In this comprehensive game guide we’ll introduce you to Pixels, a web-based, 2D, MMO game centered around farming and crafting. We’ll help you get started, introduce you to the main town, and give you a rundown of the different skills available.
History of Pixels
Pixels first launched in 2021. Their initial land NFT mint in January of 2022 was sold out in seconds. After that they followed up with an alpha later that year. Pixels started on the Polygon network, but migrated to Ronin in 2023. Their play to airdrop campaign, which began in January of 2024, was a huge catalyst for growth, propelling Pixels to the top of the charts and regularly bringing in over one million active users every week!
These numbers may be topped by the recent surge in gamers on Telegram, but Pixels has clearly shown that they are a dominant force in the web3 gaming scene!
What is Pixels?
Pixels is a massive multiplayer, 2D game about farming, crafting, and socializing. Players can level up a variety of harvesting and crafting skills, with higher skill ranks opening up new harvesting and crafting options.
Pixels features an active playerbase and has played host to an increasing number of in-game events, even including an in-game wedding!
It offers play to earn opportunities through quests, tasks that players can complete to earn Pixel, the on-chain token of the Pixel economy.
Getting Started with Pixels
Pixels runs in a web browser, so it’s as simple as firing up your browser of choice and visiting play.pixels.xyz. You don’t even have to connect a wallet to play. You can create an account using email or a phone number. Otherwise, you can connect with a Ronin login through the mobile wallet app or browser extension.
The game is completely free and includes several introductory quests to show new players the basics and guide them to the various crafting stations around town.
Use the Pixels Dashboard to link your social accounts, collect daily login rewards, purchase VIP memberships, and view the game leaders.
Player Avatars in Pixels
Pixels is one of the gaming leaders in regards to integration with other NFT collections goes. When selecting an avatar to use in-game, owners of NFTs from 100 collections can use their NFT as an avatar. And this isn’t just a generic avatar to represent the collection – you get to play as your very own, personal NFT with its unique selection of physical characteristics!
This is a very cool feature and makes for quite a diverse population of characters in the town square! Available integrated collections include Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mocaverse, Pudgy Penguins, Moonbrids, Kaiju Kingz, Nyan Cat, and many, many more. It’s not hyperbole when I tell you that there are more than 100 integrated collections. You can check out the full list here. And if you’ve released your own PFP NFT collection, you can apply to be included as well!
How to Play Pixels?
The controls for Pixels are pretty simple. W-A-S-D to move. Click on objects, NPCs, and other players to interact with them. Your inventory is at the bottom of the screen, and you can use the little recycling arrow looking thing to page through it
The basics of Pixels are pretty simple. Farm, craft, and level-up. Every player starts with a free Home area, known as a Speck. Here you plant and grow crops in a small field, and place decorations and crafting stations.
Completing a skill action gives you experience in that skill. Level up the skill to open up new crafting options. Skill levels run from 0 to 100, with higher ranks opening up more options for crafting and the ability to harvest higher tier resources. Higher tier recipes also include the ability to make your own kits for constructing new crafting stations.
Pixels is built so that a player can bootstrap themselves up without ever needing to spend a dime, but it could take a while. Luckily, the Pixels community is very open and sharing. There is no need to slowly build up your plot, adding Crafting stations one by one. Instead, you can visit and use other players’ land plots, as long as they’ve made it public. And there are plenty of public spots to choose from! Many of which have huge complexes of crafting stations as well as mines and forests to harvest for resources. Make use of these free setups to level your skills up more quickly
Any sort of harvesting, crafting, or resource production in Pixels uses up Energy. Players have a maximum supply of 1000 Energy which gradually replenishes over time. You can also drink Energy Drinks, rest in bed at home, or hangout in the sauna to regain Energy more quickly.
Pixels includes free crafting spots scattered around the main town area for everyone to use. However, to reach advanced levels on the Crafting skills, you will need to make a lot of items. And since each station can only produce one item at a time (per player), you will find that you need multiple copies of a station if you’re serious about leveling up that skill. For this, you can build on your own personal land plot.
On your land you can place resource items, crafting stations, and decorative items. You home plot includes an outdoor area and an indoor area. Inside the house you can find the Infinifunnel, the source for in-game tasks and an endless resource sink. The Infinifunnel offers a selection of tasks you can complete for rewards that include Coins and PIXELS tokens.
-
home, sweet home
Or you can look around for farm plots owned by other players that are open to the public. And there are quite a few around! The community is very open towards helping each other out. Travel between land plots is instantaneous.
The highest tier of resources can only be found on NFT lands. This is also where you need to go to craft tier 2 and tier 3 items. So while the starter island is great, NFT lands are where its at in the long run. Luckily, you don’t have to own one yourself! Many players have built up land plots that are open to the public. You can visit to access banks of crafting machines and even harvest high end resources.
Currently available skills in Pixels include:
- Farming – plant, tend, and grow various crops; requires a watering can and shears
- Forestry – gather wood and other resources from trees; requires an axe
- Cooking – combine ingredients to create edible items; requires a cooking station
- Mining – gather ore and other resources from mines; requires a pickaxe
- Woodwork – create planks from wood; craft tools and house items; requires a woodworking station
- Metalworking – smelt ore; craft tools and other items; requires a metalworking station
- Stoneshaping – craft items from stones
- Animal Care – tend to bees, chickens, and silkworms; requires appropriate animal habitats
- Business – increase difficulty (and rewards) of daily tasks; increased through some high-level crafts
- Exploration – not currently used
Terra Villa: The Main Town in Pixels
While Specks and NFT Lands are where you’ll go for most of your crafting and harvesting needs, the real action is in Terra Villa, the multiplayer town hub for Pixels.
