Upland Virtual Real Estate Game Review 2022

Upland is a property and city building and trading game where virtual properties and maps are similar to the actual cities they represent.  

Besides the trading aspect, The game also allows players to earn rewards, featuring competitions, tournaments, live events, and treasure hunts. Upland is one of the top ten games in popularity, currently ranking number five on Dappradar with around fifty thousand daily users. This game has been around since 2018, and development is very active, with new features and locations being added regularly.

The game is available on browser, Android, and IOS. 

Upland Gameplay:

Upland virtual properties represent real-world building plots and street addresses on the map. Each property is a unique NFTs minted on the EOS blockchain.

The gameplay is inspired and has some resemblance to Monopoly but on a grander scale. You can buy new properties from the bank (in Upland, the process is called minting) or directly from other players. Just like Monopoly, You will collect rent in UPX tokens when other players visit your property. In Upland, there are no dice. Instead, you will need to use movement points and pay a visit fee (more on that later).

Like most play-to-earn games, one of your primary goals will be to make money. You will be able to accumulate wealth by trading properties and ensuring a constant flow of UPX from rent. The properties on Upland are tradable on the marketplace for both USD and UPX.

Holding a property will earn players recurrent UPX (in addition to visits). You can earn more UPX by completing collections of properties in the same area. For example, having properties on the same street or holding properties in a specific location will give you an earning boost.

Buying and selling property

Property ownership and trading is an essential aspect of the game. 

Properties produce 14.7% annually on the mint price, paid out every three hours. Collections can provide a boost to those earnings. 

There are two types of property categories in Upland: minted and unminted. 

Unminted properties have never had an owner, and buying Unminted properties in Upland is like buying unowned property from the bank in Monopoly. You get a good price, but you have to be lucky to land on it. In Upland, you will need to send your avatar to the property and be in range to mint properties. Unminted properties are hard to get hold of because they get snatched very quickly when they are released.

The easier (and more expensive) way to buy property in Upland is to purchase minted properties from other players on the market. When you buy property from other players, you don’t need to move your avatar, you can purchase property anywhere on the map, but you pay a premium. Your annual profit is calculated from the mint price and not from the price you paid for the property.

You can sell your property for UPX or USD. Flipping a property is the common term for making a profit on a property. A good strategy would be to mint new properties, wait until the district is sold out, and put them on sale with a reasonable markup.

placing buildings on top of your property

To construct a building, you will need to acquire spark. Spark is equivalent to workforce hours. You can obtain spark on treasure hunts, special events or achieve a net worth of 1,000,000 UPX which will award you a director status and above.

Buildings increase your property and neighborhood value. In the future, buildings will have more use cases such as displaying NFTs and parking cars.

Moving around

By default, your avatar wanders the city you are in randomly. You will start each day with a limited amount of movement points (“Sends”), but you can increase your sends by collecting icons of paper airplanes on the map. Moving around will also cost you a visit fee in UPX. To move between cities, you will need to utilize a train or a plane. 

In Upland, you don’t have to move your avatar until you are ready to do so. You can purchase real estate from other players and conduct business around the map from a stationary position, collecting your recurrent UPX. 

In most cases, You will need to move around to participate in treasure hunts and mint new properties. You might also want to travel to a stadium (or other venues in the future) to purchase NFT legits.

Your avatar (block explorer) and upland status

As a new player, you start the game with the Visitor Status, and you will need to actively log in and renew your Upland visa every seven days. If your visa expires, all your assets will be confiscated returned to the community pool. This is actually a positive feature that allows the game to fight bots. To avoid this annoyance, you will want to reach an uplander status.

When a player reaches a net worth of at least 10,000 UPX, they will have the option of leveling up to Uplander status. Their account and properties will now be permanently stored on the blockchain. Uplanders can start selling their properties for UPX and USD and take advantage of Fair State Act (FSA) properties.

FSA properties are reserved for newer players and are generally less expensive than non-FSA properties. Visitors and Uplanders can buy FSA properties.

the next levels are pro (100,000 UPX), director (1,000,000 UPX) up to chief executive with a net worth of 100,000,000 UPX. Each level comes with extra perks, such as changing the avatar icon and earning more spark tokens. Pro levels and above can’t acquire FSA properties.

treasure hunts

Treasure hunts can be a fun way to win UPX or spark. There are different types of treasure hunts. Standard hunts let you compete against the clock, and limited and exclusive hunts let you compete against other players. 

To find a treasure, you will need to send your avatar to different properties and follow the arrow hints until you are close enough to claim it. Remember that you have a limited amount of movement points (sends), and each “send” costs UPX.

A common strategy among uplanders is to own many properties in one city and move between them. That’s because visiting your properties does not cost sends or UPX. 

Upland Economy

One hundred billion UPX were minted and divided between two pools. One pool is used to fund and develop the platform, and the other sustains the upland economy.

UPX is not a cryptocurrency but rather an in-game currency used to buy and sell assets in the game. Players can purchase 1000 UPX for 1 USD. However, they can’t sell their UPX outside the upland ecosystem on exchanges for other cryptocurrencies or USD. Yet, players can cash out by purchasing property with their UPX and selling it for fiat currency.

How to earn UPX and USD in Upland

• Property in Upland earns a 14.7% base yield on the mint price of properties.
• Complete a Collection to receive a boost on top of the base yield and an additional one-time UPX bonus.
• Mint properties and sell them to other players for UPX or USD
• Use spark to add assets to your property and increase its value
• rent out spark for UPX (future development)
• Receive visits to your property
• Participate in treasure hunts
• Collect and sell NFT Legits (currently NFLPA)
• Participate in events and challenges

Upland NFTs

Upland Legits are NFTs designed to bring brands such as sports clubs, athletes, and artists to the upland universe.

Legits integrate NFT features to Upland. Players can travel and participate in minting events, have their legits signed by their owners, and later display their legit NFTs in their houses.

There are different NFT categories:

• Mementos are the most valuable rare unique 1-of-1 NFTS. 
• Essentials are common NFTS. Players can merge essentials to create replicas that are rarer. 
• spotlights are NFT video moments 

NFTs also contribute to players’ fan score, where higher fan score gives players a chance to mint a rare NFT or have their NFT autographed.

Future of Upland

This List is based on rumors, discord, medium articles, and the upland white paper:

• Cities are currently concentrated in the United States, but future updates will make global cities available.
• A developer network aiming to allow third-party developers to provide decentralized apps.
• Creating more legit sets by partnering with new teams and celebrities in the sports, music, and film industry.
• Virtual and Augmented Reality (mentioned in the white paper)
• More use cases for buildings such as NFT galleries
• Cars
• Player-owned businesses and shops (Metaventures) will enable players to sell their in-game assets and services.