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An awful lot of the games I’ve reviewed so far are simple little indies, and a number of those were ports of small mobiles games or at least had the feel of one. When I say that, you get a picture of the sort of thing I’m talking about but sometimes you get a game like that, but different. This is one of those.
Forge of Gods is a free-to-play RPG game on Steam, in which you progress step by step through levels against opponents, picking up dropped loot and most importantly collecting souls of defeated monsters to capture and then add to your army. A big part of this is the ability to merge together or evolve souls of two of the same creature to make a stronger new creature, as well as the ability to use ‘crypts’ to summon new creatures. The levels do have a story behind them, and as you go along and clear out creatures you will level up your party and be able to take on stronger enemies.
Another thing this game has is placement strategy – some creatures are melee, others use ranged attacks and others provide support abilities such as buffs or heals. Good placement of your army maximises the efficiency they have as you progress; if you finish a level with some of your army defeated they will still get the experience for the level but there are bonuses for finishing levels without casualties and more attackers on your side just makes it easier to progress. There are also other quests and tasks you can aim to complete, which will reward you with experience, meat to allow you to do levels and sometimes the green gem currency that you can spend on things like summoning in certain crypts or to open rare chests that have a chance to summon a rare soul.
Crypts come in different expense and rarity levels, the more expensive crypts obviously having a greater ability to summon rarer monsters for your needs. You can access the Stone Crypt with soulstones you receive for completing levels or quests though, with chances to gain common and uncommon creatures which can sometimes be useful for other purposes. You can also choose to ‘feed’ spare souls to your more powerful beasts to give them an experience boost – with there being a bonus boost if you ‘feed’ a soul of the same type as the one you’re trying to level (human souls to a human creature for example).
The game does have microtransactions in there, with amounts of currencies being available for set prices. However, this game is perfectly fun without having to spend anything and has an awful lot of content and challenge for a free-to-play and that was not expected – a pleasant surprise in fact! You have the ability to go back to replay levels at a harder difficulty, and you will find yourself going back to level your army a few times but not enough for it to feel like a grindfest. I could play this game an awful lot and feel like I’m doing a good job and making progress no matter how small that progress might be, and that’s a real positive.
I recommend this game if you want a nice simple little creature catching, fighting RPG. It’s free-to-play (with microtransactions and some downloadable content packs that do cost), so go give it a try. What have you really got to lose?
8/10
Check out the video review of the game I did for more:
There’s been a possible hint at Hearthstone’s next addition, if we can believe the resume that was listed on sound effects producers AudioGodz website.
AudioGodz is owned by a voice actress named Lani Minella, and its her resume that was found and posted to Reddit for the speculation. Minella has previously done voice work for Hearthstone, lending her talents to the cards Cult Master, Arathi Weaponsmith and Imp Master from vanilla, and Faceless Summoner, Twilight Geomancer, Ancient Shieldbearer and Darkshire Librarian from Whispers of the Old Gods. This time round, she is apparently lending voice to Golakka Crawler, Pteradactyl, Anklesaur, Hydra and Brontosaurus – and the adventure/expansion is called Lost Secrets of Un’Goro.
Of course, as Lone pointed out to me when we saw this news – World of Warcraft too has a listing for a mini-holiday in August which is set in the same area as this new set. There’s a possibility that the two could be the same thing, but the listing of the WoW mini-holiday is called “Un’Goro Madness” so there is also the possibility that the two could just be releasing at the same time in the two related games.
I guess we’ll find out soon. Keep eyes open for news from Blizzard!
It’s time for your weekly look into what the Gaming section of Kickstarter has to offer in the way of awesome campaigns.
Starting as always with a little update to those previously covered in past weeks, we still have only a few bits of news but it’s all quite positive. Firstly, Pixel Princess Blitz has entered its last two days of campaign but has far outstripped its target, now sitting at €90,695 of a €77,700 goal. LEGRAND LEGACY is also close to finishing with less than £6,000 to go of its £40,000 target to be made. Finally, The Pedestrian has reached $15,236 pledged of its $21,000 goal with 9 more days to go.
First up, we have the most awaited sequel game to Sunless Seas.
Set in the same universe as the last game, Sunless Skies takes you to the ‘skies’ of the underground caverns that form the creepy and Victorian-inspired world of the Fallen London universe. Set 10 years after Seas, the 20th century came and London took to the skies, in spacefaring locomotives, journeying far, encountering much and fighting off more horrors in the darkness. Just like its brother, you will be able to stop at ports and encounter people, events and much more.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Sunless Skies has already met its Kickstarter goal of £100,000 twice over. It still has 24 days to go though, so check it out.
Next up, we have a post-apocalyptic isometric game.
A new idea from the creators of STATIS, previously Kickstarted in 2013, and CAYNE; BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION is an adventure game set after some disaster. The game is point-and-click and follows two brothers as they journey across this broken world, with a distinctly 1980s inspired feel.
BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION has a $120,000 of which it has raised $87,955 so far. It has 11 more days to go.
Next up is a platformer, which makes you a teddy bear.
A 2D action platformer, you play as a teddy with a sword and shield confronting your nightmares. This teddy is actually a guardian, one of the many who have guarded humanity over the years from the darkness of the world of nightmares. Only this time, the nightmares are strong and your human is on the brink of death. You must now venture into the darkness to fight back and save your human.
Aegis: Innocence has 29 days to go, and has made $6,695. It has a target of $60,000.
Die For Valhalla!
Finally we finish with a beat ’em up game with Viking inspirations.
You play as a witch called Valkyrie, sent by the gods to help the Vikings save their world from peril. You do this by summoning heroes from Valhalla, in a bid to take down as many enemies as possible before they succumb and return there. You will also have a chance to discover more about your own origins as well as Viking myth and legend. Things aren’t always as they seem to be.
With 30 days to go, Die For Valhalla has made $3,957 of its $5,600 goal.
Since its release this week, Conan Exiles has been talked about quite a bit. Like many titles launching though, Funcom’s survival game has had its fair share of bugs and niggles to be sorted out. First we had server crashes, then we had the patch which accidentally removed the Denuvo protection which allowed pirates to get a free cracked version of the game up for torrenting; but recently the game has been suffering problems with lag and Funcom have finally said enough.
In a post by Funcom over on the game’s Steam page, the company have stated that the place they went to for servers didn’t live up to their expectations, stating that they had “been unable to deliver the level of quality and service we require” for the official servers and so they’ve terminated the partnership.
However, as of yet they’ve not found someone else to host them so all 200 of the official servers for Conan Exiles are now offline while Funcom search for someone new. Unfortunately, “many hosting companies are simply out of the hardware that we need and as such this process might take a few days” which is going to leave a number of players with official online progress unable to do much until they get them back up. Of course, the offline singleplayer and unofficial servers are still online, so it’s not entirely the end of the world. Fortunately, Funcom have backed up all of the official servers’ databases, so all progress should still be in place once the new official server hosts are found.
Conan Exiles does have a lot of buzz about it right now, so players might be prepared to wait for a few days – but if Funcom can’t find a new host quickly the interest might wane. Less than a week after launch is not a good time to be without official online servers, so they’d better not be too slow.
Oh, and if you’re playing Conan Exiles, why not check out our own station server?
