It’s finally here. Well, almost: After months of tapping our phone screens and investing in our fictional crypto exchanges operated by furry creatures, the Hamster Kombat token launch and airdrop are just days away on September 26.
But for players who are serious about boosting their bags ahead of the airdrop, there’s another date that’s even closer: the season-ending snapshot on September 20 at 6pm UTC.
That’s when Hamster Kombat’s developers will call this first in-game season a wrap ahead of the airdrop, and use the remaining days before the token generation event to determine allocations and make sure all of the pieces are in place—and perhaps cross their fingers and toes that The Open Network can handle the rush of players trying to claim tokens.
You now have almost a day left as of this writing to make some last moves to put yourself in the best position to claim a share of the airdrop. Luckily, the team has already shared which factors will play into the allocations, and we’ve played a ton of Hamster Kombat—so here’s a quick primer on how to make the most of the last pre-airdrop push.
Note: This is all based on the information that Hamster Kombat has shared about the airdrop allocation factors. We don’t yet know how each category will weigh into the final balance, nor how many tokens players will earn based on their gameplay. Also, the developers’ plans could change—as we just saw with the Catizen airdrop.
Passive income
Got a huge stash of in-game coins? There’s good news and bad news. We’ll start with the bad: Hamster Kombat’s team has said repeatedly, for months now, that your profit-per-hour mark is more important than your coin balance. If you’ve been hoarding coins rather than investing into upgrades to boost your passive income, then you have some work to do.
Luckily, you can spend those coins to buy into late upgrades now. But don’t spend indiscriminately: Some upgrades are much more valuable than others, delivering more bang for your buck in terms of hourly offline earnings. But even the juiciest upgrade cards have diminishing returns, and given the tiny window of opportunity here, you probably don’t want to spend on hugely expensive upgrades that would take months of play to pay off.
Granted, there’s only so much you can do at this point. And if you don’t have a bunch of coins stashed, then you might not be able to make up much ground. But buy whatever upgrades you can and choose wisely. And if you need to earn a bunch of coins, then jump into the solidly fun Hexa Puzzle mini game and start stacking.
Earn tasks
There’s only so much tapping that any of us can tolerate in a given stretch, but Hamster Kombat offers a few other ways to stack up in-game coins via the “Earn” button at the bottom—and these will apparently factor into allocations, per the game’s “Airdrop” screen.
Such tasks include watching educational YouTube crypto videos posted to Hamster Kombat’s own account, following the game’s social media accounts, and claiming the daily in-game reward. These are all relatively simple tasks that might be worth your time in these final hours.
Friends
If you’ve been playing Hamster Kombat for some time, then you probably already know how pushy the game can be about inviting friends, including tying a lot of unlockable upgrade cards to the task. That’s annoying, and we called that out over the summer. Mostly, they cooled off on the referral shaming… though not entirely.
However, if you still have friends who might want to check out the game—and you don’t feel bad about badgering them with referral links—then give it a shot. Inviting in friends who become active players is one of the airdrop allocation factors, as the game notes.
Achievements
You might have missed this, but some weeks back, Hamster Kombat introduced in-game achievements for various actions. It’s a broad slate, and the achievements run the gamut from how many cards you’ve unlocked to how many you’ve boosted to particular level marks, plus how many coins you’ve collected in total and more.
Mostly, these just highlight the accomplishments you’ve notched across the game. But unlocked achievements are also a factor into the airdrop allotments, so you might make a last effort to try to unlock some of them. For example, you could try boosting a few more upgrade cards to level 15, watch more of their YouTube videos, and unlock in-game skins for your hamster avatar.
Image: Decrypt
Telegram subscription
Have you joined the official Hamster Kombat community channel on Telegram? It’s the biggest channel on the platform with over 58 million members, and being in there is one of the allocation factors. There are even achievements tied to how long you’ve been in there. Join now if you haven’t already.
Keys
Last but not least, keys can be earned by playing mini-games and partnered games, and this may be one of the best remaining opportunities to get ahead in the airdrop.
Just hit the “Playground” button at the bottom of the screen and you’ll be served up a menu of downloadable iOS or Android games that reward you with keys for playing. As of this writing, there are 16 games with Hamster Kombat promotions, and you’ll need to play a little bit and complete the missions in each to earn keys back in the Telegram app.
Check out our Playground guide for a deeper overview of how it works. And in addition to the external partner games, you can hit the “Minigames” tab on this screen to access Hamster Kombat’s daily puzzle game for another shot at grabbing a key.
