News

Telegram game TapSwap racked up tens of millions of players in recent months ahead of a planned token launch and airdrop on The Open Network (TON)—and now it’s expanded beyond the original Notcoin -esque tap-to-earn premise with a new city builder mode.

Launched on Monday, Tappy Town is a new game mode found within the TapSwap mini app on Telegram that lets you upgrade and enhance numerous buildings to unlock additional rewards.

Tappy Town ties into existing play-to-earn elements within TapSwap, such as the ability to watch certain YouTube videos to earn in-game coins. Now you’ll also earn purple play buttons by watching videos, which can be used to upgrade one of the buildings, the TapFlix theater.

From there, you’ll start to passively earn blocks in the game by upgrading buildings, some of which are inspired by in-game elements or the TON ecosystem. Each building takes a certain amount of time to complete its upgrade, with the wait growing with each higher level, though you’ll also earn gems that you can use to skip some waits. TapSwap also sells bundles of gems.

The developers wrote in the official Telegram channel that players’ “achievements will influence the size of your rewards,” suggesting that the mode will factor into the airdrop claim.

TapSwap is continuing a recent trend of popular Telegram crypto games ( like Hamster Kombat ) expanding their core functionality to keep players engaged ahead of the token launch. The game’s token launch is planned for sometime this quarter.

In any case, Tappy Town gives TapSwap players a different kind of play experience to dig into ahead of the token launch. It’s not the only recent expansion for TapSwap either: The game also recently added a token swap functionality, letting players exchange actual on-chain tokens like TON and the USDT stablecoin.