Castle Review

About a week ago we were approached by someone from Snails Animation. They told us about their new game, Castle; and asked if we wanted to do a review. I always look for more reasons to play and having someone offer up such a creative little gem as Castle was a real treat. Upon looking over their website, I learned Snails Animation deals mostly in Flash games for your browser and Castle is their very first game for PC Download, which makes it a bit more impressive that Castle is such a nice piece of work. Before I start to prattle about the developers, let's move onto their game.


Castle is pretty straight forward from the beginning and Snails Animation really shows off a bit with some clean and color animation. The clip shows a king in his morning routine jumping at the opportunity to get his very own castle. From there is a brief tutorial screen explaining the mechanics of the game and off you go to level one to begin your time as a castle construction contractor. The game operates in a similar fashion to a claw machine; but rather than pick things up from a jumble of stuffed animals or the like, you are placing castle pieces in the appropriate spots in the correct order. Early on it is fairly simple to do. They give you a silhouette of the castle that is to be and all of the pieces scroll overhead. Drag and drop the piece you want to the column you want and you have got the hang of it. It sounds overly simple until you've considered the later portion of the game, when you will have to place down innumerable amounts of castle sections into the slots of the wackiest building designs; all while defending your castle from many unique threats. If you don't believe me, get yourself to level ten and get back with me.

The threats themselves offer little challenge. Each one prevents progress in a specific way and you have a number of items by which you may prevent them from doing so, or repair the damage they cause. The challenge appears when several of these enemies are plaguing you at once, and you are trying to build into a complicated and expansive castle design. Top this off with a deceptive time limit, and you'll find the challenge you are looking for. If you are the type of gaming legend that requires more (and you know I do) there is a King Mode available for the mighty few who complete the normal mode, and a Defend the Castle Mode that I used to exact my boiling vengeance on the enemies that harassed me in my play through.


The game doesn't offer much in the way of extras, but I don't really think is needs to. There are character descriptions and trophies for reaching certain milestones; both offer the title a little depth for a little reading and a sense of accomplishment. Though to be perfectly honest by the time I hit level sixteen, building the castle at all was its own reward.




Overall, Castle is quite entertaining and I gladly give it a shiny new recommendation fresh out of the box. It only costs you a meager five bucks and offers way more than your money's worth in terms of content and challenge. Along with giving me hours of fun, I was left with a hatred for chickens. A hatred so deep that if put into words I may face serious litigation. I'd love to see if the game could be released on tablets. The format fits perfectly and I can see the game getting excellent exposure in such a medium. Give it a go, and don't forget to greenlight this title for Steam!

http://www.snailsanimation.com/Castle/castle_homepage.html