Here you can see everyone sporting their partner project PFP avatars, complete introductory quests, and even harvest basic resources and use free crafting stations throughout the town.
Some buildings aren’t open yet, but players can ahead inside of many others to find shops and special services. Here are a few of the notable locations in Terra Villa.
Buck’s Galore General Store
Buck’s Galore is the main shop in town. You can find it on the east side of the main town square. At the front most counter you can pick up some basic items for farming, gathering, and cooking, as well as a few basic crafting stations that can be placed in your Home Speck.
But in the back is where the real deals are made. This section holds the player to player markets, and can only be accessed once you have a Trust score of 500 of greater.
Pet Shop
Right next to Buck’s is the Pet Shop. Here you can pick up animals such as chickens and silk slugs to begin your husbandry adventures.
You can also mix your own potions and add them to the growth lab to hatch your very own NFT Pixels Pet! You’ll need 30 potions, made from whatever ingredients you add
Bank
Here you can swap Pixels for Coins and import Crypto into your game wallet
Land Office
Just west of the town square is the land office.
Wine Press – located in the southwest corner of the map, the Wine Press is another focal point as players gather to press their grapes and ferment their wine
On the east side of town you’ll have the Aviary, Coop, and Slug Hut for your Animal Husbandry needs. And scattered around town are various workbenches.
Animal Care Area
On the eastern edge of town just north of the main thoroughfare you can find the free to use stations for taking care of your chickens, bees, and silkworms.
Tavern
At the tavern you can buy drinks to replenish energy. Head into the backroom to try out some different games.
Post Office
At the post office in Terra Villa you can collect a daily mystery package that contains a random item, and also use their lockboxes to store extra items.
Ministry of Innovation
Craft decorative items
Decor Shop
Here you can buy cosmetic customizations for your land. Most of these decorations are sold for Coins, but you can also find limited edition decorations that can only be purchased with PIXELS.
There is more to the world of Pixels. Some buildings may have special areas that are only open to holders of certain NFTs or players who have a VIP subscription. There are also regular events in-game that often include limited time quests and special rewards.
Pixels Reputation System
Pixels has an in-game reputation system known as a Trust Score. Players can raise their Trust Score by completing quests, purchasing a VIP pass, completing tasks, and just by playing the game.
This system is mainly meant to combat spam creation of new accounts and bot farming.
They recently revamped their reputation system, resulting in a drastic change of Trust Scores for many players (my score was -8). But if you complete the new quests that are started by talking to the NPCs next to the public crafting stations in town, you can quickly get back on the right track.
The game requires that players meet a certain Trust score requirement in order to engage with some features of the game such as player to player markets and extracting PIXELS tokens from the game. A high reputation score will also decrease the amount of market fees you pay.
Guilds in Pixels
Creating a Guild in Pixels requires a Trust score of at least 2205, at a fee of 15 PIXELS tokens. Being in a guild gives you access to guild lands, guild specific chats, and also lets you participate in special guild wars events.
Joining a guild requires a payment in PIXELS token. The cost varies based on the size of the guild. The more members in that guild, the higher the cost. Players can join more than one guild and may choose to sell back their guild membership based on the current membership price.
Pixels ran a special mushroom growing event for guilds in August of 2024 with 85K PIXELS in prizes. Expect to see more guild events in the future.
NFTs in Pixels
At the moment, Pixels only has two NFT collections of their own. The land plots, and Pet NFTs.
Land plots come in either small or large size. As you might imagine, the large size plots can hold more structures and/or fields. Each land plot also comes with a selection of randomized traits which can affect it’s look and farming potential. Land owners are automatically granted VIP status after they hold their land plot NFT for seven days.
Pixels land plots and pets are available for purchase on Mavis Market.
Pets provide players with extra, traveling storage capacity (and you will need it!), though you must also provide them with food, water, and attention, bringing an aspect of NFT gaming to the world.
Minting a new Pet requires special Pet Capsules, which are only available on an irregular basis. You can also pick up an already minted Pet from another player on the Mavis Market.
How to Play and Earn in Pixels
The simplest way to play and earn is by completing tasks. These can be found at the Infinifunnnel in your home plot and each Task requires you to deliver specific materials or items to receive rewards.
The Infinifunnel is indeed infinite, with new tasks appearing a few minutes after you complete one, and the whole task selection board resetting on a daily basis.
VIP Membership
Having VIP status increases the number of potential tasks. Not all tasks have PIXELS as rewards though, so your results from day to day will vary based on what tasks you have available.
Additionally, VIP membership will allow players to visit exclusive areas in-game. VIP members also have the ability to withdraw their in-game currency to their Ronin wallet, extra backpack slots, and are automatically give 1500 reputation points, which is enough to open access to the player markets.
What is the PIXELS token?
The only on-chain currency from Pixels is the PIXELS token. PIXELS has a capped supply of 5 billion with just over 771 million tokens currently in circulation. It functions as the on-chain currency for Pixels and is used to buy VIP memberships, start new guilds, and purchase limited-edition cosmetic items.
The Future of Pixels
Pixels releases regular updates and has left themselves plenty of room for expansion, both in terms of physical space and in adding new features to the game. We don’t have any specific mention about their future plans, but expect to see more events, more guild wars, new skills, new partnerships, and perhaps some new ideas that are even more exciting than this!
