Have fun storming the castle!
Castle Panic is such a great game, you guys. So much fun! So easy to play! Orcs and goblins are rampaging from all sides, your walls are collapsing all around you and you’re desperate to draw the one card you need to prevent the damn Troll Mage from laying siege to your last two towers… I guess what I’m trying to say here is that it isn’t called Castle Elegant Tea Party, you know? It gets crazy. And events have transpired in such a manner that I didn’t just buy this game. I feel like I was destined to own it.
Okay, let me start over from the beginning.
We went to PAX a couple of weeks ago. For the uninitiated, it’s an enormous 3-day bacchanalian celebration of games and game culture thrown in Seattle every year by the folks who do the Penny Arcade webcomic. We watched them create a comic strip live onstage, and wandered through a cavernous, jam-packed exhibition hall gawking at 20-foot tall screens pimping upcoming video games. We fondled giant D&D dice. The highlight for me, though, was free-play tabletop gaming.
So there we were, finishing up a game of Small World (you know how I feel about Small World, right?), when we notice some guy next to us with a game called Castle Panic. Turns out he was Justin De Witt, the game’s designer, and he offered to teach us how to play. Let me say this: I’ve decided that the best way to learn a new game is by playing with the person who made that shit up. It’s like playing with the game’s RULE BOOK, if that rule book were a genial bearded fellow whose sole mission is to ensure you have the most fun possible so you might decide to go out and buy the game for yourself (SPOILER ALERT: we totally did, at our favorite game shop three days later).
Castle Panic plays out like a (mostly) cooperative board game version of Tower Defense – players attempt to defend their shared castle from the advancing hordes. Different attack cards can hit monsters in different zones on the board, and the players can trade cards between them so they have the right attacks at the right time.
That is, if they want to. If the towers fall (oh, and they WILL FALL), everybody loses. But if you survive the onslaught, there can be only one winner, because the player who mowed down the most monsters is crowned the Master Slayer. How bad do you want to win, and how bad do you just not want to lose?
At PAX there were seven of us so we played the “overlord” version where one person controls the (usually random) monsters and arranges them to come at you in the most evil possible manner. I was delighted to discover later, though, that the game is also great with just two players. I live with exactly one other person, and finding board games that are good for two is a bit of a crapshoot. But I swear to God, we played this thing three times last night. In the first game we fought our way back from the brink of destruction and almost won, but the next-to-last monster token was a freakin’ GIANT BOULDER that took out our final tower. So we had to try again! (In our second game we absolutely got our asses handed to us). The third game FINALLY went our way, and I am happy to report that I kicked kormantic’s ass so hard on the Master Slayer tally that she refused to even count up her points to give me the satisfaction. (So not true! – kormantic)
The true brilliance of Castle Panic is its elegant simplicity. Seriously, you don’t even need Justin to teach you how to play this game – the rules are so easy to grasp that learning it is like learning how to play Popomatic Trouble (if Popomatic Trouble had MURDEROUS ORCS THAT COULD DESTROY YOU.) I visited the Fireside Games website, and it turns out their entire mission statement is to combine the geeky fun of modern board games with the gentle learning curve and fast paced joy of family game night. They’ve hit the jackpot, too — the PAX game rooms are host to the most hardcore gamers imaginable, and yet this deceptively simple game that your grandmother (your bloodthirsty, bloodthirsty grandmother) could play was a smash hit.
Also, I gave Justin a copy of my book and he plugged it on the company blog! Thanks, man! I’d like to say that I’m returning the favor here, but honestly, dude.
The pleasure is ALL mine.
You have a limited amount of time, so why spend it reading about things that suck or are only kind of okay? Favorite thing EVER is not a review site. We're unrepentant fans, and this is the stuff we love. Hope you like gushing, because we're about to embarrass ourselves.
It was completely fun and I did close my hand without counting up the points, but only because three games of CP take a lot out if you – all that nailbiting and boulder-dodging!
You guys crack me up. I’m glad to hear you had such a good time with our game and that it’s living up to it’s name. The Overlord game at PAX was fun to watch and I’m glad I got to introduce y’all (I can say that since I live in Texas) to it.
It’s also great to hear what happens after the demo. Lots of times when I’m demoing a game and people find out I’m the designer, it’s hard to tell what they really think. There’s a lot of polite smiles and head nodding like they’re afraid to hurt my feelings or something, so it can be hard to tell when players are genuinely having fun or just faking it.
I was pretty sure you guys were having a good time at PAX though, so thanks for not faking it.
-Justin
Yeah, there was some poor girl demoing this party game with rorschach cards earlier in the day, and we didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but WOW, we just didn’t grasp the point AT ALL. So we totally smiled and nodded. We were THOSE people! Next year we will make a rule to be brutally honest all around.
This post makes me realize that I simply just don’t have enough fun in my life. I must take lessons from you and DM.
My wife and I played this with our 5 year old son over the weekend. (the 3 year old and the 1 year old tried to lose the pieces and feed them to the dog, respectively) Turns out: a 5 year old can handle the mechanics of this game, but it’s still rich enough and fun enough for adults to come away excitedly talking about our strategies for next time. (First Strategy: play after the kids are in bed!)
Hey, Matt, sounds like a fun game. I’ll have to try it.
You’re right that challenging/fun two player games are a bit rare (outside of the WAR category). You might like Under the Shadow of the Dragon for when you need more than Talisman but less than Descent.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13751/under-the-shadow-of-the-dragon
More than talisman? Hopefully not in length. I don’t think I’ve gotten out of that game in less that four hours.
By “more,” I mean in terms of the overall game-playing experience (for various reasons). I don’t, certainly do not, mean LONGER. Under the Shadow suggests a 90-min play time; however, I think 60-70 is more typical.
And Jumping BeJeeZus…how can you play Talisman without switching from a 7-1 to a 3-1 ratio for using exp to improve stats? Sanity, man, sanity.