Retro-Pixel Castles: Game Review

An interesting game I got on Steam awhile back ago and still find my self occasionally interested in. Despite the generic name the designer is making a game not quite like most games that I would consider it similar to.

It is fairly simple in some ways, you basically command a group of settlers to work and build a settlement while also worrying about food, resources and eventual attacks from monsters such as zombies and skeletons.

But unlike most settlement games this one allows you to use your godly powers to scoop up settlers and/or resources and take them to another part of a much larger map. I find this makes the game more immersive as each settler provides you with power and the fruits of his work as well as gaining levels and think skill types are being added to the game.

So I could take my people from map to map building new homes and having new children and defending from enemies until the monsters became overwhelming and then scoop up as many of people as I could and head out to new land with my higher level settlers doing better each time.

The only snag I really hit was that eventually my settlement got too big for my computer to handle and everything slowed way down. However the designer is still hard at work improving the games features and performance. I recently spoke with him over steam and it seams he has plans to remove some of the load off the CPU to the GPU by something something particle physics. That sounds nice.

But no really this is a fun game and the designer seams capable and personable. It's currently 10 dollars on steam, I don't remember if I got it on sale or not but I have played it for 16 hours and could easily see me putting in another 16.

Also there isn't really castles just fun to build walls around your various settlement buildns. It would be more aptly described as Non-Retro Pixel Rouge-Lite Settlement Sim. just sayin.


Graphics: Can't comment as they were changed in the update right after I took a break from playing.

Sound: Seemed fine to me enjoyable catchy music and no issues.

Gameplay: Great, this what I'll will be going back for someday.

Performances: I'd say 4/5 stars here I have heard of mostly only minor issues other the cpu heavy performance which the designer is aware of and working on. (Early Access and all)

Over All Score: 16 hours of fun for 10 bucks or less easily and will likely put in another 16 or more. So although it may not be the next CK2 or Terraria for me it has lots of potential and I think it could teach some other designers about innovation and game play.

Final Decision: Buy it. Hell if you got the money don't even wait for a sale just go ahead and support the developer and maybe ask him to start plans on one day making a sequel.

Link to it's website.

Terraria Housing Glitch

In this Terraria screenshot you can clearly see my castle working just fine filled with npc's living in the rooms. Shortly after it was taken, and I'm not sure what caused it, every room in the castle started saying "This is not suitable housing" and all the npc's left.

I tried researching what could have caused it and it appears it has nothing to do with any of my recent changes.

So all though I hope someone has an answer to this bug, mostly I just wanted to say look at my awesome castle I built :).

More on The Castle Ravenloft Board Game.

Yesterday, I bought the Castle Ravenloft board game and posted about some of the contents, at that time I hadn't yet played. Now I have played about two and half runs throughs and I have to say I'm loving it. The combination on the event cards and the different adventures has me never knowing what is going to happen yet.

We had a player randomly led deeper into the dungeon, encountering some spiders one of which ran even deeper alerting the main villain. There's blood mists and illusions and adventure specific artifacts. One of my favorite moments was drawing a card that revealed my ally was just and illusion and he was somewhere else in the dungeon. I thought I was fighting side by side with him but instead it was a swarm of rats about to jump me.

I recently read that the other D&D board game adds even more elements like chambers and villagers, and also a Legend of Drizzt game is coming out this month. This will be the first time in a while I have been waiting for a D&D product from Wizards of The Coast.

Today I am suppose to be running a Sibra1 campaign but I bet we will be pulling back out Castle Ravenloft again.

Dungeons and Dragons Board Game.

Yesterday, I bought the Castle Ravenloft Board Game. I read through all the rules and punched out all the tokens and generally just rooted through the whole thing. I haven't played a complete game of it yet but I gone over it enough I think I could without referencing the rule book.

Since I had no idea what the game would be like when I bought it, I figured I might as well write a post about it. Maybe someone out there is thinking of buying it but wants more info.


Characters:

The characters look like 4th edition characters but they lack the base statistics as well as fort, ref and will. They only have HP AC and surge value. The party gets two healing surges to share, which are used when you are unconscious. The cleric also has healing capability.

If you are knocked out and not healed then on your turn you use a healing surge if you don't have any you die.  Damage is not random and is very low like 1dmg or 4 for a daily ability. So the HP is likewise lower then 4th edition with characters having around 8 or 10.

You start with some At-Will powers, one daily and one utility. Your can level up once if you roll a natural 20 and have killed a couple of monsters, you only need l 5xp. Becoming level 2 grants one more daily power and a bonus to AC and HP and that's about it. There are no levels beyond level 2.

The Monsters:

The monsters have HP and AC but also have tactics. Each player will end up controlling different monsters at the end of their turn, by following the monsters tactics. Interestingly if two players are moving the same kind of monster then those monsters both act on both of the players turns.

The Tiles:

The dungeon tiles in the game are different then the dungeon tiles you can buy separately. They are all exactly the same size except the start tile, and they interlock on all four sides. The pictures on them however, show you where walls and such are. The tiles are used similar to how cards are used, with their backs face up and you not knowing which tile is about to be placed.

The Miniatures:

You get alot of hard plastic and not painted miniatures. Which I actually like, to me they are more durable then the typical Mage Knight like miniatures. They will certainty hold up against my kids alot better. With the exception of the skeletons they are not very flexible. Also, I think they are color coded.

The Counters:

There are all sorts of counters, for things like conditions and traps, monsters, items. Personally I think there are too many counters and don't know which way to store them is best.

The Learning Curve:

I'd say the learning curve is small. I think I could teach four people how to play the game without even opening the rule book anymore beyond my first read through.

One more thing though, the game actually runs out of an adventure book and not everything in the adventures are random. However they are simple enough and can even be played one player. I think you could make up your own adventures if you wanted but the game in general is far simpler then even basic dnd.

I think War Hammer Quest is far more complex. I don't know weather to play ADD tonight or try out the board game. Maybe both.