I was pretty excited to get my feet wet with my first blockchain based game and to be honest I am still excited about it.  Upland is a very interesting concept and I love the idea of owning and trading properties.  It's a bit like monopoly on steroids without your older brother flipping the board at some point and giving you the middle finger.  

After the initial excitement I decided to dive deeper into the game and have been left wanting a lot more.  The game mechanics are very confusing and earning UPX seems almost impossible.  After you buy your first few properties and check your earnings you realize that at this rate it will take years to purchase more expensive properties or upgrade.  Obviously you can boost your earnings and gain treasure through playing the game but the treasures can be difficult to find leaving first time players frustrated.  Looking through the treasure history you can see not a lot of UPX is earned when you actually do find a treasure.  I am constantly left in the "all treasures are charging" stage so I am not even sure how one can grind it out this way.

The collections process is not explained well and can lead to some early on mistakes.  If you scroll through them you can see there is actually multiple different collections that you should consider when buying property.  Meeting these collection requirements can you earn you a small boost which is needed to get anywhere in Upland.

I think once a person has gained some more experience in the game and learns the ways to earn UPX faster it would be a more enjoyable game but the effort to reach that level is going to turn a lot of initial players off.  I believe Upland has a lot of room to grow but watching my avatar slowly move around on a map hoping I might find a treasure or reward is not my idea of a fun time.  

As you can see the map layout is pretty generic, I am starting to feel like I am playing pokemon go with zero control over what is going on. 

Upland does has a fantastic tutorial and a lot of potential but if the developers are looking to attract and keep new players they will have to work on things that make the game more exciting and playable early on.  It does feel a bit like real life in the sense I am watching my broke ass avatar wander around on a map looking at properties I will never be able to afford.    

If you are thinking about getting involved with Upland it is a fun concept but be prepared to grind, grind, grind or spend, spend spend to get anywhere in this game.