As casual game ideas go, it doesn’t get much better than chucking a basketball through a hoop.
And thanks to the launch of season 3 of Arc8 you can do just that via Hoop Shot, over and over again. A hoop appears, you hurl a ball through it, and then you move on to the next hoop. What could be funner than that?
Of course, there’s a bit more to the game than that. Some of the hoops you’re aiming at are moving up and down, others from side to side. Most of them aren’t on the level, but tilted, so that you have to think carefully about your angle of approach.
And all the while a timer is ticking down, giving you just two short minutes to rack up as many points as possible.
The process of aiming and throwing the ball will be familiar to anybody who has ever played Angry Birds. You just pull back and release. There’s even a handy dotted line to show you what trajectory your ball is going to follow.
At the beginning of each round you’ve got three lives, and every time you miss a basket you lose one of them. Meanwhile you can gain a score multiplier by sinking balls quickly. This tension between haste and accuracy is where the challenge lies.
Thankfully, you’ve got a few additional weapons at your disposal. One power-up increases the size of the hoops you’re aiming at, while another shrinks the ball you’re throwing. The best power-up of all gives you a free throw, letting you miss without losing a life.
There are several ways to boost your score, too, such as picking up stars, scoring on the rebound, and making “nothing but net” shots. And of course you can boost your score multiplier by moving quickly – as long as you don’t sacrifice accuracy.
Hoop Shot is pure bottled lightning, offering addictive and fun skill-based casual gameplay, daily tasks, and leaderboards where you can test yourself against other players.
Not only that, but Hoop Shot is a fully fledged play-to-earn title, giving you the chance to win GMEE tokens each season.
And soon you’ll be able to win other kinds of tokens too.
Gamified Launchpad Arrives
Hoop Shot is the new game to appear as part of Season 3 on the Arc8 platform. Arc8 is now customising and tailoring titles to fit its Partner Tokens scheme too. This allows NFT and crypto projects to sponsor seasons, and players to earn other tokens besides GMEE.
So far, TOWER, QUICK, and REVV tokens were in the mix for May, though many others are available in Season 3 – including SAND and MATIC.
Just in case you’re feeling a bit lost at this point, Arc8 is a leading casual gaming platform consisting of free arcade games from every conceivable genre. The twist is that it allows its players to win cryptocurrency prizes from seasonal prize pools.
So far, Arc8’s own token, GMEE, has been the only kind of token on offer, but the gamified launchpad for Partner Tokens is set to shake things up by allowing other developers to bring their NFT and crypto projects to the platform and “sponsor” seasons with their own tokens.
The scheme has made a solid start, but the sky is clearly the limit in terms of how many developers might get involved and how many tokens and NFTs might become available.
To win these tokens and NFTs, all you need to do is take part in tournament sprints, complete tasks, and dominate those leaderboards. Basically, be good at games.
And once you’ve banked those blockchain-based goodies you can cash them in or trade them on an exchange, giving you a bit of spending money as a reward for, er, having fun and playing games.
We’re struggling to see a downside.
To get started, download the Arc8 app for free right now on the Google Play Store or the App Store – just click here.