Wolf Game is an innovative game backed by NFT assets that is led by a mysterious “Shepherd,” and has shown resilience, even through the bear market. From its beginnings in November 2021, Wolf Game has spawned a passionate community as it sets it sights on the full game launch in Q4.
The ability to steal NFTs and game tokens from other players introduced an entirely new dimension to game theory in NFTs, and created the first “risk protocol” as well. While many cashed out in the initial wave of hype, many also stuck around in the community to see the game develop in 2022.
It has been quite the journey for the Wolf Game community in the past 11 months.
What is Wolf Game?
On its website, Wolf Game is simply described: “on a farm in the metaverse, wolves and sheep compete for $WOOL.”
Wolf Game was a stealth drop on Ethereum in 2021. All images and data are 100 percent on-chain. It minted in November 2021 with a cost of 0.069420 ETH per NFT. 10,000 Genesis wolves and sheep were initially minted, and wolves ran up to double-digit ETH floors, as they can steal resources from sheep.
In the first mint, there was a 90 percent chance to mint a sheep, and a 10 percent chance to mint a wolf.
Wolf Game Gameplay Overview
The game initially worked as follows: Players could stake their wolves and sheep to accumulate $WOOL. The rarer your NFT, (specifically, wolves) the more token you’ll accumulate probabilistically. The game actually created the first mint-and-stake process within the same transaction.
Sheep earned 10,000 $WOOL per day. Wolves earned a 20 percent tax on all sheep $WOOL production (paid when the $WOOL was claimed), split between all staked wolves.
Then, using $WOOL, players would mint Gen 1 wolves and sheep. Again, there was a 10 percent chance to get a wolf, and 90 percent to get a sheep. Also, there was a 10% that the newly minted wolf or sheep could be stolen by a staked wolf. There was also an unstaking risk — 50 percent chance of accumulated $WOOL being stolen by staked wolves.
The issue was, an exploit in the contract meant players could mint guaranteed wolves. Due to this, minting was closed after just three days of the game being live, and a new era began for Wolf Game.
Gameplay V2 and Risky Game
After this exploit, the team rallied and relaunched the game in only a few days after several audits and bounty offers. Continuous security audits were done by “The Herdsman” to ensure no further exploits would damage the momentum of the game.
A few key changes were made:
- Gen 0 and Gen 1 supply was capped at 10,000 and 3,809, and will be a “core part” of the full-feature Wolf Game.
- To prevent oversupply of $WOOL, $WOOL pouches were created. These are ERC-20 tokens that are stored within tradable NFTs.
- From the whitepaper: “Every WOOL Pouch starts with a finite WOOL supply. The first 10,000 WOOL are immediately accessible to the minter. This gives everyone a chance to burn 10,000 WOOL in exchange for a Farmer. The remaining WOOL in the Pouch unlocks at a constant rate over 4 years.”
To decide how much $WOOL was in a player’s pouch, the “Risky Game” was created for Sheep. According to the Wolf Game website:
“Those who chose the Yes Risk option had a 50% chance of winning a large WOOL Pouch; those who chose the No Risk option had a 100% chance of winning a small WOOL Pouch.” With this game, wolves also collected huge pouches of WOOL.
Other Minigames
To add on more levels of gameplay and push the boundaries of Wolf Game, other games have been added. They also experiment with the tokenization and supply of $WOOL.
Alpha Game is a social game where wolves and sheep flock behind their chosen Alpha leaders. It is a bridge to the full Wolf Game, launching in Q4.
Players stake their sheep, wolves and $WOOL with a pack, and gain points over time. $WOOL prize pools vary based on where people finish, but is distributed to winning groups. The amount of points they can accrue varies, depending if they choose to attack another pack or defend.
The community has become extremely passionate about the Alpha Game. While forming packs, people choose sides, and have even created private servers to talk strategy. Leaders include gmoney, AJ Vaynerchuk, and Shamdoo.
Cave Game ran through June 2022. Sheep and wolves would search caves for treasures like gems, merch, and $WOOL. They had a certain amount of energy per day they that could use up. Players could burn $WOOL for a power-up.
Some of these in-game items are extremely valuable, both in terms of Ethereum value and in the value of future Wolf Game gameplay. According to the website, “over 30M $WOOL and over 1,000 Gems were lost to the Caves forever, never to be uncovered.” Oof.
