Gold Gold Adventure Gold is a "God-sim" strategy game in which we build our city and defend it against enemies that appear from various sources. Instead of having direct control over the units, we give our adventurers quests and determine how much they will earn from the quests if they complete them. That interesting element can determine how many of your heroes will go on a quest, or whether anyone will even consider the quest an option. Of course, misjudging the value of quests can cost you a lot of time, but also put you in a situation where you overpaid for your heroes and can't buy key upgrades or buildings later.
The game has a randomized approach where each attempt has a lot of randomly generated elements. The map is different every time, but we also start with three choices, each of 3 cards where we choose one that will affect our game for that attempt. The cards offer everything, from new buildings where we get new heroes to magic with which we directly affect the game. Choosing the right passive and active cards can significantly affect the difficulty of the game and the chances of success. We get cards by completing challenges that are unlocked through the game. Although decisions in the early stages are the most important,
there is room for experimentation and testing new options. The map seems very small at first, but by breaking the enemy structures holding the borders we slowly uncover the rest and find the sources of all the problems.
There are two main game modes and a tutorial. The tutorial is well put together and explains all the key elements of the game, it is definitely recommended to go through the tutorial once before moving into either of the two main game modes. The first game mode, Wave Defense, puts us in a game where the goal is to survive for 10 days, we have a little more control for recruiting our heroes and a couple of additional options, but the difficulty of the game escalates rapidly. The second game mode, Colony, does not have a predetermined duration, it is more randomized and the goal is to survive as long as possible while the difficulty slowly increases. In this game mode it is more difficult to get new heroes if
we run out of them, but that's why in the late stages of the game we can own almost all upgrades from cards and buildings.
There are various obstacles in the world that we can destroy, but also some that we can only disable temporarily. Dungeons are locations that we cannot remove permanently, and they are the source of most problems. We have to give our heroes quests to explore these dungeons to discover specific challenges in them and then we can send a team of capable and well-equipped heroes to temporarily reduce the amount of enemies attacking us in waves of attacks. In addition to the heroes, we also have a small pet that covers all roles, building, repairing, transferring items from the enemy, collecting taxes, but also fighting. For now we have a choice between two pets, Pebble and Sphinx, but a third pet should be added soon which should increase the variety of options in the game. The main feature of the pet is that after doing some action we can reward or punish it, thereby ensuring that it focuses more or less on those actions. The pet slowly becomes stronger like the heroes themselves and at higher levels is a significant force in the defense of the village.
The visual design of the game is well done, the game uses a mix of 2D and 3D assets, and all the character designs are unique and creative. The details in the world are simple and match the style of the characters and buildings well. The only complaint visually is that the map feels quite flat. There are occasional changes in the elevation of the terrain, which are visually interesting, but because they make occasional construction difficult, we do not have the possibility of changing the terrain.
The basic gameplay loop is a lot of fun and has a lot of options for multiple playthroughs, it just lacks a bit in enemy variety. The main replayability is in various combinations of cards, and the randomization of the map can create interesting situations. The simplicity and speed of the game is a big plus, so the only major upgrade would be the added depth of the game.
In conclusion, this is a very fun game that offers a lot of options for a couple of hours of play, but it still needs a couple of new upgrades and enemy types to expand the possibilities. I can definitely recommend the game and I am most looking forward to new additions and options in the near future.
A copy of the early version of the game was provided by the development studio Can Can Can a Man for review purposes
