All images in this post are edited from screenshots I myself have taken from inside of Soulkeep.

Soulkeep: First Impressions

Greetings everyone and welcome to another Splinterlands post, this time we are going to take a look at the game inside of the game. Soulkeep, which is a tower defense title that features NFT inventories. The game itself launched over a year ago, so I thought I'd check in on what progress/development has actually been completed on this front by Double Coconut and Splinterlands. To my shagrin the game itself is still woefully incomplete to write home about, for a web3 game "I guess it's complete" but if this was sold as a web2 title it would be ground to dust among the competition. I know this take seems hard to swallow, but let me explain myself.

No Wave Information: TD Cardinal Sin

So this is by far one of the biggest issues with the game that will have fans of the genre putting it down. All the waves and wave notification merely tell you where enemies are coming from. Hovering over gives no info and there is no place to actually see what is coming in the waves you will be encountering aside from trial and error (REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE). I will revisit this after time has passed to compare, but this is my view on the game as of this time and it's development since launch.

There is no way to find out what the wave will be or how many there are. So the only way to figure it out is to guess, build towers, lose/win, and then adapt your strategy for THE NEXT TIME YOU TRY THE LEVEL FROM WAVE 1. This is incredibly obnoxious/pyrrhic/tedious and is a reason various TDs on steam have "mostly negative" reviews. Now imagine if those games also added a redundant unnecessary inventory system, pay to win elements, NFTs, and is also abandoned halfway through. They would tear it apart and never trust any other title from this publisher. Period.

No way to acquire items via Gameplay

The game has a lot of items and in game variety, the art is nice and the mechanics are fine (outside of the dealbreaker with wave information). However there is no way to acquire these items in game via playing the game itself. You can also "Pay to win" you way through any level, and various levels were almost designed with that in mind as one of the only ways to "clear the level".

A P2W Tower Defense: Who is the demo?

I have played a lot of video games in my time. I have seen which tower defense titles have embedded themselves into gaming forever, and which have fell by the wayside never to be picked up by the collective gaming culture again. A p2w tower defense with no way to grind out the items via playing the game itself is something that nobody outside of
Splinterlands will have a desire to play.

This isn't me be a pessimist or a FUDer, this is me just giving the team some advice before trying to push this at gamers (or anyone for that matter). Just because Stockholm "invested" individuals don't see the issue with there being no way to earn the items in game aside from buying them, doesn't mean there isn't an issue there.

The Silver Lining: Art, Lore, and Tower

The actual artwork, towers, mechanics, and "Tower defense" aspect of it (aside from the wave notification dealbreaker) is actually well done and fits with the existing Splinterlands lore and cards. All of that meshed exceedingly well. Despite that, I'm not surprised this part of Splinterlands has been abandoned at this point. I expected it to be a slow rugpull with what was promised given Double Coconuts track record (slot mobile games and getting their name on 8ball pool because they participated in the flash development at the time, no other "blockbuster app" since). Outside of 8ball pool every other app they have created is lackluster at best outside of maybe 1 or 2 titles, but you can check for yourself. There is potential here for Soulkeep, but as it stands it's a flop and a waste of resources/developmental time. Thanks for reading everyone, I wish it was nothing but good news. Sadly, all I can leave you fine folks with is my honest take on the matter. Stay safe out there Battlemages, and I'll see you around Praetoria.