One of the most savage parts? Players competed against their own pack for these treasures.
Wolf Game Team
The community pays very close attention to The Shepherd’s tweets — the leader and voice of Wolf Game. After each one, they discuss in the Discord what the ramifications are, or what it may mean. As for the team behind Wolf Game? They remain anonymous, but are clearly highly-skilled, in both smart contracts and art.
Early on, the divisive investor Beanie seemed to be somehow involved in the project as an advisor. Due to this connection, many people in the NFT space were skeptical about the game.
Some even speculated that The Shepherd is Beanie himself. Beanie has since publicly distanced himself from the project on Twitter. Meanwhile, the dev team keeps building towards the full game launch in Q4 2022.
Types of Wolf Game Assets
There are many assets in Wolf Game, many that are being held in anticipation for the full game.
$WOOL
$WOOL is the utility and governance token of Wolf Game. WOOL pouches take form in NFTs which release $WOOL over time.
$WOOL can be used for breeding new wolves, governance, and for minting other resources for the game. The team (“The Shepherd”) has 600M $WOOL that will be unlocked slowly over the course of 4 years. 1 $WOOL is currently worth about $0.07 USD, up from about $0.016 at the start of July.
For $WOOL pouches: “During the 4-year period, you may claim any $WOOL that has been unlocked, or trade your Pouch including the $WOOL inside at anytime.”
Sheep
Sheep are nature’s source of $WOOL. There are 12,006 Sheep. They will be able to be bred to increase $WOOL production, which is the ultimate token of the entire Wolf Game ecosystem. The Wolf Game Sheep floor is currently 1.08 Ethereum.
Wolves
Wolves are labeled “the most aggressive actors in Wolf Game.” They will steal sheep and resources — most importantly, $WOOL. They will be able to be bred to increase their pack. There are only 1,727, making them especially rare.
Wolf floor is currently 8.2 Ethereum for a Gen 1 Wolf with an5 Alpha Score. The Alpha level of wolves (A5-A8) are very important within the game to acquire additional resources, and higher Alpha levels command a significant premium, as they will steal more resources.
A8 wolves are the highest Alpha level, and there are only 14 of them. NFT whales like Shamdoo, Gary Vee, Gmoney, and more own these wolves.
Land
20,000 Genesis lands will ever exist within Wolf Game. The website says that “each is uniquely abundant and randomly assigned, with varying acreage, resources, and capabilities.” Cultivating land will be a major part of gameplay.
Land floor is currently 0.45 ETH. Land with structures on them (like barns) are more highly valued than others. There is a community map made to see where your land neighbors are.
The highest-valued land is currently Community 0 (400 total). Community 0 lands have skyrocketed to an 8.5 ETH floor, though their utility in the full game is to be announced.
Farmers
Farmers make land better by making resource gathering more efficient. They aren’t required for land owners, but will multiply the capabilities of the land for land owners.
Farmer floor prices are currently 0.5 ETH, but are as high as 7 ETH for “Big Mama” or “Big Daddy” type.
Relics
Relics are 1-of-1 artifacts revealed by The Shepherd. Many of these Relics have been shared on Twitter as GIFs since Wolf Game began. These relics tell the lore of the game and are auctioned for $WOOL. Some relics were also found in Cave Game by lucky explorers.
The current relic floor is 4.5 ETH.
Gems
These were used during Farmer reveal to guarantee a rare type of Farmer. However, the only Gems remaining have expired, as Farmer minting has ceased.
TL;DR — Wolf Game
There is still much mystery behind the full release of the Wolf Game. Hints are revealed through lore almost daily from the @wolfdotgame Twitter account.
The community is speculating that Gen 0 and Community 0 assets are going to be extremely valuable to the game, and has a lot of fun trying to figure out the utility and gameplay for the full game to be released in Q4. This includes mechanics like breeding, taxation, farmer utility, sheep and wolf utility, and much more.
For those looking for more about Wolf Game, the Wolf Game time machine is an incredibly detailed resource to see what’s going on with the game in real-time, and the Farmer’s Almanac also goes into great detail with the current and past states of the game.
Wolf Game is high-risk, high-reward, which is why many of us like NFTs – it’s a match made in heaven. The innovation and levels of gamification that the team has achieved in less than a year can’t be denied. Whatever happens with the full game in Q4, the community could not be more excited.
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The image for this blog is from the Wolf Game Relics collections