Medieval Castle Defense

Summary

There’s nothing like playing a cool new game after a hard day’s work, especially if you still have to battle public transportation in order to get home.
Rather than spend your journey staring out of the window listlessly, or – heaven forbid – obsessing about work, why not slip into the role of a knight whose role is to ward off enemies trying to break into your castle…

If this sounds like something you could get into be sure to try out Medieval Castle Defense.

Thanks to Paulina Gegenheimer, a young high school student for today’s test.
 

Test device: G1
Root: No
Runs as of version: 1.6

At the start of the game the player is shown a map with a route that traces all of the castles in the region.
The map also displays so-called ‘worlds’. Tap on one of these worlds and a smaller map indicating different stations in the form of castles will pop up.
In order to complete a level – i.e. ward off enemy attacks and make it to the next world – you have to take care of every castle in a given world.
Every castle has a menu indicating which world it is situated in, as well as what the battle field will look like and who your opponents are.

It seems like anyone and everyone is an enemy in this game: unarmed farmers (fairly easy to defeat), enemies that have a few weapons and enemies that are really packing (such as other knights). You name it, you gotta fight it.

Before commencing a round you will have to select your artillery. At the very beginning it’s fairly slim pickings: a catapult and canon is all you have to choose from. The more you play the more weapons you will be able to choose from.

Once you’ve done the ground work the game can begin. Picture this: a battle field, a castle that needs your protection and a white tent which houses your enemies. There’s a path between the tent and the castle which knights and farmers alike have to travel along in order to get to the castle.
It’s up to you to place your weapons along the path strategically, thus ensuring that attackers don’t make it to the castle.

In the beginning you have only one of each weapon and a countdown is running on the tent. All weapons have to be positioned before the countdown is up; tap on the tent as soon as all your weapons are in place.
As soon as you hit the tent its inhabitants will spill forth. The weapons start firing automatically. Every opponent is adorned with a red life bar which becomes shorter and shorter the more often they are hit.

As soon as all of the farmers and knights have been slaughtered off a new countdown begins and you can set up your weapons anew… repeat this a few times until you’ve successfully completed the level and your score is displayed.

Levels that have been completed successfully are saved so that they can be accessed later or so that you can go on to the next levels.

All in all Medieval Castle Defense's gameplay is a good one, though I have to admit to feeling somewhat bored now and again, seeing as the game isn’t very multifaceted.
 

I really dig both the look and soundtrack of Medieval Castle Defense. It has a real medieval feel to it, right down to the design of the menus and maps.

The main menu is quite basic. The ‘Options’ button lets you switch the sound and vibrations on or off. There’s also a ‘Pause’ button if ever you want to take a break during a game.

There are no instructions on how to play the game, but that isn’t an issue as it’s quite easy to get the hang of it.

Click on ‘Start’ and you will be transported to the first map which in turn allows you to begin a game. Small medals are displayed in the lower right corner; you earn one each time you protect a castle successfully.

If you interrupt a game by hitting the pause button you will be asked whether you want to pick up where you left off when you restart.
I like this feature a lot because it means that you don’t have to worry about constantly saving your stats every time you want a time-out from the game.

Available weapons are displayed at the bottom right of the screen. The pause button is in the left hand corner and at the top there’s a display indicating how many opponents still need taking care of in order to make it to the next round.

I wasn’t too happy about the ads that constantly kept flashing across the screen—in some cases even preventing me from seeing what I was doing!
 

Medieval Castle Defense runs fast and doesn’t need any time to load. That being said, I did find that the buttons and arrows in the main menu don’t react as quickly as they should.

I was satisfied with the app’s stability.
 

Medieval Castle Defense can be downloaded free of cost from the Market.