Guild of Guardians, a game that has been on my radar for quite a long time has finally released! This incarnation however, is substantially different than the original concept.
As mentioned in a previous post, GoG was to be a mobile-oriented action RPG. This was still the concept in one of the playtests as well, players could move their guardians through dungeons and attack monsters freely (somewhat similar to Diablo in mechanics/controls). The current game though is still mobile oriented, but much closer to an idle/tactical RPG with a focus on team building and strategic play (very similar to AFK Journey battles for example). This isn't necessarily a bad change, just a divergence from the original vision, and ultimately one that may be considered to be more friendly to casual players/allowing for multitasking play.
It should be noted that Guild of Guardians is primarily a mobile game with blockchain integration, rather than a play to earn game with a mobile client. Leveraging the Immutable L2 chain, there's no gas fees and a managed wallet experience via Google or Apple sign in options. Combined with an unfortunately standardized microtransaction structure, this free to play game may be able to attract and onboard more players than if it were strictly blockchain oriented - which is a good thing. Not every item/character in Guild of Guardians is an NFT, nor does it need to be one.
So how does the game itself play? Upon opening the game, players are greeted with a screen that offers entrypoints into the various game modes, guardian/item management, and an overview of the current energy levels/currency balances:
Adventure is the primary gameplay mode, which involves selecting a region from the world map overview, and then a specific dungeon from within the region. It's worth noting that the dungeon doesn't need to be completed in one sitting, progress is saved and can be resumed at a later time.
The free movement scheme that was present in the early playtests has been replaced with a completely menu driven dungeon navigation - one that drops the player right into the battle after selecting the guardians to bring into the dungeon. This is where the bulk of the tactics and strategy of the game is, forming a party, then managing the formations within battles. As your overall level increases (known as the Commander level in game), the level cap of guardians increases and more guardians are able to be brought into a dungeon. However, only five guardians can be used within a given battle. Selecting the right team composition and placement of frontline/backline units can make or break a run through the dungeons.
Once the party is locked in, the battle plays out automatically. The only manual intervention so far is the use of abilities known as "ultimates" which the player can trigger when a unit has gained enough energy to use. These vary based on the guardian and can be offensive or defensive in nature, and generally change the course of a fight if used effectively.
Progressing through the dungeons isn't just clearing battles though, players can find merchants, blacksmiths, and treasure chests. Items or gear changes through these exist outside of the dungeon as well, in contrast to healing and rune buffs which are scoped solely to the dungeon run the player is currently completing.
As mentioned earlier, not all items and guardians are NFTs. New guardians can be summoned via the gacha system in the game, but then can be minted as an NFT via the ascension process. This involves a premium item in the in-game store, ascenion seals, and then upgrades the guardian's stats and mints an NFT for it, replacing the in-game only guardian for the player. This is neat as legendary guardians can be summoned in game, and then minted on Immutable to be traded.
The cost of ascending guardians appears to be dynamic, based on the number already minted. It's worth noting that there's a distinction between the founder's guardians (NFTs from the intial minting) and the new ones minted via ascension (Core 1).
There's a good amount of depth that isn't covered here, but I'll save that for a follow up post if there's interest. A few helpful tips if you're starting Guild of Guardians:
- Check your formations and make sure units are placed accordingly (tanks in the frontline, etc)
- Wherever there's a ? icon, click it to show the help page at least once (there's free rubies for doing it the first time, per help snippet)
- There's free daily/weekly chests and summoning stones in the Premium tab in the shop
- Check the time for energy/ticket/chest refreshes, some are UTC based, others appear to be offset from that
- Use a ref code for rewards - (If you found this post helpful, mine is GQGVdSfC )
I'm enjoying the game, though it's different from the original one I was looking forward to. I think this could be a good attempt at getting games leveraging blockchain tech into the mainstream (at one point Guild of Guardians was #5 in the adventure game category in the app store, it's still in the top 100).
If you're playing Guild of Guardians, let me know in the comments - what are some guardians you'd recommend or any other helpful tips might you have?
Thanks for reading!