“Players can choose one of the two main professions in the game; farming and gathering. Farmers need to tend the crops and the animals while gatherers deal with mining, chopping, and fishing.” – Spintop.
Sunflowers are fun, friendly flowers. Captivated by the light, they follow the sun and drink in those sweet rays. Now, imagine a goblin is out to get your sunflowers. It’s coming for them when you aren’t looking. Goblins are “mischievous and like to innovate and break the rules.” Humans like rules. They want structure and need it to be productive.
Conflict inevitably ensues.
And this, in a very reductive nutshell, is what Sunflower Land is about. Players can indulge in building their farms, planting seeds and collecting valuable resources such as hammers, trees and, eventually, even gold.
Bad Soil
Sunflower Land’s parent game might sound familiar. Sunflower Farmers came to an unfortunate end when bots found exploitation opportunities in the open contract, messing up the network and rocketing costs. Developers didn’t think it right to meddle with the code to fix the issue. Working with the Polygon Network, they attempted to salvage the game.
“Sunflower Farmers, a farming play-to-earn game, recently launched on the polygon network and have since surpassed and failed expectations at the same time. – Play To Earn”
Ultimately, it was right to shut up the farm shop and look for greener pastures.
A Sunflower Is Reborn
But! A better, bigger, and shinier sunflower world rose out of the ashes of Sunflower Farmers. Sunflower Land addresses all of the issues of its forebearer whilst expanding the universe that inspired it.
“There was a lot of conversation and consultation done between the Sunflower Land team and the lead team of Polygon, other experts, and game designers to improve the game. It was a collaborative effort to stress test the protocol and try and hack the system, so the team knew what to improve on before the complete relaunch of the game.” – Web3 Wire.
In this play-to-earn blockchain game, the developers introduced goblins, lore, and a more centralised approach to prevent old enemies from sneaking in the backdoor and bringing the world to a halt.
Crops, Stocks, And Mutant Eggs
Part of these changes has meant inviting a whole host of strange and wonderous elements to the game. A chicken egg infected by a crafty goblin results in a strange and unproductive mutation. Or Woody the Beaver, a member of the beaver population that allied with Bumpkin during the great wood shortage.
There are, of course, still traditional elements. You can grow crops to bake cakes, purchase tools for farming, and generally live that farmer bumpkin life.
Players can craft new tools and expand their farms by earning SFL, the in-game token currency. By visiting the town and selling hard-grown pumpkins, cauliflower and parsnips, players can purchase seeds to expand their farm and grow an array of crops.
Fire And Cake
Join hands and make a chain, the shadow of the Wicker Man will rise up again
(In spooky voice) Ooohhhhooo!
The latest updates from Sunflower Land are exciting for a few reasons. The new Wicker Man collectible is the game’s first interactive NFT and sells for approximately $5. When clicked on, it will light on fire. Pretty cool, huh? Possessing a Wicker Man sends a clear message that a farmer is not to be messed with. So far, there’s no indication of how this firey addition will add practical value, but we’re sure it’s worth monitoring how the game developers play with this new collectible.
New to the menu is also the Cabbage Cake, a “special cake that is only available during certain times of the year for the great bake-off!”. The great bake-off is a ten-week special event in Sunflower Town where players are surprised with a new rare cake recipe. They then need to hunt down the necessary resources and craft the cakes, which can then be kept as collectibles or sold for SFL.
A Cabbage Cake currently sells for 9SFL and so it’s worth harvesting those cabbages in time for the great bake-off. Once a player has all the cakes, a special NFT will be minted, converting the digital files into crypto collections or digital assets stored on the blockchain. Each cake is available for only one week, so players can’t waste time, and it’s better to have supplies stored and ready before the big event.
A Successful Harvest
After a false start, this game has quickly recovered and reaped the rewards. Now a top Polygon, Sunflower Land continually attracts new players. Play2moon reported that Sunflower Land has even surpassed even game giants such as The Sandbox.
“A total of 150K farms were minted in about two months since the game’s launch. The farms went to a few rounds of players, including players from the game’s first version.” – Play2moon
We can expect the next round of updates in October, and from the little we know, it’ll be an exciting time for Sunflower Land fans, as playable avatars and battle modes are on the way. Twelve thousand players are planting, chopping and mining every day.
This game is a testament to the developers. By addressing the issues and choosing to rebuild and not abandon, they’ve created a Sunflower Land that’s better for everyone. Lookout, farmers, the Wicker Man is guarding rival crops, and Cabbage Cake is coming to a great bake-off near you.
