From October 9 to 20, Immutable invited players to try out an early demo of their upcoming mobile game, Guild of Guardians.
Guild of Guardians was first announced in 2021. Its utility token, Guild of Guardians Gems (GOG), went on sale in December 2021, raising over $5.3 million for the game’s development. Additionally, more than 800,000 people registered for the token sale, which Immutable said was 82 times “oversubscribed” compared to expected demand. It is being developed by Mineloader, which is the same company that created the Final Fantasy VII remake and Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker. Gods Unchained creator Immutable is publishing the game.
According According to the game’s roadmap, it is expected to launch in open beta sometime in Q4 2023. Guild of Guardians docs state that it will be a free-to-play, cash-in mobile game. Players will not need to make any purchases to start playing and start earning non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or game tokens. To fund further development of the game after launch, Immutable will sell “seasonal content” consisting of limited edition NFTs, including “heroes, pets, guilds, and energy boosts.” They will also charge a percentage fee on secondary sales of some of the in-game items.
The play-to-earn aspect of Guild of Guardians will revolve around crafting equipment and summoning heroes. Players will be able to earn crafting materials as they progress through dungeons, which they can use to mint NFTs representing gear. They will also be able to collect “common” heroes that can be combined into higher rarities and minted on the blockchain. Guild of Guardians NFTs are minted on the Immutable X network, while the GOG token is on ethereum.
Since the fundraiser, details on the status of the game’s development have been scarce. But Immutable invited members of the media to try out the game from October 9 to 20, and this writer was one of the people invited.
A game for Android and iOS mobiles
Guild of Guardians is designed entirely for mobile devices. You can play it on a mobile phone or tablet and it is available for both iOS and Android. But there’s currently no way to play it on a PC or console, and the team doesn’t seem to be planning on making a PC version anytime soon, if ever. The game’s controls are optimized for mobile gaming, as battles are mostly automated, with very little real-time control during fights.
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In the Guild of Guardians documents, the team emphasized that mobile games are more accessible than any other type of video game. The number of people in the world who own smartphones is far greater than the number of people who own PCs, which is why they decided to make Guild of Guardians strictly a mobile game with touchscreen controls.
A dungeon exploration adventure
Guild of Guardians is a classic “dungeon crawl” game. The main gameplay involves progressing through various dungeons, fighting monsters, and opening treasure chests for loot. Players can choose which dungeon to explore by clicking on it from an in-game world map.
Once a dungeon is chosen, the player’s party of heroes enters the first room, which usually contains monsters that can be fought. After clearing each room, the player can choose which room to go to next. Different rooms contain different enemy strengths and rewards, and the player is presented with these metrics when making the decision. Some rooms contain treasure chests, healing, or other upgrades that can help the party progress.
Once a player progresses through all options and defeats all monsters, the dungeon ends. In this case, the main menu appears again and the heroes who died in the dungeon will be resurrected. If all party members die before the dungeon is completed, the player fails the dungeon. However, they can still keep the items they acquired after partial completion.
New dungeons are unlocked as old ones are completed. If the player completes all dungeons, they unlock a new “infinite” mode. This mode apparently allows the player to play through endless randomly generated dungeons for even more loot. Unfortunately I didn’t get far enough to try infinite mode.
Automated battles
The game has mostly automated battles. To start a battle, the player clicks the “fight” button and watches the fight unfold. They can choose to activate characters’ ultimate abilities manually, in which case there is some interaction during battles. However, they can also choose to activate these abilities automatically, making battles a completely passive experience.
The challenge of winning a battle arises from the decisions made before it begins. Before entering a dungeon, the player chooses which heroes to include in the party. Each hero has different abilities. Some are tanks or healers, while others focus on dealing damage. To be successful, the player needs to create a party with characters whose skills complement each other. Additionally, characters can be placed in various positions within the party formation before the battle begins. Tanks should go to the front, while ranged damage dealers and healers should be placed in the back. Players also influence their ability to win by deciding what equipment to equip their characters with.
I found the battles to be pretty balanced in terms of difficulty. My party made their way through many small trash packs with ease, while there were some bosses who slaughtered them mercilessly. I was happy to see that heroes will automatically resurrect after a dungeon fail.
Collecting heroes and crafting
Two of the most important objectives of Guild of Guardians are collecting heroes and crafting equipment. To get a new hero, the player must obtain a “summon”, which allows them to roll to choose a randomly selected hero. There appears to be a wide variety of heroes that can be collected, each with different artwork, abilities, and ultimate stats.
Some of the “summons” can be obtained as rewards for exploring dungeons, while a certain number are also awarded as rewards for logging in. Players get two heroes in the tutorial: a tank and a healer.
I found the hero collection system to be a fairly satisfying reward mechanic. Heroes had a lot of variety in terms of stats and abilities, which made getting a new hero significant.
To create equipment, the player must collect crafting materials within dungeons. I created a single item during my testing sessions, but I couldn’t gain more experience than that. The game documents indicate that equipment items differ in terms of rarity, with rarer items requiring rarer materials to craft. Different pieces of crafted equipment provide different unique benefits; Some items are parts of sets that grant larger bonuses if a character wears more than one piece of the set, according to the documents.
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In conclusion
The Guild of Guardians demo I played was an early version of the game. The public release is likely to have more features and content. But so far, the game’s development seems to be on the right track. The battles are challenging and there are a variety of strategic decisions the player must make to succeed. This is not your average game where you make money with cryptocurrencies. The gameplay is engaging and requires a lot of thought on the part of the player. Fans of turn-based RPGs may enjoy Guild of Guardians as it satisfies their craving for strategic challenges.
On the other hand, players looking for Diablo-style real-time action may want to skip Guild of Guardians when it releases. The battles in the game are almost completely automated, so there is no test of reflexes in this particular dungeon crawler.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
