PlayStation Experience was chock full of indie titles to check out. Walking up and down the rows of developers, I was invited to check out The Castle Game by Neptune Interactive. Sitting down to the tutorial, I was greeted with a pleasant blend of tower defense and real time strategy elements. While many other games have had elements from each, I haven’t ever experienced such a blatant blend of the genres. In The Castle Game, the central goal is to build a defense in between waves to protect your base. The waves of enemies do not have a set path, and will flow from various directions, so it is important to set up your towers defensively as well as offensively.
The real time strategy elements come into play with new towers requiring farms to be built in order to house more archers. This small element reminded me of old RTS games like Age of Empires and Command and Conquer. This being just the tutorial mission, I was shown that there are many more elements further into the game that change up the traditional known elements of tower defense games. Some maps include multiple and varied objectives like building forges each turn while still protecting the central base, or escorting workers along a dock area to arrive home safely, while — again — defending your central base.
The satisfying blend of elements from two popular genres bring a unique game that seems to hold the best of both worlds. Strategy can vary enormously, as with most of these kinds of games, and it is fun to see the different approaches to different scenarios. My personal approach to the tutorial mission was very different than what others I saw playing were doing, but each worked out in their own way. What I was initially able to play felt a little simple and easy to run through (it was the tutorial, after all), but I was given a glimpse of some later missions that add so many game changing factors that will really drive up the reply value and the escalation of the challenge. If you’re a fan of either real-time strategy or tower defense games — but especially if you like both — you’ll want to keep an eye out for The Castle Game coming to PS4 in 2015.
