CasinoRPG is a free-to-play massive multiplayer online casino browser game with an isometric view. There are a lot of added on frills that keep you in game such as owning your own casino after you’ve earned it. As for it being a role playing game, it didn’t feel like it. Beyond gaining experience by gambling and taking quests, there’s nothing role playing about it. Each level you get to unlocks new things to buy. The game makes it seem like its a casino management game, but after eight hours into it, I don’t have a casino and I’m content to just sit and gamble. There is a casino, I can see it at the end of the tunnel, I’m just not willing to go there knowing that I’ll need more time and effort into getting casino points.
The game has two currencies, chips that are free play-money and casino points, which are the game’s premium currency that you can quick buy with “GoldFire gold.” I would have called them casino coins, but chances are a real casino has nabbed the trademark on that. How do you get GoldFire gold? You buy it with real money. Wait wait, before you storm off, it seems like casino points are useless. You only need them for frills like buying land, a casino and clothing for your character when the core is just playing casino games. You can also earn casino points slowly over time and get them in slot machines. If you need a larger amount at once, you can always shell out 700,000 chips for fifty casino points to other players trying to sell them.
The game requires you to setup a GoldFire account, because this is an online game that you can play from computer to web browser. You can’t just be a guest. I managed to fall into one of the game’s rare new player bugs that prevented the game from loading until it had gotten patched. Even after the patch the game wouldn’t start once it fully loaded. A few days later, I was up and running with a new patch and a fresh install. I had really given up on the game before I thought I’d give it another shot. The GoldFire account will send you what feels like 2 emails a day, but there’s an unsubscribe link at the bottom.
What was that you say? You wanted a review of a game and all I’m talking about is business? With all the bad out of the way, please let me continue.
Since this is a role playing game, you begin as a lowly janitor and there is a surprisingly interesting story. On the previous janitor’s last day he gives you a key to his bank vault. So its off to the bank to open the vault where you meet a man that teaches you the ropes. You can get quests by finding people with gold coins hovering over them. There are some multi-part quests, but for the most part they’re are pretty simple. Things like win X amount of hands at blackjack without losing Y amount or get 2 blackjacks in 30 minutes. Then it becomes a game in and of itself. I don’t want to spend money, I just want to bet the smallest amount to get the 2 blackjacks before time expires. Quest givers will reward you with chips, experience and even items for your condo. After you’ve done some quests, you’ll learn about jobs and then how to buy the land for your own casino.
What makes the game unique is every player’s casino gets plopped down on a single map. This creates location competition. It also looks like there are ways to hire NPCs to stand outside and warp people to your casino. You can walk forever looking at all the casinos and visiting them. An easier way to visit them is to look at the job listings. As a janitor, you can take jobs and clean machines. These jobs send you to casinos owned by real players. You’ll get to see how amazing some of them look. Cleaning a machine is a an arcade mini game that involves some strategy and skill. You have your bubble that must wipe off a decent percentage of a dirty screen all while avoiding larger blue bubbles. Touching smaller white bubbles to absorb them and get larger. Its a game that’s been done before, but its still fun nonetheless. That is once you get used to the controls of clicking the opposite side of the bubble you want it to go. Each click makes your bubble lose a percentage of its mass in a smaller bubble that flies out. If you fail twice by having your bubble eaten, your shift is over. You only need to clean one machine, any others over that just nets you more money, experience and career points. As your janitorial skill goes up, so does the mini game’s difficulty. Before you know it bubbles are moving. It feels like the best part of CasinoRPG, but you can only do so much per day before the game cuts you off.
As for the casino games themselves, there’s nothing new here that you wouldn’t expect to be at a casino. There are several different slot machines all with the bold blips and happy sounds that slot machines make. They all seem to be multi line machines that let you wager a bet on not just top, middle and bottom across, but diagonals and adjoining icons too. If you’re into card games, you’ll find the popular ones like poker, roulette and blackjack. The interesting thing about these three is the multi player aspect, you sit down at a table with other players, chat with them as you play and compete against them and the dealer. The dealers get switched out every once in a while, but it makes no difference, you never see the dealer until they switch. You can even make your own poker tables with minimum and maximum bets. In fact, you can even make it to play for casino points instead of just chips. The tables all seem to be connected, so you can be in a different casino and play people from every casino. If you’re more of a lone wolf, you can place a bet on Solitaire and play to your heart’s content.
To keep you in the game, there is a special slot machine in your room that lets you have a spin every day and every hour of real time. These spins build up when you’re out of the game, so it rewards you for coming back. Its a nice touch in case you’re broke from whittling away tens of thousands of chips. The game really won’t let you whittle them away though. Each level has a maximum bet aloud, which ensures that you can stay in game all day to play. You may never leave.
CasinoRPG has a good simple look to it similar to the Sims, just not as good. It controls in almost the same way. Want to go somewhere? Click it then watch as your character walks there. When you’re out in the world on the street, there’s a mini map that you can expand to take a look. The problem that I have with this is I can’t just click somewhere on the map and have my character walk to it. I need to click in the game screen to walk and just follow the map. There are a few Taxi’s scattered around that you can use to warp places. Its a nice touch. This world is big with thousands of plots of land, so I know I got lost, but lucky for me there’s a quick button to get sent back to your condo.
The music itself is pretty soothing jazz with saxophones, light beats and flutes. It fits the soothing mellow tone of the game, and make a big jackpot that much more thrilling. Casinos sound like they should thanks to the slot machines.
For diehard fans of the game, there are premium subscriptions that give you exclusive perks. Things like raised betting limits by 10%, 100 auto spins so you can spin the slot machine 100 times without being at your computer. So you can play the game without playing the game. Monthly subscriptions start at the low price of 150 GoldFire gold or $7.50. That is pretty cheap compared to other games, especially ones that charge $12.50 for a sombrero. If you want free GoldFire gold, you can get it in one of two other ways. Either voting for CasinoRPG on several MMO hot lists or doing things like filling out surveys for chain restaurants. Amounts are limited though, so not everyone will be able to take a survey.
I think your enjoyment of this game really depends more on if you like gambling and card games or not. It is enjoyable to gamble and chat with other humans, but so many other games do similar things. CasinoRPG has a lot of extras to keep you in game, but if you go in hoping to manage your own casino or trying to find a role playing game, you’ll be disappointed. Its good at what it does, but it feels like smoke and mirrors. A long path to get to the game I legitimately want to play.
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