After amassing some 300 million players last year in a tap-to-earn bubble that made unexpected waves across the mainstream, Telegram game Hamster Kombat dropped its HMSTR token on The Open Network (TON) last September—to mostly negative reviews from recipients.

And then it just sort of… disappeared. What was planned to be a couple-weeks-long “interlude” gameplay season stretched on for months, and stopped being updated after a while. The anonymous devs teased a second full season of gameplay, then went quiet, eventually saying it would be part of a broader “HamsterVerse” of games.

Now the HamsterVerse is here, led by Tuesday’s launch of GameDev Heroes, which was planned to be the second season of the core game. After all these months, following the underwhelming airdrop and subsequent 77% price plunge, should you tap back in for another spin around the Hamster wheel?

Screenshots from Hamster Kombat: GameDev Heroes. Image: Decrypt

As teased, Hamster Kombat: GameDev Heroes turns the original tap-to-earn premise into a video game development sim, where you recruit programmers and artists, churn out games, and earn more coins along the way. It has the familiar number-go-up vibe that drove hype around the original game and many copycats, but with a new look.

And it’s weird. Developing games feels like window dressing here, even thinner than the original “hamster-run crypto exchange” premise. And the employees have bizarre names like Yizz Crunchy and Booby Hubble (really), plus there are typos abound and awkward art that looks like it was generated by AI.

Frustratingly, GameDev Heroes has embraced the growing Telegram crypto gaming trend of aggressive monetization, pushing premium gameplay upgrades that appear to only be available to players who spend real money to buy Telegram Stars. It’s a bad look for a game that should be trying to win back its former fan base.

Otherwise, it feels a lot like the old Hamster Kombat. Spending coins on upgrades is still more valuable than tapping, the familiar daily combo and cipher code are around for a small boost, and… well, the numbers sure do get bigger the more you play. That’s somewhat comforting as a person who played a truly inane amount of this game across much of 2024.

But playing a boring, repetitive game for countless hours only works when it’s driven by excitement and optimism. That’s pretty much all gone now—both for Hamster Kombat in particular, which flaked out on players for months after the token drop, and for the broader Telegram gaming scene, which has yet to find another hit after many misfires.

After months of purported development, Hamster Kombat: GameDev Heroes mostly feels like an afterthought. And while there’s another airdrop on the horizon, I’d be surprised if a dangling token reward entices nearly as many players this time around, given the previous result.

Image: Decrypt

As for the wider HamsterVerse, the other available game—a simple fighting game called Hamster Fight Club—is even less compelling than last year’s monotonous PixelTap. That leaves little optimism for the Hamster Boost and Hamster King games that are in beta testing, given the quality of what’s here so far.

So should you drop into the HamsterVerse if you’ve been tuned out on all things Hamster Kombat for the last few months? While it’s possible that GameDev Heroes will be fleshed out and/or other games will be more enticing, at least for now, it’s hard to believe that the slog will be worth whatever reward might be doled out.

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