The Beacon, for veteran players, is undoubtedly familiar with this phenomenon-level blockchain game that emerged at the end of 2022. This long-standing project, which many who haven’t followed blockchain gaming closely might initially react to with disbelief—“It’s still alive?”

After all, even the platform where this game once resided, Treasure DAO, officially announced in April last year its complete termination of the game publishing stack and game distribution, pivoting toward AI instead. The previous blockchain game to capture market attention was Nexon’s blockchain version of MapleStory, released a year earlier.

Yet here we are, four years later, and this veteran title is finally launching its token. Moreover, during the first week of its final pre-token event, “Season 1,” player deposits exceeded $460,000.

In today’s lethargic market environment, especially amid near-total obscurity surrounding blockchain games, how did The Beacon achieve this?

As before, one core gameplay element remains “dungeon crawling,” but the mechanics have evolved.

First, entering the daily “dungeon” consumes stamina—minimum 20 points per run, maximum 1,000. If a player spends 1,000 stamina in a single run, the reward upon completion is 50 times greater than spending just 20 points. Additionally, successful completion grants a 1.5x bonus multiplier. Conversely, if the player dies within the dungeon, they only receive the rewards accumulated up to that point.

Spending 1,000 stamina per run requires purchasing a Premium membership for $19.99. Players can buy in-game items via fiat to increase their stamina cap; purchasing the top-tier $499.99 package raises the stamina limit beyond 4,000 points. Without a Premium membership, players are restricted to 20 stamina per run—meaning 200 runs per day. For average skill players, completing one dungeon may take around 10 minutes, leading to burnout from repetitive gameplay.

Hence, acquiring a Premium membership has become a hard prerequisite for participating in Season 1 and earning $BCN tokens. Beyond saving time by consuming more stamina per run, dungeon completion does not directly yield $BCN tokens—it produces “Shadow Fragments” instead.

Zero-gain farming (zero-lugging) is technically feasible: the in-game store offers a basic chest exchangeable for 1,000 Shadow Fragments. However, the token yield from this chest is negligible—effectively zero.

To accumulate meaningful token amounts, players must convert “Shadow Fragments” into “Chips” and participate in the “Roulette Game.”

This roulette game resembles a slot machine. Players place bets, predicting which segment the timer will land on at the end of the countdown, thereby receiving corresponding multipliers as rewards.

You cannot avoid it: chips obtained through conversion are locked. Only after winning in the roulette game do they become unlocked, enabling redemption into the primary token-producing chests—“Kraken Chests.”

Thus, we summarize the current game mechanics:

- Season 1 is effectively a pre-TGE token acquisition race

- Token acquisition path: “Dungeon Crawl” → “Shadow Fragments” → Convert to Chips → Play Roulette → Redeem Chips for Premium Kraken Chests → Open Chests to claim $BCN awaiting TGE

- Zero-lugging is possible, but highly inefficient—project designers have anticipated this reality

- A $19.99 Premium membership is nearly a mandatory entry barrier, as the highest-tier chest, “Premium Kraken Chests,” is exclusive to Premium members

- Due to the randomness of the roulette game and unpredictable yields from chest openings, even identical spending amounts result in variable token receipts across players

- While final token amounts are volatile, higher investment always confers a clear advantage

Once we understand the mechanics and the true nature of Season 1, we can begin assessing expectations for the upcoming $BCN token post-TGE.

As previously explained, the Premium membership is a hard requirement. Therefore, anyone who purchases it essentially signals belief in the game’s token value.

According to @ClaeysXBT’s data, as of yesterday, there were 4,333 unique addresses with active Premium memberships. The daily trend is illustrated below:

The game’s web storefront offers five tiers of packages priced at $9.99, $19.99, $59.99, $99.99, and $499.99.

Purchasing these packages earns players “Glint,” most of which players redeem in-game for increased stamina caps, boosting daily “Shadow Fragment” and “Chip” output. For example, buying the $499.99 package and activating Premium membership allows a daily stamina cap exceeding 4,000, generating approximately 150,000 Shadow Fragments—enough to convert into nearly 5,000 chips.

Additionally, each dollar spent on packages currently yields about 2.33 $BCN (in this phase). As player investment grows, the yield per dollar decreases incrementally—the prior phase yielded roughly 2.67 $BCN per dollar.

Currently, revenue from Premium memberships totals $86,660, while package sales bring in approximately $378,000, summing to about $465,000.

When viewed holistically, Season 1 functions as gamified token fundraising. Package sales represent staged token offerings: although prices remain fixed, the direct token allocation per purchase diminishes as cumulative sales rise. For instance, delaying purchase of the $499.99 package by one day could mean missing out on 20 additional “Premium Kraken Chests” in-game.

$BCN total supply is capped at 100 million tokens:

- Season 1 Rewards: 10.2%, 25% released at TGE, remaining portion linearly unlocked over 9 months

- Past Event Rewards: 1%, 15% released at TGE, remaining portion linearly unlocked over 12 months

- NFT Holders: 19%, 15% released at TGE, remaining portion linearly unlocked over 18 months

- Liquidity & Market Making: 7%, fully released at TGE

- Future Community Rewards: 22.3%, no release at TGE

- Team: 15%, no release at TGE, cliff unlock after 24 months, fully unlocked by month 36

- Ecosystem Fund: 25.5%, 15% released at TGE, remaining portion linearly unlocked over 36 months

Open-market circulation accounts for 16.375% of total supply. At a price of 1U, circulating market cap stands at $16.375 million; at 0.5U, it is $8.1875 million.

The recent surge in The Beacon’s popularity stems largely from its built-in roulette mechanic, which players jokingly refer to as a “slot machine.” In popular channels, players frequently shout in public chat—either complaining or celebrating “I hit it!”

Looking ahead, the game plans to evolve into a full-fledged ecosystem encompassing “slot machine” mechanics, MMORPG elements (multiplayer cooperative dungeons), resource gathering (item enhancement), and PvP combat—alongside planned integration of AI components. The timeline for these developments remains unclear.

Nevertheless, for an encrypted-native blockchain game project to endure for four years and reignite market interest after such a long hiatus is truly remarkable.

Original article: Law of Motion BlockBeats