Gold Gold Adventure Gold Preview

One of the most brilliant things about videogames is the freedom to make your own choices. Of course, if you’re a blithering idiot like me, that’s also the worst thing about them. What if I pick the wrong quests? What if I end up being eaten by a giant monster, or wind up going into a dungeon that gets me killed? What if I could just pay other adventurers to do the quest for me while I pet a giant cat-monster? The answers to these questions, and more, are all located within Gold Gold Adventure Gold.

The premise of this hybrid title is quite a simple one in theory. You build your village and heroes move in, then you start assigning bounties to dungeon exploration and monster slaying and let everything else take care of itself. As the brave adventurers risk their lives defending the realm, they will earn gold, and as the deity reigning over the area, you naturally obtain a chunk of their earnings via a simple flat-percentage tax system. Gold Gold Adventure Gold has elements of city-building titles, RPGs, and auto-battlers, blending them in a very cohesive way, giving it a style all of its own. 

Something of a downside to having indirect control is the reliance on the AI of computer-controlled units. We’ve all played a game with an escort quest that makes you want to just ditch the NPC you’re escorting, and there are occasional moments like that in Gold Gold Adventure Gold. Sometimes I found myself putting increasingly high bounties on seemingly easy quests like “explore this area of empty land three feet away”, but none of the adventurers would bite. Instead, they would go and fight a giant monster that I put a much smaller bounty on. I’m not sure if this was intentional, suggesting that some are more interested in personal glory than gain, but with no other means to accomplish the things you want to , it can be a little irritating when it happens. 

That’s not to say that it occurs too often, however. In the main, adventurers tend to be reasonably reliable, and the steady stream of gold they bring in allows you to start expanding your empire with new buildings and upgrades. There are also quests that crop up from time to time that allow you to unlock new things to build, such as adding different types of adventurers to move in. At this point in the game’s Early Access life cycle, there aren’t too many of these, and unlocking everything in one game is tricky, but hopefully more will come over time. 

Another thing I’d like to see beefed up as the game develops is the tutorial. I found it covered the absolute basics, but didn’t go into too much detail about how to assess the motivations of the adventurers, or what the (quite comprehensive) stats that monsters and heroes have all equate to. It seems like there are some rather intricate mathematical equations under the hood, but I was playing via trial-and-error in attempting to work out the right balance of bounties. 

It wasn’t always necessary to even put bounties on monsters, either. I found that if I missed one, and it attacked an adventurer, they would kill it anyway. This was so prevalent that I accidentally completed a Wave Defense game (literally a mode that asks you to survive six big waves of enemies that arrive once a day) whilst AFK from about halfway through when I went to make a cup of tea and got distracted. This makes it a great game for those with ADHD-induced forgetfulness, but it’s not quite as challenging as it could be! 

On the upside, the more long-form Colony mode offers a greater challenge, albeit a slightly repetitive one at the moment. This is more about building up your city and exploring the limits. The same lack of content I mentioned earlier becomes a problem here too — the limited number of buildings and ways to unlock them makes it a bit repetitive right now — but as the game develops, I’m hoping we will see loads more to do in this mode.

I’d quite like to see some kind of story mode in the long run, with storylines and objectives. At the moment, it’s quite sandbox-esque. That’s great, and I really enjoy the freedom to just expand and chill, but some structure would keep me coming back, I feel. 

My favourite thing is how the God Beasts are all interactive. You can go into your deity’s lair and pet them, and who doesn’t want to pet a giant demon cat, or a big monkey made out of rock? There were just the two God Beasts so far, but they were both fun to scritch. It looks like more pampering options are on the way too, as the game advertises a Pet Shop as “coming soon”!

Whilst there’s not a dearth of content just yet, the foundations of something quite special seem to be in place with Gold Gold Adventure Gold’s Early Access launch. I’m really excited to see where developer Can Can Can a Man goes with this, as it’s shaping up very nicely indeed so far.