Grubbing About

Grub Guardian, the newest KI Free Games addition (though it is still in beta), is way too much fun. I have spent much of my free time there since it came out. As others have said, the rewards are not that great. I have a small herd of unicorns, about 2,000 more gold, a small number of reagents (you get one or two as a reward), two Gold potions, an XP potion, and a Mana potion that started as soon as I accepted it from my Gift Box.

Perhaps at the very, very high levels there are other sorts of pets. I have unlocked a lot of new areas, and have done many Hard level areas. Two of the hardest to conquer so far were Tree of Life and Kensington Square. When I finally beat Tree of Life, keeping ALL my food (which I like to think of as my store of cookies), and getting a score of over 5500, I got two ore.

Now, I often don't even turn in the codes. It frustrates me, after all my efforts, though I must say, getting 150 to 250 gold for a reward never hurts.

Also, as far as pet training, I don't see a way to choose which stats one is training, like you get to choose in the maze - pizza for strength, intellect and will, or fish for intellect and will. It seems that the type of stats I am going to get are possibly only from the food that my pet eats, or the food and stats chosen for me by the game by default. Granted, I only need to be online and not ingame to do this, and I like this, but I don't like not being able to choose the stats I am working on, other than the stats of the pet food. Maybe I missed something somewhere. Oh, yes, this is beta. I wonder where we submit our feedback. After the twenty-odd other things I need to investigate, this one will go toward the bottom of the list.

Regardless of all my "constructive criticism", I love the mechanics of this game. The layouts are quite varied, as are the monsters to kill, and the school towers that you use to destroy the monsters. It really gives one's brain a good workout on finding the right setup of towers for killing the monsters. The final factor is being efficient in the placement of towers - what kind, how many, what rank to use, where to put them for the best damage. Towers and their enhancements are purchased with silver that is supplied; you earn silver for each monster killed, and at the end of the battle, the amount of silver you have left is figured into your final score, along with how many "cookies" you have remaining, and a few other factors which are now evading my mental grasp.

Both The Friendly Necromancer and Swordroll have written about this new game in their blogs. Friendly's Grub Guardian post has a movie on a session of Grub Guardian that he played, along with a very helpful introduction to the game. Swordroll's Grub Guardian tips, hints & info is a very detailed and thorough account of the game. It was very helpful to read both accounts. I'd advise anyone who is interested in Grub Guardian to take a look at their blogs, and to head on over to KI Free Games and try it out for yourself.