Free to play walletless MMORTS Pulsar has managed to successfully achieve over 500 million transactions during its testnet phase this July, recording 538 million transactions on July 18th, followed by more than 550 million on July 26th on its Avalanche subnet.

Here’s how you can get started playing for free to help this UE5-title reach 600 million transactions (and hopefully earn some tokens in the process)!

Getting Started Without a Wallet

Anyone on Mac and Windows PCs can download the game through its official website, after which you can get started by unpacking the full game. Once you’re in, all you need to do is set up a username and optionally link your email address in order to save your progress across devices, so you can easily continue where you left off elsewhere.  While you can connect a wallet, it is not needed to play, making it very accessible to Web2 gaming audiences. If you happen to have a referral code then you’ll probably want to use it if you want to get some bonus units and resources.

If you’re familiar with classic RTS games such as Command & Conquer, Starcraft and Warcraft 3, then it probably won’t take long to get used to this strategic sci-fi game. But even if you’re new to the genre, the game does have a tutorial to ease you in with the basics of base-building RTS gameplay reminiscent of the genre’s best. Players build Resource Miners in order to gather Minerals and Gas located on Resource Deposits across the map, and you will need those resources in order to construct buildings and units. Resources are also used to level up units and buildings to increase their stats. You get to build futuristic structures and amass a robotic army that you use to defend against swarms of aliens charging at your base while you try to push forward to destroy their nests.

Next to the tutorial is a dungeon demo and the main game mode. The dungeon demo has you fight your way through an underground lair with a limited number of units. It’s designed to give you an idea of what to expect when venturing into Diablo-like dungeons found on various NFT lands.

Play to Earn $PLSR in Public Lands

In the primary mode you select your mothership (which may take a bit to appear if your account is new) and deploy to battle on a Public Land. This is where you have an opportunity to earn $PLSR tokens before the mainnet goes live. By playing in Public Lands, you get to extract $PLSR tokens that you will be airdropped later on, so you will probably want to connect your wallet to be ready to get your rewards. On the top right of the main menu, you will find an option to link your account to your wallet, providing you with a code and showing you how to use it for successful synchronization. Essentially this involves logging in with your wallet on the game’s official website and pasting the code into the ‘Link Device’ section. The game conveniently gives you a button that copies the code and opens the website for a user-friendly experience. Once you do that, you should see your wallet shortly appear in the game alongside your account.

A total of 15 million tokens are said to be up for grabs according to the info in-game, so it’s a bit unclear how many currently remain. The same number of tokens was given during Season 2 last year. This token is not yet live, with TGE potentially set to take place later this year.

Each Public Land differs in terrain and difficulty while allowing up to 4 players to fight and earn together at the same time. The tokens you extract from the Public Lands are taxed, with 50% of raw Pulsar extracted going to the landowner. It seems to be 50% for just about every Public Land, but once the game goes on mainnet you will be able to get invited to player-owned lands who will likely be able to change this percentage. $PLSR is extracted the same way as with other resources, but requires specifically building Pulsar Miners and Pulsar Refineries instead of Resource Miners.

You can choose to abandon a land to move to another one, or stick to the one you’re currently in, so even if you exit the game, your base will persistently remain there and your miners will continue to gather your resources as ordered until the deposit is depleted. Players can have one Mothership per wallet address, and this Mothership is what you use to deploy on land, so in order to have another Mothership, you’ll have to connect to another wallet address, according to the FAQ in the game’s official Discord server and the online wiki.

NFTs

If you linked your wallet or completed the tutorial, you will notice that the game’s website has its own marketplace for buying Units, Structures and Land NFTs. There are also Starter Packs and more advanced ones you can get if you’re not sure what to purchase separately. These NFTs come in different rarities, and while you don’t need to buy them to play, doing so gives you more Units and Buildings to construct in-game on top of the free pack that everyone gets from simply downloading the play and earn game. NFTs destroyed in-game are not lost forever, so you will always be able to rebuild them.