The GOLD Character Card Game is Live!

November 05, 2009 | David

I'm so incredibly excited to announce GOLD, the Character Card Game (CCG).

We’ve been working on this for a while. When we were first tossing around the idea of GOLD, we also talked a lot about possible merchandising opportunities (we thought that merch might cover the costs of the series - we were desperately wrong. So desperately wrong ;-). Along with the t-shirts, posters, etc. (which are currently available at the GOLD Online Store), we wanted to contribute something to the gaming world. Initially there was some talk about a standalone “Goblins & Gold” RPG, but since there are already so many tremendous old and new-school RPG systems out there that we love to play, and since we’re novices at game design, we quickly discarded that idea. (We further realized that, even if we came up with a unique contribution, the work needed to make a good RPG would mean we’d never have time to make actual episodes of GOLD.) We talked about writing an adventure or two for some existing systems, based upon the adventures glimpsed in the series. We’re still considering that. And we talked about a collectible card game.

The card game resonated a lot with us, because it allowed us to leverage the characters we’ve worked so hard to develop these past two years, as well as the great visuals we’ve got from the series. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what kind of game it should be. Ultimately, a simple team battle game, in the spirit of the now-defunct Overpower and Rage games, seemed the best route, so this is what we built:

GOLD, the CCG is a team battle style card game for two to four players, and features character cards and gameplay based upon the popular webseries. Players build teams from the included character cards and do battle with other teams using damage cards and dice (also included). The game is an easy to learn, fun and fast-paced tie-in to the webseries. At release, it features twenty of the most popular characters from the series, including Richard Wright, Sam St. Croix, Oliver Crane and Martha Thistlethwait. All profits from the sale of the game will go directly into the production of future episodes of GOLD, the Series.

GOLD, the CCG is available today through the GOLD Online Store (www.goldtheseries.com/store) and The Game Crafter (www.thegamecrafter.com). The GOLD Starter set contains everything you need to play the game, and is priced at $19.99. The GOLD Character Pack, at $7.99, is for collectors who may not want to play the game, but who desire to collect the character cards themselves. The first expansion set, which will include additional character cards, special damage cards and new equipment cards, is scheduled for (hopeful) release later this year.

You can download the game rules from the online store and check them out. Right now the rules are in a BETA phase, so we welcome your feedback as you play. The rules will likely evolve as we go along, but we will do everything we can to avoid changing the cards themselves so that everything you buy should work with any future rules changes.

This has been a big effort for us, and we hope you like what we’ve designed. And we hope you see this for what it is: an offering to the community to show we’re still thinking about you, and still working on GOLD, even though we’re between seasons.

Check it out here.

Thanks,
-David