Mines of Dalarnia is an action-adventure game with procedurally generated levels. Players mine and combine various in-game items, improving their skills and gear in order to unlock the secrets of the MoD universe while searching for rare relics and artifacts. There are different terrains to be explored as well as monsters to conquer in the quest to those rare resources and friends can play together in the Dalarnian world.   ^[1][2][5]

MoD is a game that is owned by users - all the assets in the game are represented as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and can be exported and traded on open markets. The in-game transactions are all recorded on the blockchain.

MoD issues a native token, DAR, as the governance token as well as the necessary currency for upgrading tools and trade on marketplaces. It’s like the default currency in the Dalarnian world.   ^[3][4][13]

Overview

Mines of Dalarnia is a single-player game, though players can own maps and receive income from allowing other players to mine on their maps. The game is a side-view explorer/digging game. Players dig to find resources, navigate dangerous caverns, and potentially battle creatures deep underground. But being a miner here requires oxygen. And the base oxygen tank only holds five minutes' worth of air, though it can be upgraded.

So each game lasts five minutes or so. Users dig, grab as many resources as possible, and then try to find the teleporter out. All the equipment can be upgraded, and sometimes needs to be. For example, some terrain cannot be broken through with the basic pickaxe.

Player Owned Maps

The Mines of Dalarnia features player-owned maps. Everyone gets access to a free map and those maps are owned by players. Plots appear in the market throughout the day. When they appear, players bid for ownership. The winning player can either keep the plot for themselves, or they can rent it out to other players for a fee. The tricky part comes from the fact that each plot can only be mined a finite number of times. Once that limit is reached, the plot is gone. Players can extend the life of a plot and increase its mineral value through various refinery upgrades.

Mines of Dalarnia runs on the Chromia (CHR) platform. The in-game currency is Dalarnia Token, but plot purchases must be completed with Chromia token (CHR). Since Chromia is the underlying platform for multiple dapps, certain cross-dapp interactions are allowed. In this case Mines of Dalarnia has paired with Krystopia to allow some cross-game transfer of resources.  ^{[6][9][11][12]}

Gameplay

The main gameplay is set up around mining, combating as well as collecting resources. Leveraging blockchain technology, assets in the game are issued as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and can be transferred and traded freely in the in-game marketplace. The elements are:

Mines and Lands

In the world of Dalarnia, there are abundant resources of different minerals underground waiting to be discovered by brave explorers. The terrain of lands varies and so do the resources. In order to better develop Dalarnia and get the best use of the resources, lands will be sold to ambitious entrepreneurs that are driven both to make the world a more attractive place for new entrants and to make a fortune for themselves. ^[7]

Types of Terrains

1. At the moment, four types of land have already been discovered by brave explorers of Dalarnia and more remains to be visited. Plots are sorted into four types: Terrestrial, Lava, Ice, and Darkness. They are represented with different colors (Terrestrial - purple, Lava - red, Ice - blue, Darkness - green) as players visit the main mining dashboard. For example, as shown in the graph below, Kindred Gauntlet is a lava land marked in red.
2. Terrestrial Mines contain some of the tamer enemies in the MoD universe. However, each of these enemies has specific attacks and properties which the player must adapt to. While many can be taken out with a few strategic swings of your pickaxe, remember not to get careless — even these basic enemies can take out a reckless player. In addition, players can gauge their difficulty level by the number, beginning with a D in the bottom right corner. In the bottom examples, the ‘Free Zone’ is a D0 zone, meaning characters of all levels will be able to mine it. However, ‘Acrid Bilge’ has a rating of D9, meaning you must upgrade your character to a high level to mine it successfully. Players will need to collect essential minerals as well as experience points in order to upgrade their level in the game.

Land Owner

Being a landowner in the game offers a variety of opportunities to make money. There will be land sales carried out in batches to offer opportunities to participants. Players will need to pay a price in order to buy the piece of land, which is represented in the form of Non-Fungible Token (NFT). Buyers can choose to buy the land of different types (for example, if they have a preference for lava lands). There will be a minimum reward for landowners either in the form of tokens, necessary tools or minerals airdrop, or other formats based on the collective decisions of the token holder. ^[8]

Resources and Minerals

There are basic minerals and exotic minerals in the game. Basic minerals are used to perform basic equipment upgrades and can be found in the ‘Free Zone’ available to every Mines of Dalarnia player. For example, scrap, falun copper and iron ore are all considered basic minerals.

Other than the basic minerals, there are also exotic minerals that are used to perform advanced equipment and plot upgrades and can only be found in ‘paid’ mines that a player owns, or in plots you have rented from another player. In addition, certain minerals can only be found in specific mine types. For example, petrified neon, prisminium, and crystallized plasma are all exotic minerals.

