Some readers might have remembered a WAX Blockchain NFT game called Train of the Century, launched early 2021 or thereabouts. It was a well-built start of a game on WAX which garnered a 100-200 players early on moving trains around a map and earning Tocium (TOC) coin as income. Depending on how one configured their trains and cargo, as well as their railcars, the income would vary from station to station.

There was also the ability to own stations, which could generate income as a station owner per se, renting out staking spots, and via passing trains stopping at that station. For a good amount of 2021 and into 2022, trains was working well. The game had a robust NFT structure, with a progressive ability to move up from common values to epic and even higher, each level paying better depending on the makeup of the train and where it stopped. The development of century trains later in 2022 in anticipation of the new phase of the game also brought in a lot of attention and interest too. Then, things went quiet. 

Going Dark...

As the crypto winter really started to take a toll, and with the floundering of the spinoff project, Hello Coaster, Trains stumbled and then became neglected. Going into 2023, the project wasn't doing much aside from a few holiday changes. And, with the writing on the wall seeming apparent, it was assumed by everyone that the Trains project was going to die a slow death and shut down.

Time to Set Things Right

So, along comes PixelJourney. The PXJ's project owner, Piga, had been playing Trains from the start, and was well aware of the condition of the game, it's loss of direction and related funk. So, he started gobbling up all the game's token available on the market and paired it with PixelJourney's token, PXJ. In doing so, Piga created a relationship with TOC that suddenly gave it value again. Even more importantly, it gave Trains a use case to suddenly be useful and functional once more. As players now move their trains, they earn TOC, which can easily be traded in the WAX environment for PXJ. As PXJ continues to keep rising in value against WAX, what used to be almost worthless TOC now has purpose and translation to value again. No surprise, Trains has come back alive. The best proof is the fact that its NFTs on the WAX blockchain, almost becoming bargain basement assets have gone back up in value again and trading is healthy once more, both for holders as well as players earning new NFTs in the game as drops. 

There's no question that the move is intentional. Trains is, fundamentally, a well designed blockchain game. It just lost it's direction. Breathing life back into it with PixelJourney benefits both projects. Trains comes back to being popular again, and PixelJourney's token, PXJ, finds additional utility and liquidity as more players use it. And for those long-time players who loved the game for what it was,...

.....we're baaaaaack!

** I work as community moderator and teammember on PixelJourney. Join our PixelJourney Discord, get the skinny on how to play Century of Trains smart, and start farming PXJ while you're at it too! You even might learn a lot about other crypto stuff and Web 3.0 too!