Tired of voxel style crypto games? Want a sandbox game that pays homage to your favorite NFTs and lets you build your own custom island for free?
Elegant island has already made waves among cryptocurrency gaming enthusiasts, many of whom are incentivized to try the game because of its promised future airdrop where players could, essentially, get free money in the form of tokens.
But airdrops aside, Nifty Island is actually a good game given its current beta status, living up to my expectations and exceeding them in some ways. For one thing, building mode is where many players will spend the majority of their time. The team has done a great job of coming up with a wide range of tools and offering a decent amount of free items, foliage and terrain tools to allow players to create some really cool things and customize their islands a bit.
Just started playing @Nifty_Island and you guys have already created crazy maps 😳
I will be live streaming tonight at 3pm UTC. Visit my island here: https://t.co/9zNDxPDuu3 pic.twitter.com/MlTAMCKzdU
— giallopanther.moca 💎 (@giallopantherx) January 18, 2024
Despite only launching this week, some impressive maps have rolled out already been built with entry-level materials, from container yards to elaborate rocky landscapes that appear colossal and ancient shipwrecks.
Nifty Island is a a builder’s paradise. For beginners, it’s a little difficult to figure out how to move the camera during construction, so I often thought about placing objects on the ground only to discover later that they were, in fact, in mid-air. Oops!
Fans of games like Animal Crossing, Roblox, The Sims, Minecraft, and Fortnite’s Creative Mode, who are also okay with cryptocurrencies and NFTs, will love this game. For these people, it will fill a niche gaming solution that they can’t satisfy elsewhere, including the ability to do so play as your own NFT avatar.
given that NFT reaction in progress By many players, however, Nifty Island’s NFT-forward approach won’t appeal to everyone. You need to log in with some sort of crypto wallet or Sequence Email based proxy wallet. I found Sequence’s integration to be the easiest, as connecting the game with my Coinbase wallet required mobile app signing, facial recognition, and so many additional steps that I would likely only complete if I played on an ongoing basis.
Sure, maybe Nifty Island is trading on the increase in user-generated content (UGC). has skyrocketed in recent years, but then again, players have always wanted to customize the game world to their liking and feel that their involvement can have a big impact.

Added some rock formations and a beach house to our starting island. Image: Decrypt
Hot take: Many of the most popular NFT-based builder games already on the market are prohibitively expensive, boring, and simple devoid of other players.
Despite the endless stream of brand collaborations and the short-lived hype of the heyday of the “metaverse“boom, gamers haven’t flocked to cryptocurrency-powered worlds en masse. Let’s face it: not everyone has endless amounts of money and time to spend their days laying out such terrain it cost him $450,000, just to be able to “live” next to Snoop Dogg.
The appeal of Nifty Island lies in its flexibility, simplicity and convenience. You can be a creative designer, a competitive gamer, or a curious explorer without feeling like you’re missing out on someone else’s fun. It generally feels low-stakes and casual, like a quiet place to blow off steam while listening to the game’s epic yet soothing synthwave soundtrack.

Nifty Island’s exploration menu already has a lot of options for a beta game (there’s a search function that reveals countless locations). Image: Decrypt
And when it comes to NFTs, Nifty Island makes it relatively easy to earn “blooms,” which, once harvested en masse, can be redeemed for new playable avatars, buildings for your island, and other benefits. Oh, and there are plenty of ways to showcase your affiliations with various NFT collections too, if that’s your thing.
But yes, you will need a amount of blooms.
This is a first look at @Nifty_Island
-create whatever you want for FREE
-play for free
-be a pfp NFT you want!
-play TODAY!Sponsored by @Stardust pic.twitter.com/Z3QLQJaj88
— Jonah 🎮 (@RealJonahBlake) January 17, 2024
Even in beta, Nifty Island has quickly earned a place among the best social NFT games around. It’s visually appealing with fun movement mechanics, crisp audio, and tons of epic worlds made by other players. It seems like Nifty Island will appeal most to players under 25, but some older millennials may find the wealth of game-building tools enticing enough to bring back the vibes from the days of RollerCoaster Tycoon and SimCity.