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!