PAX Hands-On: HOARD
At this year's PAX, I got my hands on HOARD, the upcoming PSN release from Vancouver-baseed Big Sandwich Games. Here's another one of those games that I love -- a new concept from an independent developer that breaks new ground.
Basically, HOARD is "an RTS in reverse," as Big Sandwich told me as I watched some PAX-goers play it. You play as a dragon, and you try to round up as much gold for your hoard as you can. Gold basically functions as XP, and you can get it by burninating the towns, buildings, and people that are popping up all around you. The computer's humans are trying to build up castles, towns, windmills, etc. -- just as you would if you were playing an RTS. All of those nice things can be demolished by your dragon's firey breath, and they all leave gold behind for you to grab and return to your hoard.
The core gameplay is pretty simplistic, which makes it very easy to pick up and get accustomed to. But there are some challenge elements thrown in that keep you on your toes. For instance, thieves can come to your hoard and grab some of your gold and make off with it. There are wagons that transport gold from one town to another that hold different amounts of gold. You can also steal princesses from those carriages and bring them to your hoard, and knights will come after you to try to rescue the poor, defenseless royalty.Yeah, it's pretty kickass.
Tyler Sigman, Design Director at Big Sandwich Games, noted that there's also a tribute mechanic in the game: if you injure a certain village enough, they'll become "loyal" to you because they fear you so much, so they'll give you more gold than any of your opponents. There are also a few different game modes; you can play cooperatively, with one giant hoard that everyone deposits into, or competitively, where you're trying to out-gold your opponents.
There's not really a story mode within HOARD -- each game is independent. It's meant as a casual, friendly arcade game that you can play, perhaps, in between rounds of Halo or Gears of War. Each round is only a few minutes, so it really is perfect for just a quick one-off game. But be careful, that may turn into hours of play.
Sigman said he came up with the game, basically, because "dragons are cool," and they're always painted as the bad guy. "That really sucks for the dragon." What if, instead of the knight being the hero, your dragon was the center of the game, and the humans were the baddies? The game is very much inspired by tabletop board games, which is very apparent in the nicely stylized visuals. You can literally see through the board in some places to the table below, and at the beginning of each round, you can see the pieces dropping onto the table from above.
Big Sandwich sees the franchise going beyond just this one game, but doesn't yet have any concrete plans for what's next. HOARD is PSN-exclusive for the next year (meaning no XBLA until then), and will be released on both PC and Mac via Steam "before the end of the year."
HOARD is definitely going to be a game to look out for in late September when it hits PSN. The badassery of burning everything in sight combined with the competitiveness of the game mechanics will keep you occupied for hours. It's another awesome party game you're going to need to own.