Mining Tools and Weapons

To start playing the game, players need to purchase the starter pack which includes the basic pickaxe and oxygen packs. There are different resources required to upgrade a tool depending on the functionalities and a fixed amount needs to be paid in DAR tokens. There is an upper limit to each player’s tool slot - after that amount has been reached, players need to either trade their item or drop their item or place it on their lands. Different mine types use different equipment to keep a user alive. In Terrestrial mines, the level of their oxygen tank determined how long you could survive on the run. In this Lava mine, their Heat Sink will determine how long you can stay alive. Upgrade your Heat Sink to go on longer runs in Lava mines.

There are also items that can be crafted using minerals collected through the mining process. For example, players can make an escape teleport pack for 150 scraps on the crafting menu. If a player has one of these on hand, she/he can escape a mine from anywhere at any time and keep all the loot you have collected.

Marketplace

Mines of Dalarinia offers an in-game marketplace for users to trade or rent items ranging from minerals mined, tools crafted to unique cosmetics. For each transaction that happened in the marketplace, a fee will be charged in DAR. Due to the different distribution of minerals on each terrain, players might be abundant in one type of mineral while lacking another type. It also provides an easy venue for landowners to monetize on their proceeds.

Resources

There are 20 different resources available in the current build of Mines of Dalarnia. Some of these are available by default, while others must be discovered through play.

• Scrap: The game manual describes scrap as “an assortment of junk and debris.” It is the most abundant material in the game. Many early upgrades require scrap as their only ingredient.
• Falun copper: Falun copper is a “tier 2” mineral. It is less abundant than scrap, but more abundant than silver nuggets. Once you’ve upgraded all of your equipment past the first rank, small amounts of Falun copper may be necessary for higher rank upgrades.
• Iron ore: Iron ore is a tier 2 mineral that is similar to Falunn copper in terms of abundance. Like Falun copper, small amounts of iron ore are sometimes needed in rank 2 equipment upgrades.
• Saganite crystal: Saganite crystal is a “tier 3” mineral. It is described in the manual as “A crystal made up of multi-colored shards.” It is less abundant than Falun copper and iron ore. As equipment progresses to rank 2 and 3, saganite crystals may be needed for further upgrades.
• Silver nugget: Silver nugget is a tier 3 mineral. It is often needed for upgrades past ranks 2 and 3.

Equipment Upgrades

As one mine resources, they gain the ability to upgrade equipment. Each upgrade gives an advantage in subsequent mining sessions. The equipment is:

Default Equipment

Below is a list of the equipment one can begin the game with:

• Pickaxe: Pickaxe is the most basic tool and weapon. Upgrading this allows one to break lower-level blocks with fewer swings and deal more damage to enemies. It also allows you to break some higher-level blocks that would otherwise be impervious to their attacks.
• Backpack: Upgrading a backpack allows you to hold more items in it, increasing the amount of resources that user can accumulate before needing to find a teleporter.
• Boots: Upgrading boots allows you to jump higher by pushing the spacebar repeatedly.
• Oxygen: Oxygen rank determines how long you can stay below the planet’s surface before running out of breath. Higher oxygen ranks allow one to continue mining for longer periods of time – increasing the loot one can bring back. Oxygen is only used on basic, Terran planets. On ice or lava planets, antifreeze or heat sink is used instead.
• Health: Health is simply the amount of damage one character can take before dying. Upgrading health allows users to survive fights with more enemies.

Locked Equipment

Some of the equipment slots are locked by default. In order to obtain a piece of locked equipment, users must collect enough resources to craft a rank 1 version of it. The following are the locked equipment:

• Heat sink: Heat sink protects one on lava planets. When users are on a lava planet and their heat sink depletes, they die.
• Antifreeze: Antifreeze is used to protect one from cold while mining on an ice planet.
• Canar-E: Canar-E is the trusted sidekick of every responsible miner. In ancient times, miners employed biological canaries to alert them to unsafe conditions. But today, they use robot Canar-Es for this task. These robots don’t die if conditions are unsafe. Instead, they chirp incessantly so that you will be aware of the danger. Higher ranked Canar-Es are capable of warning you of a greater variety of dangers.
• Drill: The drill increases the speed of user's digging.
• Bomb: If enemies are getting in one's way, they don’t have to swing their pickaxe at them. They can just throw a bomb instead. Higher ranked bombs do more damage and have cooler-looking cosmetic effects.

