Alright. Let's chat about
JAMs for a minute. Out the gate, I'll note that I know the developer, which is really the only reason I've added the game to my library, as I am very critical of the NFT clicker idle whatever genre of games made famous by Banana, Egg, and other similar pyramid scheme type games. But I am very happy to report that JAMs does things differently. Which I already knew going in since the dev is more into appreciating the artistry that goes into the items that drop in these games than he is in the marketability of them, overall.
The first thing that is noteworthy off rip is that there are no marketable items being advertised on the product page. Because this game is not trying to artificially inflate item values by selling limited time items to you. Nor is the dev creating items that he himself can sell on the market at inflated prices. Instead, he is simply creating things he thinks look cool and will be fun to look at. Obviously, most are in fact marketable, but that does not seem to be the driving force with this game.
Instead, he seems more interested in developing a community and multi-media game where the foundation is the creation of interesting art pieces, and I know he plans to incorporate things like a digital jukebox into the game eventually. Hopefully we do see that happen. I'm not someone who hangs out on Discord, BlueSky, or what have you, so I really have no idea what the JAMs community actually does or how they interact with each other, but they definitely exist, and it seems to continue to give the developer energy to keep creating.
Now, should you just trust that this isn't a pyramid scheme like all of its contemporaries? No, of course not. You should look into it yourself and see if it is or not. Doing your due diligence is important. But I can say that I don't believe that to be the case here. There is a DLC that offers a different set of item drops, and that is basically the developer support button if you want to throw a buck his way. However, the base game is free, so check that out first before making a monetary decision.
At the moment, the game is barebones with a clicker and another prompt that I believe begins the item generation process(?). Not totally sure about that second jar prompt though. The dev would have to speak to that himself. There is also a screenshot button and space for other options not presently added to the game. Along with a social media and Steam link. The social media prompt is not currently enabled though (at the time of this writing).
I finally had a chance to let this game idle overnight, and it does at the moment of this writing drop an item every twenty minutes. Of the twenty-six items that have dropped over the eight plus hours I've let the program run, nine types of jars dropped, which are as follows:Base Game: Scorch x4, Refresh x5, Guardians x5, Spangle x4, Mendin x3
DLC: Heat x2, Fireflower x1, Vibes x1, Splash x1I personally have no intention of selling any of these since they exist more as a curiosity for me, but I do think this is where both the marketability and the fact that this isn't the driving force of this game both reveal themselves. There is a solid chance that a person would want to sell off duplicates, but it is also highly unlikely that the items would sell for more than 3 cents, making it both not profitable and kind of a waste of time to do so. But it is of course an option. I think the more likely outcome is that people trade duplicate jars with other people for jars they don't own. Anyway, if you want to get a look at some of these designs, my Steam inventory is public, so feel free to take a look.
Anyway, I do think the item design are cool. Some are animated, others aren't. But all of them have some thought put into both the items and the item descriptions. The latter of which seem geared towards building up some JAMs lore. Who knows what will come next?
I'd also add here that you can run JAMs in the background while playing other games on Steam. Which for me is handy since I'm just letting it run right now for a while to see what happens in general as far as drops are concerned. There does seem to be a new jar each day.
So yes, I'm rating JAMs positively because it is approaching things as a fun hobby rather than as an NFT pyramid scheme. Every single other NFT clicker/idler I've seen falls into the latter category. And that does make JAMs stand above the rest IMO. But yeah, as mentioned earlier, I do know the developer which is why I've played around with the game at all. So, you know. Do your own due diligence rather than diving in blindly. :)
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