Exciting developments are underway at Upland, as the team powers forward with high-priority projects and community-driven improvements. In Q3, we hit some major milestones, and in Q4 we’re focused on two key areas: Major Projects and Community Feedback Enhancements.

Major User Acquisition Projects

Our first focus area involves ambitious projects in collaboration with strategic partners, set to expand Upland’s ecosystem in a big way. These large-scale efforts will deepen Upland’s reach and strategic positioning — more details coming in Q1 2025. Stay tuned for announcements!

Addressing Community Feedback

The second focus area is dedicated to tackling our backlog of community feedbackimprovements, particularly those focused on functionality and quality of life.

We’ve categorized these items based on development time: larger projects (8–10 weeks), medium projects (4–6 weeks), and smaller projects (less than a month).

Rollouts will happen continuously, with timelines varying by team capacity. While not all items will be completed this quarter, this is where our attention is on an ongoing basis (items are listed in no particular order).

$SPARKLET Utility

Energize Travel with $SPARKLET: This feature will allow staking $SPARKLET for travel. This willstart with car travel and have airplanes as the next step. Think about $SPARKLET as the energy that powers transportation.

Vehicles are charged using $SPARKLET staking, giving $SPARKLET additional utility in Upland. This will mark a significant milestone in $SPARKLET utility, increasing usage and demand.

SPARK Hours Adjustment: As discussed in the $SPARKLET White Paper section “Keeping the Upland Economy Protected”, in order to build a sustainable economy within upland that also corresponds to external market conditions.

To this end, the Upland team will present the adjustment of the requirements and the reasoning, that will adjust in-game SPARK hours for construction, manufacturing, and other utility staking. SPARK hours will be adjusted once per quarter, starting with Q1 2025.

Transportation & Travel

Simplified Travel Experience: Responding to community feedback, travel will be simplified for new and experienced players alike. Travel fees will remain the same, but journeys will be initiated with a single click.

Free Travel for New Users: New players will enjoy free travel for a limited period, allowing them to explore the Upland universe and encouraging longer-term engagement.

Airplane Utility: Players will be able to move airplanes to properties with hangars, eventually enabling airplane-based travel across Upland airports, with hangars potentially becoming metaventures where planes can be traded in the secondary market.

In the future, the team will work on enabling travel with an airplane as you’d use your car, utilizing any airport as a destination.

Car Rentals: Users will be able to rent a car from a Speedway Metaventure owner for a race. This is a great way to give non-car owners a chance to experience Upland’s racing ecosystem, and allow car owners to experience racing with different types of cars, all while creating an additional revenue stream for Speedway owners.

Speedway owners will be able to rent out any car they own.

Property Features

Property search enhancements (filtering): A filtering feature, similar to the one that was developed for asset search, will be deployed for property search.

This is a large project that will take up many resources, but this has been a popular request from the community. MAKE SEARCH GREAT AGAIN! (ok we know it was never great, but we’re working to make it so!)

Blocking Jailed Users’ Properties from Search: By popular request, properties from jailed users will be excluded from search results and nearby property displays.

Asset Delivery Across Cities: This will allow users to purchase items from cities even if they are not present in. If you own a property in a city you can have an item delivered there without having to travel.

This will support metaventure owners and UGC creators, while giving the secondary market a boost.

Home Addresses Displayed on the Map: Users’ home addresses will be visible directly on the map, allowing neighborhoods to come to life with this additional visual data.

Social Features

Aggregated Feed: Similar to traditional social media, we are working to have the main feed display different player posts. This way, users can see interesting posts from players they do not necessarily follow, and choose to follow them if the content is appealing to them.

Tagging: To increase engagement and interaction, users will be able to tag each other in posts and comments.

User Profile: Profiles will display each user’s $SPARKLET stakes, adding another layer of transparency and information to the social experience.

Miscellaneous

Reviving Spud Wars: We’re working on reviving the popular gamification that powered the mythical ‘Spud Wars’, and turning it into a repeatable strategy game event in between seasons.

For the OGs who remember the original Spud Wars in Upland, we’ll be building on some of those original features with players battling for prizes in specific cities in between seasons.

Newbie Treasure Hunt Mode: This feature will allow new players to experience TH without paying send fees in the first days to get the hang of it and have a better experience. This is a great way for new players to understand neighborhoods, the map, properties and sends through a gamified experience.

Similar-NFT Discovery Tool: A new button on the NFT screen will show other mints of the same NFT, making it easier to find similar assets.

Leaderboards: This feature will allow additional leaderboard capabilities. Expect leader boards that are currently displayed outside of Upland to be brought into the app experience.

Looking Ahead

Upland is committed to improving both the user experience and in-game economy while maintaining our community-driven focus. We’re thrilled about the progress ahead and are working hard to bring these updates to life.

Stay tuned as we continue to build and enhance the Upland universe!