Golem Gates

Well - is it balanced? Probabaly not. User friendly? Nah.
Its rough casual RTS that brings back some sort of primal joy of playing old C&C games, building hundreds of tanks - and then loosing them all to single nuclear missile, cause ofc you just selected every unit and threw them into oponents direction.
Funny enough - game has quite a bit of depth to it:
- Do I want huge deck that will make me shuffle less but my consistency of draws goes to hell or do I want 30 cards deck that will give me consistency but I will have awkward 15 seconds of being unable to give commands to my units more often?
- Should I double down on spells and buff or just throw in few dispells and null-magic zones and just overpower oponent with units?
- Should I play my Hero now and risk it being countered with oponent hero or should I wait till oponent drops jis hero, destroy him and then play mine?
- Poor vision of your squads and ability to call in reinforcements inside vision range allows for quite epic flanking and backdoring - should I hide my Harbinger in some dark deep corner or should I stand my ground and gain more cards?
This is really an "old school" game in a sense that it has:
- Solo campaing
- AI versus modes
- Coop mode
- Solo chalenges
- AND It all provides you with rewards (you dont need to bash your heads in PvP to gain new cards)
- AND Multiplayer PvP in addition to all that
- It has NO cash shop so far and you gain power and rare cards by playing darn game and completing chalenges and achievements
Its not perfect by any means - pathing of units kinda sucks, combat can be a huge mess when you get to later stages of the game, no customization of your Harbinger so far - so everyone is smug looking metall dude with pimp-ass cape.
But this game has its own identity and it just wants you to play it and feel rewarded for doing so - and nowdays its a rare thing. How long will it last? - Dont know, but I really hope it will become something.

At first I was just happy to see someone finally made a real time/card game (RTCG?) five years after BattleForge was shut down. Golem Gates' art stlye wasn't really my thing, and the campaign seemed a little simplistic at first.
After spending a few hours playing it, I can say this game is great in on it's own merits, not just as a spiritual successor to BattleForge. The map and unit art gets more varied as you go own, and the campaign missions actually have some interesting mechanics later on. Very highly recommended.

Overview
Golem gates combines the deck building and card drawing aspects of a card game while fusing them with units the player controls in a real time strategy game. This creates a great fusion which keeps every match fresh while still keeping players on their toes.
Game Breakdown
Gameplay:
Before a player enters a match they are probably going to want to build a deck of units. A starter deck is provided initially until the player collects more cards. These cards can’t be paid for with real money and are instead earned by playing multiplayer matches completing and singleplayer content. The gameplay is quite enjoyable and is definitely for lovers of building the perfect deck, even though all of the units were well balanced from my experience.
After a match or mission is started a player is given the option to mulligan, or change out cards from their starting hand, and then the game begins. The core gameplay has the player using energy that they gain over time to summon units, with more expensive units costing more energy. Units aren’t the only card to use energy on. There are also tower defense style towers which can help to defend the control points the player must control. Traps are also a way that the player can defend control points. These come in multiple types such as a poison traps and explosion mines. Finally, there are spells which either buff your units or debuff the enemies. By using all four types of cards effectively the player can keep control of points. By holding these points, a player is able to gain an advantage over an opponent. The player must use their units to capture control points which provide more current and maximum energy generation. All of these systems together create some great gameplay which uses all of the advantages of both genres while getting rid of the detriments.
The single player content is enjoyable, with more being added in the future. There is a story campaign with five missions, though they all feel pretty easy. The real challenge appears when the player starts playing trials. These trials change the core gameplay and require the player to build different decks to complete the objectives. The last trial that is currently available took me multiple tries and took me about half an hour to complete. More singleplayer content is coming and I’m excited to see what direction the story takes.
Story:
The story is currently in its infancy but it has quite a bit of potential. You play a “Harbinger” who has recently been reawakened and must defeat an infection that is ravaging the land. To defeat the infection the Harbinger must defeat powerful robot leaders who were corrupted to serve the infection in the pursuit of power. I really liked the story’s direction and I hope that it will turn out great by the time all three acts of the campaign are released.
