Ahead of the Game - Castle V Castle lets you build a brick fort to tear down another brick fort, but with robots
One brick at a time
- Be the ultimate fort master with the highest brick fort ever ever ever
- Hurl everything you've got at your enemy's fort and reduce them to rubble
- Or you can hire a robot to do the job for you
Hello and welcome to Ahead of the Game, a series where we tell you all about an upcoming game that, despite not being out yet, is available for you to play at the time of publishing. Through this series, you can grab a chance to play games well ahead of their release date, be that through Soft Launch, Open Beta, Demos, or more.
Ah, the good old days of childhood innocence. Who hasn't spent a good chunk of their pre-digital childhood lives building a handmade fort that's the best fort ever in the history of the world?
Whether you're piecing together torn cardboard boxes or glueing what used to be packaging from some random appliance, a fort is a fort, and when you're inside, you can take on the world.
At least, that's how I felt when I started playing Castle V Castle, which is essentially a 1v1 card battler where - as you might have guessed from the title alone - it's your castle against your opponent's.
You hide behind a mountain of bricks with your adorable little knight-head sticking out, and as you hurl everything from sharp pointy things to actual robot laser beams at your sworn enemy, you'll need to play your cards right if you want to come out on top - or at the very least, with your trusty fort intact.
As you pile on the attacks - whether magical or physical - you'll chip away at each other's bricks with a little bit of RNG thrown into the mix.
The cards you're dealt are at the mercy of Lady Luck, so if you have enough bricks, magic, or attack points to unleash a move, then good for you. If not, then you'll have to discard something from your deck in hopes of drawing something that'll pave the way to victory.
It's as simple as can be, and with the minimalist visuals, it certainly feels like the perfect pick-up-and-play time-waster to me - a quality you'd expect from the makers of Devolver Tumble Time. I absolutely adore card games with roguelike elements, and when you reimagine the genre in this refreshing new format, it's positively thrilling.
Now, I can't say I've improved my brick-hurling skills throughout my many, many defeats, but that hasn't stopped me from wanting to repeat this vicious cycle over and over again.
The compelling loop is too irresistible at the moment - but if you ever find that you can't break free, you can always give the daily challenge a go for a once-a-day taste of the fort-breaking fun.
So, how do you play Castle V Castle?
There's a demo that's easily available to play for free on Steam at the moment, and while there's no official mobile release date yet, we do at least know that it'll be out later this year. Give it a go if you're eager to reduce your enemy to rubble, one brick at a time.