YGG Play and AI-native game creation platform Verse8 have concluded their collaborative track at the BuidlHack 2026 hackathon in Seoul. The event put in focus the speed and commercial viability of developing web3 games using artificial intelligence.
Hosted during Korea BUIDL Week, the “Casual Degen” track challenged developers to build fast-paced, crypto-native games by utilizing Verse8’s generative AI tools. According to the organizers, 120 teams submitted playable titles over the course of the event, with the leading projects moving from initial concept to fully functional prototypes in under a month.
Hackathon Winners and AI Development
The hackathon culminated in a final showcase on April 18, 2026 following an in-person Builder Day on April 14 where teams refined their mechanics alongside industry operators.
The top prizes were awarded to projects that successfully integrated simple, repeatable gameplay loops with on-chain mechanics:
- First Place: Bank or Plank, a 3D multiplayer pirate-themed digital board game where players must gather and bank gold before a 5-minute time limit or adverse events cause them to lose their loot.
- Second Place: Dungeon Raising, an idle action game pitched in person during the Seoul event.
- Third Place (Tie): Gas Wars, Black Hole Survivor, and Attack on Idol, which all demonstrated lightweight gameplay with embedded on-chain features.
The winning teams received a share of a $5,000 prize pool, ongoing support through Verse8’s creator ecosystem, and consideration for global publishing via YGG Play.
Participants highlighted the efficiency of Verse8’s natural-language prompting tools, which allowed them to bypass traditional coding bottlenecks. Wabbs, the solo creator behind Bank or Plank, noted that the game’s first iteration came together in just two coding sessions.
“Where Verse8 really shines for me is procedural generation. I focused on modular ships, prompting the system to create parts that mix and match, affecting both the visuals and the stats,” Wabbs explained.
Daniel, the developer of Dungeon Raising, said the platform compressed weeks of traditional engine work into hours. “A designer could have handled 80% of this build, that’s how approachable Verse8 is,” he said.
Validating the “Casual Degen” Market
The hackathon served to test and validate the “Casual Degen” gaming category, which is a class of web3 games defined by their speed, accessibility, and crypto-native monetization models.
YGG Play has positioned this category as a scalable economic engine for the web3 market. Since its launch in May 2025, the publishing arm has generated over $9 million in lifetime revenue across its published titles by the end of Q1 2026.
Gabby Dizon, co-founder of Yield Guild Games and one of the event’s judges, noted the growing appetite for these experiences:
“Since we launched YGG Play last year, we’ve seen a real demand for Casual Degen experiences, especially from people who don’t think of themselves as gamers. The quality and creativity of the games at BuidlHack show that this model is repeatable, and it’s a big step toward making Web3 games that are sustainable for the long term.”
Kevin Lee, CEO of Verse8, emphasized the shift in development velocity demonstrated at the event:
“BuidlHack was designed to test how quickly viable games can be created when traditional bottlenecks are removed. What we saw in Seoul was a step change in velocity,” Lee stated.
Verse8, which launched in stealth mode in July 2025, reports having reached over 3.5 million monthly active users, with more than 5,000 active creators generating approximately 25,000 games to date. Organizers noted that the playable prototypes from the hackathon already exhibited repeat sessions and early on-chain interactions, proving that rapid AI-assisted creation can drive immediate player engagement.
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This article is published on BitPinas: YGG Play, Verse8 Conclude BuidlHack 2026, Showcase AI-Powered ‘Casual Degen’ Games
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