Sound:
The sound fits well with the sci-fi theme of the game. The robot’s lasers make satisfying pew-pew noises and swords make great electrical slashing sounds. The robots the player summons do talk, but in a garbled robotic dialect that the player can’t understand. Each unit has their own dialogue however which makes it easy to understand which unit is selected. Overall, the sound design fits well with the theme and enhances the game experience.
Music:
The music in this game has gone for an eerie, robotic style. It fits well into the background and helps to compound the idea that the Harbinger is in a world that has already been destroyed and must be saved. The music helps to set the stage and is in no way distracting from the gameplay experience which I always consider a positive.
Graphics:
The graphics in this game are astounding. The robots are so finely detailed that I loved staring at the Harbinger on the main menu because I would always spot something new about the character. Even the most low level grunt unit in this game is spectacularly modeled and animated. The best part about it though was that none of this eye candy had any noticeable impact on my performance. I had nearly 50 of these amazing models in my army alone and I never noticed a stutter or an fps drop. The developers in this game know how to really use their engine and have put together a great set of graphics which made me enjoy even the smallest skirmishes.
Conclusion
Pros:
Great Blend of Card Game and RTS
Amazing Graphics
Great Theme
Great Animation
Cons:
Lack of Multiplayer Opponents
Rating
8/10.
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Golem Gates
It seems these days almost any genre can be given an added layer of longevity through the usage of collectable cards and customizable decks, and the unpredictable randomization of a card draw can make battles so much more interesting. The newest title to tackle this hybrid take on the collectible card genre is Golem Gates, taking the addictive deck building into the strategic battlefields of a Real-Time-Strategies. Taking control of an outcast referred to as the Harbinger, players will call forth their armies on the fields scarred by ancient battles to search for and destroy these monster creating Golem Gates. Is this unique hybrid of card drawing and action-strategy warfare deep enough to satisfy fans of both genre? I think so, and with an extensive story based campaign, intense online multiplayer, and challenging deck-specific Trials this is one you'll be playing for a long, long time.
Gameplay
Golem Gates is a deep and dark Real Time Strategy where the units that compose your army are decided by the draw of a card. The cards that form your chosen deck are earned through playing and come in a healthy variety of units to build your supporting army with, traps to hold down choke points and defend important items of interest, and special powers to enhance or heal your units on the fly. The interface for this is slick and accessible, calling forth lines of a desired unit or the placement of an area based trap at the mere click of a card displayed in the hand at the bottom of your screen. The progression throughout your campaign and your gaining of cards stays increasingly interesting, as the complexity of units continues to grow both in ability and in artistic design. Marching forward and pushing your advantage on the head-to-head map feels like an addictively engaging journey each time, as the careful planning and creative composition of your deck-building comes to life in the form of glorious competitive battles.
Maps are laid out in a head-to-head competitive structure with each of the Harbingers on either side, and various helpful structures with buffs to capture meeting at the middle-points. In this regard Golem Gates almost feels like some kind of really good and very focused MOBA, with no long building phases or resource gathering and instead gives you control of a single hero with strong powers and in this case a plethora of card units and towers to call. The mana used by your Hero/Harbinger to call upon the needed cards from your deck regenerates, though a bit slowly, and a capture point usually near the middle of a map will give increased regeneration to whoever controls it at any given moment.
These structures are where things get hectic, and where most of the battle will be decided as the Harbingers fight keep a steady stream of units called in around them and towers to secure an area. Other structures give different buffs to things like strength and can help swing the game in one's favor, but generally whoever controls the mana regenerating point and is able to keep the steadiest flow of cards summoned at a time will be able to push the hardest and take the other player though not without a fight.
The singleplayer mode guides you through 5 chapters while giving you a gradual learning curve and pretty fair advantage. This is mostly for learning the structure of the game, and slowly introduces mechanics without ever really being too much of a pain. Where things really test your deck-building skills is on the Trials, where particular scenarios will force you to strongly consider the strategic balance behind the cards you bring with you. Even more tactical than these, of course, would be the multiplayer mode of the game which pits you against other competitive minded players to see who can outmatch the other in both tactical deck building and positional awareness.
