Gold and Goblins

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Today the steam drills dig up: Gold and Goblins Idle Merge

Today I bring you a game that reminds me a lot of Lego Rock Raiders for the PC. You shoot out goblins from a cannon and then merge them to force them to mine up rocks. 

The game uses simple idle mechanics of buildings generating coins that you use to buy more goblins or upgrade mines once you dig them up. Each rock or gate has a number on it. A goblin can mine any stone regardless of the number displayed. If a goblin has a higher number than a rock or object, it mines it extremely fast. If the goblin has a lower number it can still mine but it gets a time multiplier added. It's hard to tell how time is calculated in this game because it seems a bit random. As you progress on you unlock the ability to go to event levels. The other buttons in this screenshot are locked but I will go over these soon. In the normal mode, you get purple vials that are used to upgrade your cards. These upgrades are permanent. There is one premium currency, the Green diamond. This game does not give out these gems too freely and it takes a lot to make them useful.

Now lets move on to the even level. It is the same screen but with the addition of keys hidden in rocks. These keys are the first goal to aim for as they unlock bonuses for your main mine. Each event mine has a theme to it that effects the drops you get at the end. Most of these events last for 24 hours but some events last for 3 days. With this screenshot I can go over the other buttons here. The chest is a shop that I will go over soon but this is where you can claim free random cards every few hours. The next button is all the cards you own. Event cards are seperate than the main mine. It says these cards are permenent in this game mode but I can not verify that until I have a repeat event. To the right of the goblin button is a wheel. These also refill a charge every hour and you can watch a video to get free goblins, vials or time boosts. The last button is the event button. You use this to switch between mines.

Here is the settings. A lot of links to social media a and linking to cloud saving.

Here is a portion of the shop. There are may things in here to help you advance quicker but a lot of this is expensive. I feel the prices for the stuff in this game is over-priced compared to most other mobile games.

Now we come to the main mechanic in this game. The semi-gotcha style card system controls a lot about what you can do. Each mine you find uses a different goblin and ontop of that you have to have them at a high enough level to run the mine. Some cards affect mining speed or the amount of coins you can collect.

When you click on a card you can see how many you have and the number of viles it costs to upgrade a card. These numbers start to get expoential fast. 

Here's a shot of some of the things you can view on the wheel. You get at least 1 free spin a day.

When you hit the event button you get a preview of the them and what kind of rewards you can collect for collecting keys.

This game has a small amount of achievements that do not give you many rewards for completing them. According to this, there are at least 6 events that seem to rotate around.

Lastly, here is a preview of what you can collect from a chest. There are different levels of chests that offer rarer cards in them.

Overall:

 5 of 5 cogs.

Overall this is a fun game. You have a lot of waiting to do sometimes but that is also the issue. The goblins do not continue to mine unless they are next to a new valid target. Placing your goblins is important. The events are very short and seem designed to eat money if you wish to make it to the top 100.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

There is a little story in the begining then nothing else.

Amount of ads:

 

  optional only.

You only have optional ads to worry about.

Accurate Advertising?:

50%

At first, the ads for these games were straigh forward. Those ones got my attention on the game. Later on they use click-bait ads like a game I have previously blogged about. I feel this is a very cheap way to get people to play.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are high quality and have an odd charm to them. For a mobile game these graphics look great on my phone.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The game doesn't have too much mechanically going on to keep you playing and there is limited things you can do. I feel the only thing that keeps someone going are the many events and the sense of wanting to discover more in this game.

Free play:

💯%

For the most part, this game is very easy to play through without paying anything. The gems are very rare to earn and but you don't need them to progress.

Fun factor:

🔨 Hammer time!

Are you an indy programmer or game dev?

If so, you can leave a comment or contact me on social media for a chance to have an interview with you posted to my blog. I am looking for many devs that focus on mobile programming. If you have a cross-platform game, that is fine too as long as it's on mobile.

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