Quick Review: Castle Story

Can’t say I ever played Minecraft. If someone asks me, can I say “….but I played this instead”?

Castle Story was made by Sauropod Studios and released to Steam on August 17th, 2017, following development funded through a Kickstarter campaign that gathered over eight times its goal. While I do the comparison in my first paragraph, it’s more as a joke than anything else; aside from gathering materials to build stuff, there isn't much in the way of similarities, the world isn't voxels everywhere and the constructs you build don't have that Minecraft blocky look to them.

Timber!

This game focuses a lot more on the collective efforts of your little builders/soldiers/whatever job you assign them, the Bricktrons. Those spawn from a magical blue crystal that passively gains energy, eventually having enough to make a new one. The tutorial in the game shows the starting steps of making this community. You assign tasks to your Bricktrons, such as harvesting resources or building stuff, and then proceed with constructs that allow them to refine the materials and then use the results to create other stuff. And so on. The many, many maps available in Sandbox mode are very large. Although I never really ventured all that far from my starting point (Bricktrons seem terrified of straying too far from the Crystal, at least as long as they’re not sufficiently prepared to do so), I imagine these lands can be explored in their entirety, given you have enough Bricktrons and all the necessary tools.

The Bricktrons even have cute little names!

The Sandbox is what you play if you want a chill experience; if you want something a little more action-packed, you can try the Invasion Mode, in which enemies called Corruptrons will attempt to invade your base and you must equip your Bricktrons in order to fight back. Or, become the invader in a Conquest Mode, with other castles to take over. Still not enough? Build a map of your own! Still not enough? Join the Multiplayer mode and see how you fare against other human players.

I'm gonna stick to Sandbox Mode; I don't feel
like I'll ever master the system enough to
defend or fight in the other modes.

Well, okay, I don’t know if there are enough players to make that mode worthwhile. That said, at least it offers enough variety for gamers that they can have fun in single-player. Of course, I haven’t gotten far enough into a single-player mode to see if the game holds up for longer periods of time, when your constructions add up on the field. As far as I can read, although the base build is really good, very few updates have been made to it afterwards, so a lot of little issues and glitches might not have been ironed out. The game has seemingly been abandoned and left in its current state, but it’s sufficiently playable for some basic fun. The loading times are also pretty long.

I have little soldiers now, but I don't even have
a castle to defend yeet!

The Bricktrons are cute, and it’s fun to see them build stuff or get to their tasks. The crafting system is pretty complex and intricate, and so are the various things you can build. It certainly takes a moment to get the hang of everything – even creating soldiers and archers can be tricky unless you can remember the sequence of actions necessary. The game allows for a large variety of things to do and encourages creativity – the Community tab on Steam is full of examples of buildings that people built.

At least the Tutorial covers the basics well.
But after that, you're on your own.

Though it’s not my kind of game, I think it’s fine. Even in its current form, it offers plenty of options. Although its unfinished state, possible glitches, and lack of updates in a long time means that there are some flaws lurking beneath the surface. I’d argue it’s probably not worth its price tag of 27.99$ as it stands now, but a thing to discover if you can find it at a discount or in a bundle.