Thursday, October 12, 2017

"They have a cave troll." (Review of Castle Panic)

Total Plays: 10 solo, 20 cooperative

Castle Panic is a tower defense style game (there are many digital adaptations of this found on smart phones, such as Fieldrunners and Kingdom Rush) where you use cards to defeat your enemies. An assortment of monsters such as orcs and goblins start at the outer ring (the forest ring) of the board and progress through the archer, knight, and swordsmen rings until they reach your castle in the middle of the board. If they do that, they will smash it apart.


As they progress through the ring, you will have cards that attack certain rings and colours (the board is split into six pizza slices: two green, two blue, and two red). For example, I could play a green knight to attack an enemy in either of the green sections of the knight ring.


Enemies progress one ring closer to your castle after each turn. That's the basic premise of the game. Destroy the monsters before they destroy your castle.

COMPONENTS
I'll be honest, I don't love the art in this game. It's very cartoony. I know that it's probably geared towards a younger audience, but I just don't like it. The cards are a little thin but seem pretty sturdy. The pieces are all fine. Everything works well but nothing stands out as being really beautiful or polished or high quality. 3/5

RULES
The rules are pretty easy for the base game, but every expansion adds a new level of complexity. There are a lot of things to remember about the monsters in the Wizard's Tower expansion and I always have to refer back to the cheat sheets to remember how to kill the various monsters. The rulebook is not bad and it's pretty easy to find what you're looking for.  There are worse games and the basic mechanics of the game are pretty straight forward. 3/5

GAMEPLAY
The base game is much too simple for a serious gamer to play solo. You need at least the Wizard's Tower expansion to get enough complexity to make it a challenge. I also have the Dark Titan and Engines of War expansions but I haven't even touched them yet because I'm worried about learning even more rules. That being said, with the first expansion and base game I find the gameplay very nice. It's a simpler game, but there are more choices about what kind of cards you're going to draw, which you're going to trade in, who you'll attack when, and so on. 4/5

REPLAYABILITY
This game is played on the exact same board in the exact same way each time, so it definitely feels same-y. But, every game you will get the monsters in a completely different order. Also, you only get three of the big six (that come in the Wizard's Tower) and they each play very differently, so that changes how you come at them. You also acquire cards in a different order each time so your strategy changes depending what you get and when. 4/5

FUN
This game is fun. You get attacked by hordes of baddies and have to attack them. Adding in the Wizard's Tower adds a whole lot more magical fun. I like playing this game, although it's not complex and strategic enough to make my grab it over many other games in my collection. 8/10

TOTAL SCORE: 22/30


This is my wife's favourite game to play with me, so even though it's not my favourite, it will get a lot of plays.  It's also the nerdiest game I can get some of our couple friends to play with us, so it does get a lot of burn.  As a solo game, it doesn't stack up to some of my other favourites.

No comments:

Post a Comment