Hoard Message Board

Updates to HOARD have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

• Fixed graphics bugs on low end Radeon cards.
  
• Fixed graphics bugs where green fuzz was showing on some machines.
  
• Fixed graphics bugs associated with low end graphics cards.
  
• Fixed bug cloud saves synch. (Loading screen crash.)
  
• Fixed a crash bug for when game window is off-screen on dual monitors.
  

Updates to HOARD have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

• Ability to fill empty player slots in a multiplayer game with CPU dragons --Minimum of 2 humans required --All 4 player achievements should be earnable this way
  
• Fixes to Xbox360 controller input problems
  

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Big Sandwich Games announced today that their flagship title HOARD would be enjoying some holiday festivity in the way of two promotions starting Friday May 22nd...

Arcade dragon management game Hoard has been lurking on Steam for the better part of a week. Maybe you’ve seen it. Maybe you imagine that it’s been looking at you, the words “Buy me” riding its smoky breath like surfers balanced on a wave of deadly lava. For the sake of your sanity I’ve therefore played Hoard, so as to tell you if it’s worth buying. And it… it…(more…)

Aha! Here is a splendid bit of news to end the/my day with: Hoard, the game in which you play a dragon attempting to gather treasure for his, uh, hoard, has a demo out. Here it is. It looks like a right old knees up, with up to four players competing as to burn villages, kidnaps princesses, and otherwise do fantasy cliché to the kingdom they find themselves in.

Cheers to everyone who pointed this out.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Big Sandwich Games announced today that their award-winning strategy title HOARD is available for purchase in North America on the PSP (PlayStation Portable) system. To celebrate, the publisher has also put the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system version on sale...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Today marks the first day that HOARD is available for purchase on Steam. It's listed for a "fire sale" discount of 25% off the normal retail mark of $9.99. The presale period and discount lasts until the game releases for both PC and Mac on April 4th...

Big Sandwich Games' underrated strategy/RPG Hoard has added another platform to its growing stash -- it's due out on the PSP later this month, and now the game is also coming to PC and Mac via a Steam release dated for April 4. Its price is set at $9.99, but starting March 21, it'll be available for pre-sale at 25% off, or you can buy a four-pack for you and three friends and get the last copy free. In addition to the standard features, the Steam release will also boast a Night Mode, a new Winter tile set and new maps to play with.

And since the game is being released with Steam Play, buyers will have access to both PC and Mac versions, and players across both platforms will be able to play with each other online. Hoard's a great game that didn't really find the audience it deserved, so maybe a big Steam release will help bring the gold home.

Mm! Reader Lars “Best” Westergren writes to inform us that Playstation Network strategy title Hoard will be available for purchase on Steam on April 4th, according to Destructoid. This one sounds cute- a sort of negatively charged RTS where you prevent the human settlements around your hoard from developing by attacking wagons, burning farms, snatching princesses and generally brutalising settlers, all while trying to let the towns grow just enough so that you get a nice stack of gold when you do tear them apart. And look! That’s an 8/10 Eurogamer review, right there. A juicy pullquote from that and a video await after the jump. (more…)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Big Sandwich Games today announced the upcoming release of the Steam version of their critically acclaimed strategy arcade game HOARD, which puts up to four players in control of powerful dragons hoarding gold, frightening villagers and ransoming princesses. HOARD ...

Dragons descend to the PlayStation Portable System and PlayStation 3 System via the PlayStation Network.

PlayStation 3 gamers can now sample the award winning action-strategy dragon game for free.

Big Sandwich Games' critically acclaimed action-strategy game only $7.49 for 1 week only.

Dragons shouldn't have to squint.

New "Deathspin" level added along with improvements to multiplayer lobby, dialogue text size.

It’s been just over two weeks since HOARD released, and thousands of gamers have been getting their flame on while toasting villages, incinerating knights, crisping thieves, and kidnapping the occasional princess!

Reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, with many surprised at just how addictive and deep the dragon “stratecade” (strategy arcade) experience is. Ars Technica says HOARD “will keep you scorching villages for hours on end” while IGN boasts, “burninating the countryside is definitely a lot of fun.” Joystiq says it perhaps best of all: “There is a sparkling gem of gameplay here.”

However, the game was not entirely without its rough edges, and there are a few issues we’ve been monitoring which need a little tweaking. Your feedback at HOARDgame.com has been very important to us, and we’re happy to confirm that we’ll be addressing most of those issues in an upcoming patch!

The patch will include:

• Eye Strain Begone — We’ll be increasing tutorial and badge text size for less squintyness. 20/10 vision no longer required!
• Lasting Friendship — The multiplayer lobby will now be persistent. After finishing a game, you’ll return to the game setup lobby so you can easily play again with the same people. If you want to back out and de-friend them, that’s now on your conscience!
• Leaderboard Glitch No-More — Certain co-op games were not posting leaderboard scores correctly. This sometimes leads to improper scores being posted on the main HOARD Rank leaderboard. That will be fixed, and although the HOARD Rank leaderboard will be reset, you won’t lose any progress—the first time you play a new game of any type, your HOARD Rank will be reposted without delay!
• Anti-Royal Bias — This badge wasn’t reliably triggering. We fixed it. Yay!
• That One Exploit is Fixed — There was a certain little exploit involving a specific power-up that could be abused by some sneaky people, and it is now fixed! We’re not telling!
• Which Map? — During game setup, some people were getting confused about whether their map selection was confirmed or not. We modified to make it more obvious.
• A Little This, a Little That — Various tweaks and improvements throughout.

And because we love you, we’re throwing in a couple bonus goodies as well:

• Deathspin — A new HOARD map will be included, absolutely free. Try your hand at surviving in a terrible spiral of DOOOOOM! Check out Deathspiral in the video above.
• Purple Princesses — Princesses worth 3,000 gold or more will show up in a purple dress (instead of pink), so you can quickly assess which lady you’d like to pursue even in the heat of the battle.
• Friendly Competition — Sort leaderboards by your friends list, so you can always make sure you’re a step better than the rest of your social circle.

We’re finishing up the patch now and hope to see it go live within the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned, and thanks for HOARDing! Oh yeah—if you aren’t playing HOARD yet, what are you waiting for? In the words of Platform Nation, “Buy this game right now. Right. NOW.”

‘Nuff said!

#review With so many multiplayer experiences these days revolving around perks and persistent characters, it's nice to see a game that remembers the key to good competitive gaming is often just to keep things simple. More »

Big Sandwich Games already promised us a patch was coming to fix Hoard's text size issue, but over on the official site, it's revealed even more goodies coming in the same update. In addition to the text size fix, there will be a new option to restart the game both on the pause menu and the game over screen, allowing players to more quickly replay a map rather than having to go back through the options. There will also be a persistent multiplayer lobby (so you won't have to invite friends after every match), and there's a brand new Hoard mode map included in the patch for free.

Big Sandwich also promises that DLC is forthcoming, but we don't get much more than a hint as to what it might be, or when either it or the patch might be out. Hoard is a good game hidden in an unfortunate UI (as we said in the review) and these fixes will definitely make some of the frustrations a little easier to deal with.

We really liked Hoard, Big Sandwich Games' unique dragony RTS/RPG mashup. What we didn't like, however, was the game's incredibly small text size. In our review, we said that the developers "should have known better than to make the text that small." Apparently, Tyler Sigman, designer of Hoard, agrees, telling us that, "it was a bit of an oversight on our part that came from too many hours sitting right next to our development TVs."

Thankfully, the team is already at work on a quick fix. "You'll be happy to know we are working on a patch which includes increasing the text size," Sigman added.

Have you ever heard of Narbacular Drop? It's a simple little proof-of-concept game created as a senior project by a group of kids at DigiPen. It's actually still available to download for free -- the graphics aren't much to see, the story is a cliche (you play a schlub trying to rescue a princess from a demon), and the FPS-style controls aren't all that well-tuned. The game is almost a mess, save for one amazing gameplay element: you can "shoot" door-like portals onto any wall in the game, and then move between those at will.