Crafting

In addition to upgrading equipment, one can also craft these items to use on their next mining expedition.

• Escape teleport: In an emergency, this can be used to end the session and escape with all of the loot. This is useful in those times when users suddenly realize their oxygen or antifreeze is about to run out.
• Health pill: If users are almost out of health, they can take this medicine to get back into shape.
• Refinery: There are 5 refineries that can be built on each plot of land or game level; one each for copper, bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. A plot needs to have at least one refinery in order to be rented out. When a refinery is upgraded, it increases the plot’s yield of the particular mineral being refined. For example, upgrading a game level’s platinum refinery will increase the amount of platinum found in that game level.

Dalarnia Token

DAR is the native token in the game and it serves key functions in managing the economics in the game, incentivizing players as well as keeping the economy in the Dalarnia world growing sustainably.

Uses of $DAR

1. In-game currency: DAR is the default in-game currency that is used each time users upgrade their tools or trade on the in-game marketplace. The DAR collected from these activities will be stored in the community reserve; collectively, the token holders will decide on the use case of the DAR tokens: either to fund further game play development or to be burned. It is also the currency used in the marketplace, transaction fees are charged in DAR as well.
2. Decentralized governance: Mines of Dalarnia is a game that is owned by the players and token holders. By implementing the decentralized governance structure, mechanisms and policies in the game are up for the token holders to collectively decide. For instance, the maximum versus minimum tax ratio that could be charged by the landowners could be decided by the token holder council.
3. Play to earn : Players have a chance to win token rewards in the game in multiple ways. Firstly, the minerals collected and the tools can be traded on Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplaces for cryptocurrencies. Since the tools are only available for users at a certain level, it is a shortcut for newcomers to purchase more advanced tools, offering an opportunity for gamers to monetize their experiences. Secondly, players could participate in competitions and win token rewards in DAR. Players will be grouped based on their levels and the more advanced a player is, the higher the rewards are for these competitions.
4. Staking rewards: DAR tokens can be staked in order to generate returns and to make the game progression faster for players. There is a corresponding toolset available only for players at the required level; players can level up through either earning experience points by playing the game or through staking DAR tokens.

Rare Canar-E’s make their debut

In Dalarnia, Robo Canary birds are the closest allies of miners. It tracks the gamers and warns them of prospective dangers and adversaries. In order to free up space in your pack, you can send it to the surface with materials at higher levels. The Canary is a second light source that extends the range of what you can see on the screen beyond the character's light source. Each canary is unique, and the more "strong" your canary is in the game, the more uncommon they are.
There are 20,000 canary birds overall, divided into 10 different species. Four levels of rarity are assigned to the canary birds. N made up 50% of the 20,000 NFTs, R 25%, SR 15%, and SSR 10%.

Mines of Dalarnia “Mining Apes” NFT Collection

10,000 NFTs from the limited-edition Mining Apes series were printed on the Ethereum blockchain. Each mining ape is distinct and created using algorithms.Depending on the Dalarnian landscape they mine, each Mining Ape has a distinct set of traits and tools. For instance, some have spotlights designed for investigating the deepest abysses, while others are dressed in down jackets appropriate for exploring frigid zones. Each ape carries the instrument they choose to use to combat the threats on the world.
The physical characteristics of the apes and their use of accessories like spectacles, necklaces, and shoes help them stand out from other species. Even though each of the 10,000 remaining mining apes is unique, certain combinations will be more uncommon than others.

Land Ownership Economy

Each 2D level in Mines of Dalarnia is a randomly generated collectible called a plot of land. Each time a player mines on a plot of land, the layout for the level will be the same. Only the resources and enemies will spawn in random locations. Each plot of land carries different probabilities for resources to spawn. It is extremely unlikely for any two plots of land to have the same probabilities for resources.

• Buying land: Players can buy plots from the developer in exchange for CHR, the native token of the Chromia blockchain. There are always 5 randomly-generated plots available in the store. Price is determined by a formula that includes the rarity of resources, difficulty of enemies, and other factors. In their testing, they found that prices range from 19 CHR (approx. $0.45) to 90 CHR (approx. $2.13). If a plot doesn’t sell within 3 days, it is destroyed, and a new one is generated to replace it. Players who own a plot of land can mine it at no additional cost.
• Renting land: Players who don’t want to own plots of land can rent them from other players instead. In order for the owner to lease his land out, he needs to place at least 1 refinery on it. Players who want to rent land can find it by clicking market → rent from the main menu. Each rental allows the player to mine the land 1 time. Once a plot of land has been mined 20 times, it can no longer be rented out. So owners should make sure they price their leases with this in mind.