Castle Building Games
Video games have long been fixated on the Medieval with its knights and castles. Although castles are typically just backdrops in role-playing and strategy games, there are several exceptions. In castle building games, the castle itself takes the spotlight, and you are challenged to expand it even as wave after wave of enemy pounds against its walls.
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Rampart
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If you're looking for an iconic castle building game, "Rampart" is a good candidate. Played in arcades throughout the early 1990s, "Rampart" reworked elements from the popular game "Tetris" into the first major castle building title. Game play was divided into three phases. First, you built your castle by combining "Tetris" style pieces. Second, you placed cannons. Third, you fired those cannons at other players or at computer-controlled ships. After the battle, you then had to patch your walls. If you failed to do so quickly enough, you lost the game. Although this premise might sound simple, it can also be addictive, and when you're pitted against another human player, the battles can be intensely fast-paced.
Master of Fortresses
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"Master of Fortresses" is a more recent addition to the castle building genre, and, although it draws inspiration from "Rampart," game play is dramatically different. While in "Rampart" you could only place cannons, in "Master of Fortresses" you can hire gunmen, lay traps and construct bastions for their artillery. You can also choose from three historic factions and over a dozen real-world battlefields. The game is divided into just two sequences. In the first, you build your castle and place your troops. In the second, you watch your forces repel a wave of enemies. While "Rampart" emphasized fast reflexes, "Master of Fortresses" is all about careful thinking. Along the way, you can also unlock dozens of awards which will give bonuses to your troops' abilities.
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Castles II
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"Castles II" was released around the same time as "Rampart." While the game featured an extensive castle building mini-game, it also explored grander strategic elements, such as conquering territories, improving the peasants' quality of life and bribing religious officials. While games that emphasize only castle building can get repetitive, "Castles II" and its diverse game elements offer a potentially longer-lasting appeal. The castle building mini-game itself is also free-form and you have more options than those featured in "Rampart," such as placing walls of different heights and constructing rounded and square towers.
The Blade of Innocence
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"The Blade of Innocence" approaches the castle building genre from a dramatically different angle. While most games emphasize laying out the walls of a castle but give you no special structures to build within them, "The Blade of Innocence" starts with pre-defined walls and instead gives you a choice of building several internal structures, such as barracks, smithies and windmills. Each of these structures adds a new ability to your army, such as training new unit types or improving weapons. Because game play is limited to just several options, "The Blade of Innocence" has the feel of a puzzle game. The challenge is to identify and implement the ideal sequence of construction and balancing economic growth with defensive potential.
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References
- Photo Credit a castle image by timur1970 from Fotolia.com