If you haven't already heard this story: Narbacular Drop was the student project that was later funded by Valve and turned into one of the best games of the past decade, Portal.

Hoard reminds me a lot of Narbacular Drop -- the graphics are kind of dull-looking, the controls are pretty basic and somewhat clumsy, and there's almost no story at all, just a few sets of game modes and maps. But there is a sparkling gem of gameplay to be found here.

Greed is good.

Digital download sells for $14.99, delivers unique blend of action and strategy.

HOARD drops tomorrow on PSN, so it’s time you start thinking about tuning up your treasure-hunting skills! Here are a few tips to help you get started on your path to becoming a great dragon and racking up some impressive scores:

• Preserve your score multiplier. You lose your score multiplier whenever you are wounded to zero health, and also whenever a thief finishes stealing from your hoard. If you want to earn Gold ratings on maps, you have to avoid losing your score multiplier too much. It’s better to fly home and heal before getting wounded all the way to zero. And always keep an eye out for those sneaky burglers.
• Armor up for safety! The denizens of the realm are not friendly. Knights and archers make for challenging foes when they come in groups. While upgrading Speed and Fire Breath are sexy, improving your Armor can be key to good scores. If you find yourself constantly getting injured and sent back to your hoard, you probably need tougher scales! Having a few extra hit points means you can make mistakes and not get punished for it.
• Tribute towns are safe points. When you terrorize a town enough without actually killing it, it will start to fear you and send you offering carts full of gold. But another great benefit is that the town’s archers will no longer attack you. If an opponent is chasing you down when you’re weak, go hide out near your tribute town and let the archers do the dirty work for you!
• Don’t kill everything. As the kingdom becomes more populated with farms and houses, there will be much more valuable merchant wagons rolling around. More commerce means more treasure for the taking. If you kill everything and keep the kingdom in ruins, you’ll starve your own hoard! Don’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
• There’s a counter-strategy for that. To win at multiplayer, you’ll need to craft a strategy that takes into account all the factors: your own play style, the particular map, and the choices of your opponent. If your opponent is less skilled at fighting, make a fast dragon with powerful breath, and mercilessly hunt him down. If you’re weaker at the twitch stuff, upgrade armor—you’ll be able to take a beating and still get back to your hoard without getting defeated and having to drop your treasure. Keep an eye on what your opponent is upgrading (you can tell by how his dragon appearance changes during the game) so you know what you’re dealing with.

Ok, I promised five tips but we’re on a roll here so how about a sixth for free:

• Gold bandwidth. Upgrading Carry increases how much gold you can pick up before having to return home to your hoard to unload. But another huge benefit is that it increases how quickly you drop off that gold into your hoard. The speeds can get pretty fast at higher Carry levels. Less time dropping gold means more time out pillaging the kingdom, which in turn means more gold for your hoard! And gold for your hoard is the whole point, innit?

And finally, as a super-special bonus, here’s the Trophy list:

HOARD Trophies

Legendary Wyrm (GOLD): Achieve HOARD Rank 15 Mythical Hoarder (GOLD): Earn 90% of Badges Youngling (BRONZE): Achieve Hoard Rank 2 Basic Dragon (BRONZE): Achieve Hoard Rank 5 Advanced Dragon (BRONZE): Achieve Hoard Rank 7 Veteran Dragon (BRONZE): Achieve Hoard Rank 9 Wyrm (BRONZE): Achieve Hoard Rank 11 Great Wyrm (BRONZE): Achieve Hoard Rank 13 Eager Hoarder (BRONZE): Earn 25% of Badges Hoarder (BRONZE): Earn 50% of Badges Tireless Hoarder (BRONZE): Earn 75% of Badges

Happy HOARDing—hope to see you online on Tuesday!

