In a sea of uninteresting co-op games, Castle Panic is particularly uninteresting. Releasing hot on the heels of 2008’s genre watershed Pandemic, it had a brief flash of popularity in the form of expansions, alternate versions, and spin-offs which has since tapered off. Revisiting the game now, it’s hard to believe it was ever en vogue. Castle Panic has none of Pandemic‘s thematic creativity, social puzzle solving, or clever narrative structure. It doesn’t even seem to try. Instead of learning from and iterating on successful tabletop designs, Castle Panic‘s primary artistic influence appears to be early 21st century web browser tower defense games. And, like many games of that ilk and era, Castle Panic feels amateurish, desultory, and unfinished. It has the elegance of a mid-stage prototype, the tactical depth of a “match 3” mobile game, and the social impact of a jigsaw puzzle.
The first thing you’ll notice when you open up Castle Panic‘s box is how cheap the components are. Now, I am a far cry away from being a snob in this regard, but this is some of the worst chipboard stock I’ve seen in a published game. The tiles and standees feel like they’re made of pressed construction paper, giving off the impression that the game is a prototype that just so happens to be on store shelves. The cards are even worse, like unpressed construction paper. But these are trivialities compared to the game’s real problems — and the precise psychological ramifications of lackluster productions are impossible to define in pragmatic terms anyway — so I’ll just reiterate that the game feels cheap and move on.
Castle Panic is a co-operative tower defense game (as I’m sure you’ve gleaned by now) where the goal is to survive a merciless onslaught of orcs, goblins, and trolls who, for undisclosed reasons, want nothing more than to destroy your lovely vacation home in the woods. Your home — the titular “Castle” — is a hexagonal structure located in the center of the game board encircled by four concentric titled rings: the Swordsman, Knight, Archer, and Forest rings. Each of these is further split into three colored sections: Red, Green, and Blue. A pile of monster tokens kept to the side represents the unknown hordes that will soon be descending on your fortress. To combat this, players are dealt face-up hands of cards that grant them various offensive and defensive abilities. These hands, together with their compatriots’, must be utilized efficiently to keep at least one castle tower standing until every last creature lies slain on the battlefield.
At the beginning of a player’s turn they draw up to their hand limit and have the option of discarding a card to draw a replacement. They are also permitted to trade 1 of their cards for 1 of another player’s. Be warned: this is the mechanical extent of the hand management in the game, so keep your expectations low on that front. The player then plays any amount of cards from their hand in any order they wish. Most cards deal damage to monsters in certain ring/color combinations. For example, a red “Archer” card could be played to deal a point of damage to any monster in a red “Archer” space. A few cards must be played in combination with others to use their effect, such as the “Brick” and “Mortar” cards which together allow the player to rebuild a destroyed castle wall. There are a handful of other card effects that I won’t get into, but I will say they are invariably simple, easy to understand, and useful.
Once a player is done using their cards, all monsters remaining on the board move a ring closer to the castle (Forest -> Archer -> Knight -> Swordsman -> Castle). If they smash into a castle wall or tower they destroy it but also take a hit, so it’s not all bad. The last thing a player must do before their turn is over is draw and resolve two monster tokens from the set aside pile. Most of these add more orcs, goblins, and trolls to the board, but some cause additional monster movement or have boulders roll across the board for some reason. There are also four “Boss Monsters”, which have a one time effect when they are drawn but then behave like any other enemy afterward. Once a player finishes resolving their second monster token they are officially done with their turn, and things go around the table in this manner until the game is won or lost.
Castle Panic is not exciting at all (and it definitely does not incite panic). It’s stupidly basic. There is no depth to the teamwork whatsoever. The only way to even interact with other players is by trading with them, and you only get one trade a turn. Also, the trades worth doing are completely obvious 100% of the time. Example: one player has a “Brick” and another has a “Mortar.” Hmm… I wonder if they should make a trade so one of them has both. Here’s another: the player whose turn it is has a blue “Knight” card and the player next in line has a blue “Archer” card. There is currently an orc in the blue “Archer” space. Will they notice that if they trade cards, they will both be able to hit it? Yes, they will. Anyone would. And these are the most interesting puzzles Castle Panic has to offer! I suppose you could argue that there is an optimization challenge in prioritizing which trade to take on your turn, so let me help you with that: do the trade that most helps you take on the monster closest to the castle. There you go, I’m a master tactician.
Castle Panic continually squanders any opportunity it has to be interesting. The hand management is shallow, the card effects are utterly rudimentary (“Wow, this card lets me draw two more cards!”), the enemies aren’t threatening, the “Boss Monter” tokens have a single basic effect when drawn then don’t do anything else, and so on and so forth. The game’s attempts to thwart your plans and keep you on your toes are pathetic, even when they work. Uh oh, all the monsters moved clockwise for no given thematic reason and now all your cards are useless! Uh oh, you drew a monster token that instructs you to draw more monster tokens! Uh oh, trolls keep spawning in areas of the board no one has cards to attack! Playing the game well is a breeze, so its difficulty ends up coming entirely from the shuffle of the deck and the order the monster tokens are drawn in. If you are even slightly capable of tactical thought, it’s practically as deterministic as Candy Land.
The scoring rules are also poorly thought out. Players are supposed to keep the tokens of creatures they’ve slain throughout the game and add them up for points at the end to see which among them is the “Master Slayer.” What possible purpose does it serve to introduce a competitive element in a game like this? I’m getting annoyed just thinking about my teammates being less than helpful in the hopes of bagging an extra kill for their point total. Competitive scoring in a simple co-operative game like this is nonsense. Castle Panic is not long enough, complex enough, or good enough to pull off something requiring as much social nuance as a semi-cooperative experience, and it’s baffling that it even tries. Can you imagine if Pandemic had rules declaring the player who removed the most disease cubes the “Master Doctor” or some such silliness? It would fly in the face of the entire design, reducing player interactions to an obnoxious, frustrating meta-game. Fortunately, in my experience Castle Panic is too uneventful of a game for players to actually care much about scoring, which makes this somewhat of a non-issue (but it being a non-issue IS an issue! Players should care about scoring!). The rule book even lists playing without the “Master Slayer” as an official variant. What kind of a variant just removes part of a game? That’s the product of a seriously weak-willed design mentality, right there.
I’ve mentioned Pandemic a lot in this review, which may lead some of you to believe its a game I hold in exceptionally high regard. It isn’t (sorry), BUT it absolutely towers over Castle Panic in every conceivable method of comparison. Next to it, Castle Panic feels like a toy or activity you use to kill time rather than genuinely engage with. It did certainly manage to have its day in the sun, but it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if night were to suddenly fall on it. I could perhaps see it carving out a cosy little niche for itself in the children’s-games-the-parents-can-play-with-them-without-wanting-to-kill-themselves market, but that’s not really saying much. But hey, even if the game does disappear forever, you can always head over to www.kongregate.com and play some sweet, sweet browser games.
Castle Panic gets a rating of TWO out of FIVE, indicating it is NOT RECOMMENDED.