The Unchangeable Guardians Guild offers mobile dungeon adventures

From October 9–20, Unchanged player testers are invited to experience the first demo of the upcoming mobile game, Guardians Guild.

The Guardians Association was first announced in 2011. It's in 2021. The utility token Guild of Guardians Gems (GOG) went on sale in December 2021, raising over $5.3 million for the development of the game. Additionally, over 800,000 individuals registered for the token sale, which is 82 times “oversubscribed” compared to Immutable's 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. The creator of Gods Unchained is publishing the game Unchained.

According to the game's roadmap, it is expected to be released in open beta in the fourth quarter of 2023. The Guardians Association documents state that it will be a free-to-play and monetized mobile game. The players do not need to make any purchase to start playing the game and start earning NFTs or Game Tokens. To help fund further development after the game's launch, Immutable will sell limited edition NFTs, including “heroes, pets, guilds and power-ups”. They also charge a percentage on secondary sales of some of the game's items.

The earning gameplay aspect of Guardians of the Galaxy focuses on crafting equipment and summoning heroes. As players progress through dungeons, they can find crafting materials, which they can use NFTs that represent gear. You can also collect “common” heroes that can be merged into higher rarities and run on the blockchain. The Guardians Association NFTs are created on the Immutable X network, while the GOG token is on Ethereum.

Details about the game's development status have been scarce since the fundraising took place. But Static invited members of the media to try out the game from October 9 to 20, and this writer was one of the invitees.

Android and iOS mobile game

Guardians Guild is completely designed for mobile. You can play 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 PC or console, and it doesn't look like the team plans to make a PC version anytime soon, if ever. The game's controls are optimized for mobile gaming, as the battles are mostly automated, with very little real-time control during battles.

Related: What is Gods Unchained, and how to play.

In the Guardians Association documents, the group emphasized that mobile games are more accessible than any video game. The number of people in the world who own smartphones is significantly higher than the number who own PCs, which is why Guild of Guardians chose to make a mobile game with touch screen controls.

A dungeon-crawling adventure

Guardians Guild is a classic “dungeon-tour” game. The main gameplay consists of going through different dungeons, fighting monsters and opening treasure chests for loot. Players can choose which dungeon to explore from within the in-game world map by clicking on it.

After a dungeon is selected, the player's team of heroes is loaded into the first room, which usually contains monsters to fight. After each section is cleared, the player can choose which section to go to next. Different units contain different enemy strengths and rewards, and the player is presented with these parameters when making decisions. Some rooms contain treasure chests, healing or other boosts that help the party progress.

Once a player goes through all the choices and defeats all the monsters, the dungeon ends. In this case, the main menu will appear 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, you can keep the partial completion of the items you get.

New pits are opened when the old ones are finished. If the player completes all the dungeons, they will unlock a new “endless” mode. This mode allows the player to play through endless randomly generated holes for more exploits. Unfortunately I didn't make it far enough to test out the endless mode.

Automatic battles

The game has mostly automatic battles. To start the battle, the player clicks the “Battle” button and watches the battle. You can choose to activate characters' ultimate abilities manually, in which case there is some interaction during battle. However, you can also choose to have these capabilities automatically enabled.

The challenge of winning a war comes from decisions made before it begins. Before entering the dungeon, the player chooses which heroes to put in the party. Each hero has different abilities. Some are tanks or healers, while others are focused on damage. To succeed, the player must create a party of characters whose skills complement each other. In addition, the characters can be placed in different positions in the party formation before the battle begins. Tanks should go in the front, area damage dealers and healers should sit in the back. Players will affect their ability to win by deciding which gear their character wears.

I understand that the battles are balanced in terms of difficulty. My fellow easily tore his way through several small trash packs, there were a few bosses who crushed them mercilessly. I'm glad to see the heroes get up right after the dungeon collapse.

Collect heroes and craft

The two most important goals in the Guild of Guardians are collecting heroes and crafting equipment. To find a new hero, the player must get a “call”, which allows him to roll for a randomly selected hero. There seems to be a wide variety of heroes that can be collected, each with different artwork, ultimate abilities, and stats.

Some of the “summons” can be obtained as rewards for exploring dungeons, and a certain number are given as entry rewards. Players will find two heroes in the course: one tank and one healer.

I found the hero collection system to be a very satisfying reward mechanic. The heroes had a lot of variation in terms of stats and abilities, which made finding a new hero a big deal.

In order to craft gear, the player must collect crafting items in the wild houses. I made a single item during my playtest sessions but couldn't get more experience than that. The game's documentation states that gear items vary in rarity, with more rare items requiring more rare materials to craft. Different pieces of crafted gear provide different special buffs; Some items are set pieces that give a large bonus if a character wears more than one from the set, the documents state.

Related: Game Review: Axie Infinity currently buys from Pay-to-Win.

in conclusion

The Guild of Guardians demo I played was an early version of the game. The official release is likely to have more features and content. But so far, the development of the game seems to be on the right track. The battles are challenging, and there are various strategic decisions for the player to succeed. This is not a running game to earn money, mining for cryptocurrency. The gameplay is engaging and requires significant thought from the player. Fans of turn-based RPGs will enjoy Guild of Guardians as they whet their itch for strategic challenges.

On the other hand, gamers looking for Diablo-style real-time action may want to skip Guardians of the Galaxy when it releases. The battles in the game are fully automated, so there is no retaliating in this unique dungeon crawler.

The views, ideas and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.