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Alright here’s part 6 of my NFT NYC recap…JK. Enough with that.
While I was in New York Saturday night, I was exhausted from all the NFT NYC festivities. Instead of going out with friends I decided to stay in and do some catching up across social media and have some alone time.
While catching up on Discord notifications I had one where I was a winner of a raffle from WonderPals for the project Subway Rats.
What does that mean? Being a holder of NFT projects provide various benefits. One of them is that some projects run raffles for Allowlist spots for other projects.
What’s an Allowlist? It’s basically like being on the VIP guestlist into a club. But that ‘club’ is a project that will be minting, aka their initial ‘drop’.
This is a great benefit if the project is a reputable one, but just because you win doesn’t mean you should always mint. For myself, I use a variety of factors to determine if I want to partake in a mint (or a project in general).
But let’s bring as back to last Saturday night. I was chillin’ and won the raffle. Time to do some due diligence.
I strongly encourage you to experience the Discord invite experience yourself. It’s sorta like watching a movie in 2D (my breakdown) vs. the new 4DX or whatever it’s called lol (going through the motions yourself).
Would recommend going in the following order:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SubwayRatsNft
Discord: http://discord.gg/SubwayRats
Website: https://subwayrats.io/ (for reference, you don’t need to start here if you start with the Discord server)
If you want to see my recorded experience, check it out here (2 min. recording)
Note that I didn’t record sound, I believe the sound effects and music for this particular experience make it even more special so again, I encourage you to try it for yourself!
Also, for those that are unfamiliar with NFTs, the typical project website looks something like this
Much love to SpaceCats Metaverse Club if it’s still around…but I think we can raise the bar a bit? So now that we’ve set the stage, let’s get into it.
Alright, I won the giveaway so I’m doing some homework to understand what this project is all about:
Free mint, can’t complain about that. Some big projects like Cryptopunks and Goblintown started as a free mint.
Almost 17k Twitter followers, sizeable following but not ridiculously high either. Too small of a following likely means a cold start problem while too high probably means fake accounts or too much hype (could be good, could be bad).
Art is cute. Not that unique, but cute for sure.
Alright time to check out the Discord server.
Typical process, agree to server rules and click on the ‘Enter’ button to join the server as a form of weeding out bots and spammers.
Wait wtf, I have to go to to their website? Huh…this isn’t typical.
Whoa fun website, really gets you into the vibes of NYC. I especially resonated with this because I was taking the subway throughout NYC during the week.
However over the Subway entrance and it prompts you…
Alright, I’ll bite. Let’s go down.
Pssst?! Oh snap I vibe with this. I feel like I’m in the Subway where I spent hours in last week while at NFT NYC.
What the
Upon plugging in something…Whoa! The subway directory starts buggin’ out and a different train passes by, “NoodFT”?! 😂
The screen continues to bug out and asks me to enter my Discord username
Find code? Check the vent?
Ah, there it is.
Nice! There’s the code. Nice little viral hook as well to share my experience on Twitter
Another train arrives with some rats who tell you to hop in! Access to the Discord server has been granted!
Channels are unlocked and I’m in the Subway Rats server!
The music at this step of the experience is ON POINT. Stranger Things vibes 🎵. Honestly I just kept music playing for a while because I was sorta 🤯
Wow what an experience!
For those of you have been around the block with NFTs like myself, I think you’d agree that this is a pretty unique experience. Why? This is the experience just to join the Discord server.
This is the design for their roadmap. Follows the theme of NYC Subway lines with the colors and stops. Love it.
This is the map of the game that they will be building. Again, well done and fits the overall look and feel with Subway lines, colors, and based off of Manhattan/NYC.
This project also gets me particularly excited because it seems relatively undiscovered among the NFT influencers and circles that I am a part of. At the time of this writing only 2 people that I follow on Twitter also follow their Twitter account. I’d normally consider that a concern, but after digging in, I’m not too concerned.
Imagine coming across the Azuki or Bored Apes websites long before they blew up. Having a unique website or positive onboarding experience does not mean the project will be successful. But it’s a sign that the team is putting effort towards the details that 99% of teams typically gloss over.
Thought I won’t go into detail, the team is also incorporating some interesting gamefi/P2E aspects to the project. No guarantee of success, but I like how they are doing something different.
With a free mint, there isn’t as much to lose for those that are able to participate in it, so let’s see what happens 🤷. But kudos are due to the experience and creativity employed.
I’m not compensated or affiliated with Subway Rats, but rather I’m excited to see people in the space creating great experiences. I hope this provides more inspiration to other Web3 teams as well as established Web2 brands from a digital perspective!
Tell a story, get prospective users in the mood for your project, make them FEEL something. Azuki does this well with their website.
Alright time to listen to some more Subway Rats music, see you tomorrow!
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