Big Sandwich Games, indies in Vancouver, British Columbia, have been making (fire) waves with their latest action-strategy hit, Hoard. Its PlayStation Network free demo is live now. At 160MB, it’s a quick download for those who are impatient. Stripped of all its glory and ingenuity, Hoard could be labeled as a tower defense game. Players control a dragon with one primary directive: to hoard more gold than its fire-breathing competition. Players navigate the dragon with the PS3 controller, flying with left analog stick and exhaling fire breath with the right analog stick.

The dragon’s breath destroys just about everything on the map, and almost everything drops some amount of gold the dragon must return to its hoard to build its score and level up. Players choose between leveling the dragon’s speed, fire breath, carrying loot ability, or defense. During play, a bar limits the dragon’s breath. The wagons, towns, princess carriages, and more have life bars that will regenerate slowly if the dragon fails to burn them completely. Archers are weak adversaries alone but deadly in groups. They are unique in that they later become the dragon’s allies if it instills enough fear in the town the archers protect. This fear involves damaging the entire town, except for the town center. Once in fear, the town will offer monetary tribute, as long as it remains standing.

No dragon, like the rest of the items on the map, is invincible. While the dragon’s score multiplier increases over time, it will reset when the dragon’s health bottoms out. The dragon must return to its hoard to heal.

Like a certain anti-heroic spiked turtle/dragon king (whatever Bowser is), kidnapping a princess is heavily encouraged and rewarded in Hoard. She turns into a healthy ransom if she is kept in the hoard long enough. Other dragons may steal her, just as thieves may attempt to steal gold. The score multiplier also resets if either form of thievery occurs. Defense. Defense.

The game has two thorough tutorials to cover all of the offensive and defensive strategies (there are more than this preview covers). The first walks gamers through basic gameplay, and the second expands skills to reach high scores. These tutorials are both necessary to succeed in the main mode. Hoard mode, a survival mode with picking up princesses as the only healing mechanism, and Princess Rush mode, being the first to ransom 15 princesses, unlock with full purchase. The full game includes 4 game modes, over 35 maps, leaderboards, and trophies.

Up to four players can compete online, and up to two locally. The thieving, burning gameplay will ensure maximum insults and anger among players. During the demo, I had equal parts fun and frustration. I was pleased walking away with NOT achieving a gold medal for score my first attempt, as most games seem bent on patting gamers’ backs undeservedly. A lot of the game happens off-screen, so reading those icon clues of what is heading where is a vital skill I have not yet refined but could see myself enjoyably honing.

If gamers like the demo, the game is for purchase now at $14.99 on PSN. Hoard‘s PSP, PC, and Mac versions are said to follow. This free demo should entice even more gamers who may have otherwise been disappointed that a game called Hoard from a company named Big Sandwich capitalizes on overindulging in gold and not food. However, those who try out Hoard will most likely overindulge in addictive, tower defense gameplay that will make them work hard for the money and the medal achievements that seem to add many hours to the already lengthy base game.

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