are a number of plots and potentially planets that offer bonuses or rewards for items with NFT ratings, but those will have to be individually researched.
Players earn NFT Points when mining as well. These can be exchanged for Alien Worlds NFTs
Land owners receive Trilium income in two ways. One, whenever someone mines on their land, the landowner receives a portion of the Trilium mined. The default fee is 20%, but landowners can change that at any time and most offer much lower rates. Secondly, landowners receive a lump sum of Trilium daily. Landowners must pay maintenance costs with TLM tokens, otherwise their daily payouts will decrease over time. This puts more Trilium in the hands of active landowners and encourages owners to use their land rather than just holding it.
Binance Missions
Additionally, Trilium owners can stake their tokens in Missions on Binance chain and receive more Trilium and special NFTs as rewards. Token holders can transfer their TLM tokens between the WAX, Ethereum, and Binance networks using the Alien Worlds Teleport, which functions as a cross-chain bridge.
There are eight different types of Missions in four rarities. The rarity of the Mission determines the lockup period (1, 2, 4, or 12 weeks), the amount of Trilium required to participate, and the rarity level of the potential NFTs received at the end of the Mission.
For each Mission, players purchase ships. Each ship costs a certain amount of Trilium based on the Mission rarity. Players can purchase as many ships as they want for each Mission. You cannot access the Trilium tokens while they are locked in a Mission.
When the Mission ends, players receive their staked Trilium back, plus any interest earned. There is also a chance to find special NFT rewards. These NFTs live on Binance Smart Chain and have no current use.
Returns from the staking missions on Binance vary based on the number of participants in each mission. The shortest missions have the lowest returns, generally around 1 or 2%. While the longer missions can sometimes give a 10% return or more!
Syndicates
Syndicates are DAO-based, player-run governments. There is one for each of the six planets. Elections for Councilors occur every week. Anyone who staked Trilium to a planet becomes a citizen of that planet and received voting rights. Each player’s vote power is based on the amount of TLM tokens they have staked.Those interested in running for a Council position must stake at least 5000 TLM tokens to the specific planet.
The Council members for each Syndicate then discuss and vote on proposals, which can include payments of TLM tokens.
Alien Worlds Token
Trilium, or TLM, is the official Alien Worlds token. It is generated from mining, as staking rewards, and as regular payouts to landowners. Trilium has a total max supply of 5 billion. The Trilium supply exists simultaneously on the WAX, ETH, and BSC blockchains. The Alien Worlds team has created a bridge for moving Trilium tokens between the three chains. Whenever any TLM is transferred to another chains, the corresponding amount of tokens are locked on the transferring chain and unlocked on the receiving chain.
Trilium is used to increase the Shine of NFTs, merging several together and paying a fee in TLM to make it into a Gold, Stardust, or Antimatter quality card. Trilium can also be staked to a planet on the WAX blockchain.
Staking TLM tokensallows the holder to vote in planetary elections.
How to Get Started in Alien Worlds
The base game of Alien Worlds is free to play. All you is a WAX wallet. With a WAX wallet you can create an account on Alien Worlds and start mining right away with the free shovel. If you want to get involved in the staking / mission system on Binance Chain, you’ll need to invest in a stack of Trilium tokens.
To start mining, head over to the Alien Worlds website, equip your Tool(s), select a planet and land plot, and click Mine! There is a cooldown between Mining attempts based on the Tools used and the land mined. This is displayed at the top of the screen.
Tips for playing Alien Worlds
In regards to staking, each Mission you join requires two transactions. And while the Missions gameplay is on Binance Smart Chain where fees are generally cheap, you will want to factor that cost in when choosing Missions. In short, it’s better to put a heavy load of TLM into one mission rather than spreading a little bit out across a bunch of missions. Also, longer Missions provide rarer NFTs, with the Legendary NFTs only available from the 12-week Missions.
Alien Worlds Review
The basic mining game for Alien Worlds is not particularly exciting. But if you get involved with the community, you can find plots for various projects that offer their own games and rewards to miners.
The metaverse that Alien Worlds has sought to build is finally, slowly, coming into shape. Their Galactic Hubs grants program, and the implementation of the player-DAO-Syndicate system are huge steps towards encouraging outside development on the Alien Worlds ecosystem.
So while click-mining is probably not very exciting for most players, there is more gameplay to dig into with land ownership, Syndicate elections, and proposals.
And while the percentage returns from Missions aren’t a crazy amount, it’s also not something to completely ignore for anyone looking to make a semi-passive staking income.
Alien Worlds DAO Embezzled for $100k
Not long ago, Alien Worlds dove head-first into their player-run, planetary DAO system. This system allowed players to elect Council members who would be able to put forth proposals for ways to use the planet’s allotment of TLM tokens. However, a couple of bad actors were able to game the system, and walk away with 4M TLM tokens, worth over $100k USD!
The Alien Worlds DAO system is a big feature the team has been hyping for a long time. And after a long wait, they finally pushed it out in Fall of 2022. Things seemed to be proceeding fairly smoothly, with regular elections, proposals, and grants. However, in February of 2023, some bad actors were able to abuse and game the planetary DAO system.
Player run DAO organizations are an ever-growing feature in web3 apps. But most of these DAOs usually have a developer buffer between them and any funds or actual gameplay changes. But not so in Alien Worlds. Each planet has a daily allocation of TLM tokens, that the Planetary Councils can apparently just send to themselves with three out of five votes!
They tried to repeat the process on the planet Neri, but with forewarning, some players and groups were able to band together to keep them from being elected. However, as mentioned in the investigative report, if these embezzlers choose to use their stolen funds to leverage more voting power, it is likely that they cannot be stopped from repeating their steal on other planets.
Alien Worlds response to this incident? They merely shrug and say that the system is working as intended. They also mention that Kavian had built up a rather large storage of unused TLM tokens, and thus put themselves at risk. But this is a deflective, bullshit statement. Very much akin to claiming that a woman was ‘asking for it’ by wearing revealing clothing!
And if the system is setup so that anyone can just come in and throw out last minute votes and successfully elect a previously unknown candidate, then something is probably wrong with the system.
Interestingly, talk of this incident on the AW Discord is nearly non-existent. And the Alien Worlds team doesn’t seem to feel like doing anything at all. And sure, I can understand the philosophy that this is supposed to be a player run and governed feature, so its up the players to figure out solutions. But this is also a big, black eye for the Alien Worlds DAO system. And hopefully a cautionary lesson for other projects setting up their own DAOs!
The next planetary elections happen in just under three days from now, on February 26th. Will Afhe, Biff, and Jose manage to make another steal? They already hold the top three spots on Neri as well as Kavian. If more TLM tokens are embezzled away in this manner, this could have major repercussions and cause players to lose any faith they had in the Alien Worlds and its DAO system.
