At the time of writing, Bitcoin has once again climbed the 70,000 dollar range, strengthening the bullish sentiment of the market. And because of this, I decided to venture beyond the confines of the Hive ecosystem and try what's in the larger blockchain community.

As I was searching for new projects, I came across Cards Ahoy! An auto card battler with funny meme characters. If you go into their website, you'll come across their partners.

What caught my attention was NetEase and YGG which are both big names in the gaming space. I've also seen a few KOLs promoting this project including some from my country. And I thought it looked like a well-made game with growth potential so I decided to try it out a few days after the game's official launch.

And to my surprise, there are a lot of elements in this game similar to Splinterlands. It feels like playing Splinterlands but in a lighter, more casual game format. It's playable on both Android and Apple devices. Here are some similarities between Splinterlands and Cards Ahoy!:

Card Combining

One key game feature that Cards Ahoy has is the burning of card copies in order to level it up. Splinterlands may have pioneered this process as I have not seen it in other card games before. Cards Ahoy! upped it a bit by increasing the cards required for maxing out.

Card burning is important for decreasing supply. It also puts a barrier to entry for casual and new players and those who take the competitive nature of the game seriously, and of course the whales of the game. As for myself, I am targeting to stay in the silver leagues for the foreseeable future.

Card Level Restrictions

Another similarity between Splinterlands and Cards Ahoy is the card level restrictions. Just like how SPL has summoners, Cards Ahoy has leaders. These leaders determine what specific card faction you can play. They are between animals, plants, and zombies. There are also neutral cards that are playable across all factions.

The level of these leaders also restricts the level of the member cards that you can utilize. One difference between the two games though is that leaders in Cards Ahoy improve their abilities as they level up unlike summoners that have a flat ability across all levels.

Game Currencies

Just how Splinterlands has credits, DEC, and SPS, Cards Ahoy has CAB (Cards Ahoy Bucks), CAC (Cards Ahoy Coins), and AHOY, which will be the governance token. I guess this is pretty common among many web 3.0 mobile games nowadays but I like how they put different utilities for CAC and CAB which makes both tokens equally important. On the other hand, AHOY is yet to be released and its utility and distribution are yet to be announced.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Cards Ahoy is a lot simpler than Splinterlands. Cards are lined up in a straight line with each card facing its counterpart in a one-on-one face-off. It's not complicated at all and you can learn the mechanics in just a few minutes of tutorial.

It can be played entirely for free. The game even gives trial cards as you progress in the game. But for more serious players who would want to advance beyond the casual gameplay, there is a $40 pass to unlock the competitive and play-to-earn aspects of the game.

And because it is readily available for mobile and heavily marketed through various media, it quickly gained mainstream popularity. Its CAC token is already at a $140 million marketcap during the few days it has been live. Cards Ahoy might be the breakout project of 2024 and it's definitely worth taking a look.