Gala Games token continued its recovery this week as demand for gaming cryptocurrencies rebounded.

Gala (GALA) jumped to a high of $0.0217, its highest point since Aug. 27, and 61% above its lowest level this year. This rebound has brought its market valuation to over $859 million.

Gala’s recovery occurred as other gaming tokens like Immutable X (IMX), Beam (BEAM), and Ronin (RON) rallied. All these coins have risen by over 20% in the last seven days. As a result, the total market capitalization of all gaming tokens tracked by CoinGecko has jumped to over $17.16 billion.

Gala’s rally is also linked to a recent post on X, in which the developers teased a major announcement expected this week.

It is still too early to predict the nature of the announcement, but based on past statements, there are indications that it could involve the launch of TREZ, an upcoming token for Gala’s tap-to-earn ecosystem.

In a statement earlier this year, the developers noted that its tap-to-earn ecosystem had accumulated over 3 million users across games like GALACoin, Music Coin, and Treasure Tapper.

Telegram tap-to-earn games have become highly popular among users, and Gala hopes to become a significant player in this space. Most of the existing games like Hamster Kombat, Notcoin, Catizen, and Avecoin have chosen to operate on the TON Blockchain, which was developed by Telegram.

Tap-to-earn networks allow users to accumulate tokens by tapping a button on a mini app or completing simple tasks, such as following an X account or watching YouTube videos.

Users accumulate tokens and can cash out when an airdrop occurs. Networks like Catizen and Notcoin have already launched their airdrops, with their tokens valued at over $300 million and $786 million, respectively.

Gala token hits a key resistance

The Gala token bottomed out at $0.0134 in August and has since bounced back by over 60% to $0.021. It recently crossed the 50-day moving average and retested the key resistance point at $0.021, its highest swing since Aug. 25, and the neckline of the double-bottom pattern.

The Relative Strength Index and the moving average convergence/divergence indicators have continued rising, meaning that it has momentum. 

Therefore, Gala will likely continue rising as bulls target the next key resistance point at $0.027, its highest point on July 21.

The crypto gaming space is busier than ever lately, what with prominent games starting to release, token airdrops piling up, and a seemingly constant array of other things happening at all times. It’s a lot to take in!

Luckily, Decrypt’s GG is all over it. And if you need a quick way to get caught up on the latest moves around crypto video games, we’re happy to present This Week in Crypto Games.

Our weekend roundup serves up the biggest news from the past week, along with a few other tidbits you might have missed. We also showcase a few of our original stories from the week.

Biggest news

Flappy Bird on Telegram: Iconic mobile game Flappy Bird has officially returned as a crypto-tinged Telegram game after disappearing 10 years ago. The Flappy Bird Foundation acquired the trademark for the game after it was considered abandoned and passed through the hands of a couple of other companies.

In collaboration with Notcoin, the tap-to-earn Telegram game that kickstarted the craze, the strategic partnership aims to introduce the game to The Open Network (TON) ecosystem—the blockchain that most Telegram tap-to-earn games use. While a token hasn’t been announced, there are a number of details that point to a future FLAP token being launched.

Despite buzz around Flappy Bird’s return, however, there’s also been quite a lot of controversy and pushback regarding how it returned to life without the involvement of original creator Dong Nguyen.

Dookey Dash returns: Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs and partner studio Faraway have released the sewer-based game Dookey Dash: Unclogged as free-to-play game on iOS, Android, Mac, and PC in selected regions. This comes more than a year after Yuga Labs rolled out the original NFT-gated version of the game during a limited play period.

Dookey Dash: Unclogged will have three monthlong seasons as players battle for a “Golden Plunger.” These will act as a ticket to the end-of-season tournament where $1 million worth of prizes will be up for grabs. The iOS version has already shot to near the top of the free game charts, so it appears that there’s real interest in the Ape competition.

Hamster Kombat’s interlude: We’re just four days away from the Hamster Kombat token launch and airdrop, and the largest Telegram game by far ended its first season on Friday ahead of sharing airdrop allocations over the weekend.

What’s there to do in the meantime before the next proper season launches? Hamster Kombat has introduced an “interlude season,” offering a simplified version of the familiar crypto exchange simulator but with a more startup-centric vibe. In this new version, you can earn diamonds that will apparently give players some sort of advantage in the next full-fledged game season.

Parallel first-person shooter: The creators of the popular NFT trading card game Parallel announced a 3D first-person shooter codenamed “Project Tau Ceti.” Set on a sci-fi planet, the shooter will use Parallel’s library of 3D assets and will let Parallel NFT owners use their own avatars from the card game.

Tau Ceti will use Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base on the recently launched B3 layer-3 network. Project Tau Ceti, the team said, represents an effort to expand the world of Parallel with an entirely different kind of game. It is expected to launch into early alpha testing on PC in 2025 with possible future mobile and console versions in the future.

ICYMI

GG spotlight

Here are a few of our original stories from this past week that we think are well worth a weekend read:

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs and partner studio Faraway have released the sewer-based game Dookey Dash: Unclogged as a free-to-play download on iOS, Android, Mac, and PC in selected regions. With this players will compete to enter an end-of-season tournament with over $1 million worth of prizes.

This comes more than a year after Yuga Labs rolled out the original NFT-gated version of the game, with the highest-scoring players earning valuable prizes. The winner of the top prize—a one-of-a-kind NFT golden key—was notable Fortnite esports player Kyle “Mongraal” Jackson. He sold it for 3,333 Ethereum, or $1.63 million worth at the time.

Dookey Dash: Unclogged is now free-to-play via both mobile and computer apps, with very similar core gameplay to the previous NFT-gated iteration of the game. Gamers jump atop a makeshift underwater scooter as they attempt to make their way through an endless sewer filled with gunk and obstacles. 

New to the game this time around is its “creator mode,” which allows players to upload 3D models or 2D art to create on-chain avatars, vehicles,  and stickers that are playable in-game. These assets are then tradable on the Faraway Shop, an NFT marketplace, and can be used in other gaming experiences.

With the game now officially released, season one kicks off with a weekly in-game leaderboard for players to battle it out to win a variety of prizes, the most prestigious being a “Golden Plunger.”

These Golden Plungers are tradable NFTs that will act as a player’s ticket into the end-of-season tournament, where $1 million worth of prizes will be up for grabs. Players can get their hands on these NFTs by ranking in the top 250 finalists on the season leaderboard, or by getting lucky on “The Wheel of Dookey.”

It appears that tournaments will take place every quarter, according to the Dookey Dash: Unclogged website, with each season being three months long.

Yuga Labs originally planned on releasing the free-to-play game in spring of this year, but suffered a couple of delays. The first of which was to help make the game more “casual-friendly,” as they felt the competitive side of the game was in good shape. Dookey Dash: Unclogged suffered one last delay as the team explored a “huge potential marketing opportunity” at the start of September—although it’s unclear what that was.

Edited by Andrew Hayward