⚔️ Pengu Clash

Hey frens. We’re back, it’s Monday, and there’s lots to talk about on the gaming side of things.

A new crypto game is launching, while another is shutting down, apparently due to financial issues. Funding isn’t what it used to be and the space is getting more competitive. 

We’ve got the deets on both.

— Kate Irwin

P.S. Let me know how you’re liking The Drop! Send me an email at [email protected].

Pudgy Penguins Telegram game starts soft-launch

Pengu Clash has kicked off its launch today by letting in a portion of its waitlist ahead of a full public release.

The new Telegram game featuring the Pudgy Penguins NFT collection’s cutesy seabirds is a 1v1 multiplayer battler. Players can dress up their penguins and fight each other at different types of minigames, whether it’s curling, darts, football or something else. 

Pengu Clash isn’t a pay-to-win game but instead rewards skill, Michal Dabrowski, CEO and founder of crypto gaming protocol Elympics, told me in an interview.

Elympics built Pengu Clash for Pudgy Penguins with the goal of starting a trend around skill-first crypto social games. 

“Pengu Clash is created with great care for actual gameplay,” Dabrowski said, emphasizing that it’s different from other Telegram-based crypto “clickers.” Such clicker games have short lifespans because they revolve around users farming for an airdrop, he added.

“I have mixed opinions about some games that have been out there on Telegram. But this…this connects to the trend and to the topic [of] why crypto gaming has not, you know, fulfilled its promise to bring a lot of users to crypto up until now. I think that a lot of the games created were very superficial, let’s say.”

Dabrowski continued: “So ‘crypto’ was just to have some kind of trading, or have some kind of crypto component, and not really focusing on the gameplay. And I deeply believe that it should be the other way around.”

The game offers quickplay matches, a “PVP arena,” and a shop tab as of right now, with quests coming soon. The waitlist currently consists of more than 1.1 million Telegram accounts.

Like other crypto Telegram games, Pengu Clash is using TON for its in-game NFTs and optional wagering component (the original Pudgy NFTs are on Ethereum and the Pudgy memecoin is on Solana). The waitlist currently consists of more than 1.1 million Telegram accounts.

Players can enjoy Pengu Clash without logging in or creating a wallet, but those who want to buy cosmetic items can connect the Telegram built-in wallet (that’s not yet available in the US, UK, and some other countries), or connect an external TON wallet to the game.

Pudgy Penguins has also recently made broader consumer plays toward younger audiences, like releasing a children’s picture book and a kid-friendly animated series on YouTube.

When asked why Pudgy Penguins chose to build a Telegram-based game using TON — instead of its own Ethereum L2 Abstract — CEO Luca Netz told me in a message that their goal is “to become the face of crypto” and the world’s “most popular penguin.”

“That vision is chain-agnostic,” Netz said, adding that a desktop version of Pengu Clash using Abstract is also part of the plan.

Real Users. Real Products. Onchain.

Permissionless IV is for the teams building crypto that doesn’t feel like crypto.

Wallets that don’t suck. Loyalty programs that break out of Web2. NFTs with context. Consumer apps that actually ship.

It’s not about what the tech can do — it’s about what people are already using it for. Crypto meets culture, UX, and utility in Brooklyn this June.
 
📅June 24–26 | Brooklyn

Nyan Heroes suddenly shuts down, citing lack of funds

Two months after my emailed Q&A with Nyan Heroes’ director of economy, the game’s team has abruptly announced that their Solana-based game and studio are shutting down.

“Despite the amazing progress that we made over the years, the latest product failed to drive the player numbers that we'd been hoping for, and with the current challenges in the web3 market, we couldn’t secure the funding required to keep the studio going,” a post from the game’s official X account reads.

The game’s token, NYAN, fell over 38% from Thursday to Friday, dropping sharply one hour before and for two hours after the announcement was posted on X. The token’s price is now down over 70% in the past month. 

Nyan Heroes was a multiplayer game where players battled each other as cats in mechs. The game had hosted just four playtests before announcing its shutdown, but it had been in development since 2021 when its first NFT mint occurred. 

Two months ago, the game’s team had recently airdropped 6.7 million NYAN to players, worth about $114,000 by the end of that latest airdrop period.

The studio, 9 Lives Interactive, had raised $13 million in funding across three rounds, with its most recent being a $3 million raise in March 2024. Its investors included Mechanism Capital, DeFiance Capital, and the now-defunct Three Arrows Capital.

Crunchbase estimates Nyan Heroes had anywhere from 50-100 employees before its shutdown, while LinkedIn suggests the game may have employed anywhere from 51-200 staff (but only displays about 50 accounts affiliated with the game). I wasn’t able to confirm exactly how many employees the studio had.

Notably, Nyan Heroes’ founders have been quiet on X for the past year. Nyan Heroes’ cofounder and CMO, Wengie Ayche, has not posted on X since July 2024. Max “Merro” Fu, Nyan Heroes’ cofounder and CEO, has not posted since May of last year. 

The official Nyan Heroes’ Discord server now appears to have been fully locked down, with only one read-only announcements channel still visible to accounts without any role tags.

Niles Sankey, Nyan Heroes’ former design director, appears to have left the company last month, according to his Linkedin profile. Others who list Nyan Heroes as their current employer display the “Looking for work” badge on their profiles, suggesting they may have been laid off or left the company.

When I reached out for comment, the game’s PR agency notified me that they no longer represent the game. Nyan Heroes, Fu, and Sankey did not respond to my direct requests for comment.

• Ubisoft is going to see if its turn-based fantasy battler, Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles, can succeed without the crypto elements. The studio is launching Champions Tactics: Reforged on Steam today, which looks like a non-crypto clone of Grimoria Chronicles. I’ll give it a play and keep you posted.

• More grim still: Nexspace (NXPC), MapleStory U’s crypto token, is down 49% from its all-time high that was reached shortly after its launch last week on May 15.