Visuals/Sound
Dark and majestic melodies with a touch of gothic elegance, the soundtrack is a perfect accompaniment for your death marches and dimensional summoning of hordes to fight under your command. The music is of a dark electronic instrumentation, with mysterious robotic tones and hypnotic rhythms that are generally pretty pleasant on the ears. The sentient voices leading you on in the story, just as the voices of the units on the field, are effectively creepy and spooky in their narrations. Everything is given such a particularly grim atmosphere through such fantastically horrific sound design, and absolutely ominous music.
Creatures and units in Golem Gates are frighteningly detailed. Every greasy gear, twisted bolt, snaggled tooth and grizzled demon horn looks grotesquely realistic and sharp. The entire setting of the game has an otherworldly and cosmic feel to it, with strange dissonant voices leading you into stranger and more ominous realms. Its gritty, obscure and very dark in its aesthetic while maintaining a very modern, crisp look to the graphics and the creative imaging of this underworld shows no limits.
Final Thought
Golem Gates is incredibly hard to put down. Every time I finish a match or a singleplayer mission I find I've unlocked new cards, and I spend some time obsessively fiddling with my deck before impulsively wanting to go right out and try my new deck right away. Rinse and repeat. By the time I had enough matches under my belt and an impressive collection of some serious badass units and traps in my arsenal, it was time to construct the ultimate deck and take the fight online where a whole new addiction takes place. For the ultra card game nerds who take great pride in their strategic deck-building prowess, the Trials offer endless challenge for those who want to have to strongly consider their choices.
This review made possible through the consideration and contribution of IndiePromo and the developer.

I really like the concept of this game. Its fun to play, and the Art is amazing. Honestly there isn't anything that I can think of wrong with it (other than the usual frame dips, and minor pathing issues that is expected in early access) after playing about 15 games in about 3 hours. Everything is functional as far as I can tell.
It is my hope that this game gets a little more publicity. I didn't even know about it till the day before it released on early access.
I played against AI bots in all my matches simply because of the publicity thing, and not many people playing it, but the AI is smart enough to make it fun.
The only con that I can think is all you'll really be doing is playing bot matches, or the every so often player match if you can get one, simply because the campaign is not implemented into the game yet, and its obviously built around multiplayr. But since its fun, quick to play and really easy to learn, its easy to just load it up and play for 15 to 20 minutes at a time. Also it should be easy to schedule a game with a friend who plays it since, again, the games are pretty fast.
p.s. I'm rooting for you devs :) I hope you get your spotlight. I really do.

Perfect combination of RTS, Tower like game, even MOBI, and card deck building.
Love the challenges, new cards daiily which means this game is going to have great replay value.
Forge your own deck, challenge friends in multiplayer with voice built in game. Various game play modes, from storyline, challenge stages, multiplayer.
Great sound effects, music score, sound effects. This is AAA studio work from an indie dev team!!
Support Indie dev teams, they are the future of gaming!

Review - Golem Gates
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RATING: 7.5 / 10 - Being an Harbinger is Busy Work
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Overview
Golem Gates is a classic RTS combined with a collectible card game. Even if this is not the first game to use this combination of genres, this one is probably one of the most successful ones to do so. In this title we will be an Harbinger, a powerful entity summoned to a presumably distant future by yet unknown masters, and tasked with purifying all the corruption that plagues the world. To do so, you will be equipped with powerful Cards, enabling you to summon plenty of allies, defensive structures and spells to aid your conquest. The game is divided in chapters as far as the story is concerned, and a total of 3 Acts, composed of 5 Chapters each, for a total of 15 missions. what i really liked about Golem Gates are the possibility of customizing your deck, choosing what units you want to have in it, gain new ones after each mission, and the very varied situations the Campaign proposes, with always new, fresh objectives in each mission, trust me it never becomes boring.
