‘Hamster Kombat’ Playground Guide: How to Earn Keys to Boost Your HMSTR Airdrop

Hamster Kombat will launch HMSTR on September 26, rewarding players with an on-chain token on The Open Network (TON) after they’ve spent months racking up coins in the Telegram crypto game.

But the airdrop for each player will be based on more than just coin earnings. Another factor that will play into allocations, according to the Airdrop menu in the game, is how many keys you’ve earned from playing the mini-game puzzle—as well as the growing selection of partner games in the Playground.

Each game has a special Hamster Kombat promotion that will reward you with a key for playing. They’re all free games, and they require maybe 10 minutes' worth of gameplay to gain your first key, offering a fresh way to boost your airdrop in the process.

With the airdrop finish line in sight, now’s the time for Hamster Kombat players to make their last moves. Here’s a look at the Playground and why you might want to give it a shot.

What is the playground?

Hamster Kombat’s playground currently includes 10 games that award players keys: the built-in Puzzle game, launched in July, and nine external games that you must download from the App Store or Play Store. Those games are: Stone Age, Train Miner, Mow and Trim, Chain Cube 2048, Merge Away, Polysphere, Twerk Race, Zoopolis, and Tile Trio.

They’re all simple free-to-play games. Train Miner, for example, finds you upgrading a train to cut down and harvest nearby natural resources to expand your train line; Chain Cube 2048 transforms the number-matching game 2048 into a 3D physics puzzler.

Simply download the game through the link in the Playground section of Hamster Kombat, and when you start playing, you should see the familiar hamster icon on the screen. Tap that, and you’ll be given instructions on how to complete the promotion; in Train Miner, for example, you’ll need to collect three hamsters while mowing down resources around the track.

Once you complete the task in question, the game will give you a code that you can paste into Hamster Kombat. Head back to the Telegram mini app, drop in the code, and submit it to earn your key. Each playground game offers a total of four keys to earn, while the puzzle mini-game serves up one daily key to earn.

Why do you want keys?

As mentioned, earning keys is part of the formula that factors into each player’s airdrop allocation. Exactly how big a factor remains to be seen, but it’s one of six components listed on the game’s Airdrop menu.

“Keys are a valuable asset. To build a sustainable platform, we need to open a great amount of locks on proper doors,” the menu reads. “Third-party games integration test is the key to a big publishing platform that will ensure long-term token utility.”

In other words, expect more of this kind of cross-pollination in the future after the token launches. But for now, earning keys is one way that players can boost their airdrop—and it’s something different than just tapping the screen and upgrading your crypto exchange.