PlayStation 3 system version priced at $14.99 with over 20 hours of gameplay.

Hoard, the twin-stick, dragon-riding shooter from Big Sandwich Games, is set to land on PSN starting November 2. As the name implies, Hoard has players guiding their dragons over the countryside destroying crops, distressing damsels and snatching cattle in order to rack up the most precious loot. After all, what's a dragon without a massive pile of treasure to sleep on?

The game will be available for $14.99 and includes 35 maps and offers offline or online co-op for four players.

Know why you should be excited for November 2nd? No, not because it’s the 63rd anniversary of the first (and only) flight of the Spruce Goose, and not even because it’s Stefanie Powers’ birthday.

November 2nd is the day that HOARD drops on PSN for PlayStation 3! And as big a deal as this is for you, imagine how important it is for dragon-kind! Their story is finally out!

For those of you living in a cave (on a pile of gold?) over the last few months, HOARD is Big Sandwich Games’ dual-stick action-strategy game about dragons gathering treasure. Players roam over a medieval kingdom, burning villages, kidnapping princesses, slaying knights, and otherwise causing mayhem…all in the quest for the shiny stuff.

HOARD will sell for $14.99, and include over 35 unique maps across 4 game modes (Treasure Hunt, Princess Rush, Survival, and Co-op). With the inclusion of leaderboards and a comprehensive rewards system featuring over 100 badges to earn (and full trophy support), there is easily over 20+ hours of gameplay waiting for you. That’s like 1 cent per minute! The phone companies could never give this much value to you!

Get involved in the HOARD community at www.hoardgame.com, and make us feel part of the Social Network by becoming a fan on Facebook!

We look forward to seeing you online on November 2nd, although let’s be honest—it will be sad to see our leaderboard positions drop!

A surprisingly deep game exclusively for PSN.

After a successful showing of Hoard’s multiplayer modes at PAX, developer Big Sandwich Games wanted to share two new videos with PlayStation.Blog readers today showing off a full match in both the cooperative and competitive models. Watch them in HD, if possible, so you can get a good look at the details that make up Hoard.

Hoard’s gameplay is simple on its surface, but strategic to its core. In classic dual-stick shooter style, the left analog stick maneuvers your dragon while the right stick activates your fire breath. The goal is to accumulate as much gold as your dragon can carry by burning structures and enemies, then returning to your treasure hoard to safely deposit your loot for big points (with multiplier bonuses if you’re on a spree). Collect enough gold and, in an RPG-style twist, you’ll be able to level up your dragon’s speed, gold carrying capacity, armor, or fire breath power via a quick tap of the D-pad. In a competitive match, choosing the right upgrade path is a key to besting your opponents. If an enemy dragon is using a Hoard Thief power-up to steal your gold, for instance, you can counter by pumping up your speed rating and chasing him down.

So far, so good. But playing Hoard reveals subtleties that are easy to miss at a glance. The surrounding kingdom for instance, is teeming with details: tiny wagons carrying grain from the mill to town, carriages shuttling princesses from building to building, and stealthy thieves scrambling around your treasure pile. What’s more, the surrounding kingdom continually evolves around you, with defensive structures such as Wizard Towers that erect in response to your destruction. In fact, it pays to allow the kingdom to grow and thrive before swooping in to collect your ill-gotten gains.

Hoard is packed with play modes, including Treasure (collect as much gold as possible in single-player or co-op), Princess Rush (a competitive mode where the only goal is to capture 15 princesses), and a classic survival mode where you try to outlast ever-increasing waves of enemies. Both couch and online co-op play are supported as well, in any combination of up to four players, with some competitive modes for good measure.

Hoard will land on the PS3 this fall, and a separate, handheld-optimized version will also appear on the PSP. What do you think of Big Sandwich Games’ debut PSN title? Leave your questions and comments below.

#pax Dragons can be good guys. One fire-breathing flying lizard can be if you're the dragon. In Hoard, princesses and happy towns are on the wrong side of history. More »