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Gameplay Analysis
General Gameplay
As said before, Golem Gates blends collectible card games and RTS, and does so in quite a successful way. In the main menu you will have access to the Archive, where you will be able to customize your deck freely by adding or removing as many units as you wish, consider that having smaller or bigger decks each has its own advantages, as cards you play in a match cannot be used again until your deck runs out to 0, in that case you can Refresh it to have all cards again, choose wisely a balanced number of cards. Other than the Archive, you also got the Forge, a shop where you can spend Bits earned from completing missions, challenges, and also online matches, to have new cards that change each day, for a price.
The available game modes are Campaign, structured in 15 levels of increasing difficulty and with unique objectives and situations each, Trials, a series of 30 challenges with unique conditions and banned/limited/free cards in them to test your adaptability, each of them rewarding new Cards and Bits, Survival Mode, solo or co-op against an endless enemy horde, and finally Versus, online 1v1, 2v2 and so on PVP matches.
When a game starts you will only have your Harbinger as a unit, he is very strong but if killed, you immediately lose. New units and turrets can be summoned in any place where you have vision, as long as you have the resources. You click on a unit card, and then select where to spawn it, and instantly get it in that spot: there are no factories or production queues in Golem Gates, only Energy and Cards usable right away if you have enough of it. An used card will disappear and become available again only when your deck is reset, and this can only happen when you reach 0 cards in it. you can, of course, have multiple units of the same card in a deck, and cards are drawn randomly from it every set amounts of time.
Cards are divided in Units, moving, controllable units that are your offensive backbone, Structures, generally turrets and traps to defend areas such as Power Nodes, Spells, consumable one-time offensive or defensive spells that can inflict damage or support friendly units.
Key to victory is conquering Power Nodes, circular structures you and your enemies will compete for, they grant an higher threshold of maximum Energy and more energy per second, basically who controls the most of these will have the most resources faster, and have a serious advantage in the game. However, a game ends only when the enemy Commander is slain.
Overall, the gameplay of Golem Gates is quite fast paced compared to other RTS, very varied, stimulating, and generally quite well done.
Combat System
Combat in Golem Gates does not differ much from any other RTS game, the only difference being the possibility of summoning units in any place as long as you have vision on it, for the rest, there will be frontine heravy armored units, generic infantry units, ranged units, Hero units (only one at a time can exist of them), support units and so on.
Content
With a ton of challenges and cards to collect, endless survival mode, and PVP, this game has quite a lot of content to dig into and will take you dozens of hours to complete everything.
Balancing
For what i've seen, the game is generally balanced, the only couple things that do not entirely convince me are the fact that in the Campaign, enemies have access to units you cannot possibly have gained yet, sometimes more advanced and powerful, but still beatable, and also the Spells are a bit too powerful against large groups of units, many times i seen a great army being severely damaged or even wiped by only a few spells in the middle of it.
Challenge
The game does not have difficulty settings, and is generally quite challenging, proposing a smart AI that will give you a good fight in each mission, sometimes even a bit on the unfair side.
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Technical Analysis
Graphics
For baing an RTS, Golem Gates shows very good graphics with detailed models, high quality textures and effects, and very well done environments that really give out the feeling of a totally distant, futuristic world torn apart by war and desolation. Well done.
Sound
Narration and voiceovers regarding story are quite goood and feel immersive, sound effects regarding units, weapon fire, construction and so on are alright even if nothing special. The soundtrack is engaging and well composed.
Performance
I found this game being quite heavy on the GPU side, even with a GTX1080 i was forced to play on 1080p, (normally i play on 1440p) because of unstable framerates below 45 FPS on that res, some better optimization may be good but generally runs fine.
Stability
Nothing to report.
AI
Enemy AI is very smart and will always give you a challenge.
Quality of Life
Nothing to report.
Bugs / Issues
Nothing to report.
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Conclusion
Golem Gates is a new generation RTS that offers varied gameplay, engaging albeit quite minimalistic story, plenty of various game modes and challenges, and very good customization of your unit roster. For any RTS fan, i recommend this game.