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Review: Castle from Snails Animation

Castle - screenshot
Review: Castle from Snails Animation
4

Platforms: Windows PC, Desura

Game Name: Castle

Developer: Snails Animation

Genre: Action, Puzzle, Casual

Release Date: September 24th, 2014

Castle – What We Think:

Castle – by Snails Animation – is best described as a moving jigsaw puzzle castle-building game that has you simultaneously fighting off baddies that want to destroy the castle you’re so intent on building. Basically, you have scrolling pieces you must place using a series of cranes to lower them into place.

Castle - screenshot

Each piece you misplace results in losing a life. Lives can be collected or purchased throughout the game. The villains take lives, pieces, or rust out the cranes all in a valiant attempt to stop you from constructing the castle.

There are three scenic backgrounds for each castle to build, and, though the game starts off quite easily, things get much more challenging as levels progress. There is a shop, which allows you to purchase deterrents or fixes to the villains/baddies for example water balloons to stop the fire archers from burning your castle to the ground.

castle1

There is a handy instruction screen which gives you an idea as to what to expect in the next level, which is so very handy and also allows you to purchase more lives, time or faster crane drops. There are also other game-play modes including Survival, which is just defending the castle for as long as the timer is running, and Hardcore, which I can’t get up to just as of yet, due to having to walk away from my frustration with making silly mistakes.

Castle game - manifesto

Lower the Drawbridge, Raise the Cranes

Using your mouse, you point, click and drag pieces of the castle you want lowered into position and drop into the corresponding crane below. If you come under attack, click the water balloon/anvil (or other defensive tool) and place into the correct position. This routine can make for the frustration I was talking about earlier, since a slight miss of the click and you have wasted a life or deterrent and – after a while – you realize these are required.

To make things more intense, upon getting a piece into the correct position, there is a chance money will drop. Money is not collected automatically; you have to collect it yourself, which only adds to the mayhem and confusion of the fast-paced harder levels!

This game works a treat; no bugs that I encountered, no broken links and everything worked as intended. There is also a huge range of languages this game can be played in, as well as a windowed mode, but – because it is mouse-controlled – if you click outside of the window, it becomes annoying to get back in. The game is currently on Steam Greenlight – and if it were to get through and onto Steam, I would like to see both Big Picture and gamepad implementation to make this as accessible as it should be.

Castle - screenshot 2

Turn it down!

The game features 2D arcade style graphics that are perfectly fine, but not so with the annoying music which I turned off after a couple of minutes of me getting into the game. The sound effects are well done and, with each villain having a distinct audio cue, served the game-play effectively when I heard the signature sound for each villain, I was able to anticipate the counterattack accordingly.

It’s Good To Be King

Castle has its moments – moments of hilarity, like the king sitting on his throne (toilet) in the opening scene when he reads about 50% off castles. He bolts out of the Throne room onto the hill to envisage his castle, only to have his bum exposed by the flap falling down on his pants.

Then it has those tender moments when you calmly, or not so calmly, put the mouse down and walk away, headbutt a wall and come back to try to complete the level, all because you placed a single castle tower in the wrong spot and that was the last life, or you have run out of anvils and can’t place the last piece of the castle, just to watch the time tick down until it is all over…

All told, Castle is a fun, casual game with a hardcore mode available. I must complete this before it destroys my edge. If you don’t like losing, this game is for you.

Castle – Official site at Snails Animation

Get Castle on Desura

Castle on Steam Greenlight

[xrr rating=”4/5″]