Castle Panic

'There might come a day where we don't crush Orcs, BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY!'

Type: Strategy / Board
Players: 2 to 4

Time to explain to others: About 5 min

Time to play: About 30 minutes, possibly bit more

Difficulty: To play 3/10, Game difficulty 6/10

Portability: Medium (Loads of cards) and tokens
Overall: 9/10

Once upon a time, there was a mighty castle in a clearing, in the middle of a forest. Then one day, a horde of rampaging Orcs, Trolls and Goblins burst out of the undergrowth and attacked! (The reasons behind their grievances were not registered. Possibly a political disagreement, mayhap a border dispute). There's scores of them, and they are very angry.

And here the game begins. You assemble a little castle (6 towers, surrounded by 6 bits of wall) in the middle, and then, each turn, you take a number of triangular pieces from a bag, to represent our nasties jumping out of the forest. Each turn, more nasties spawn, the already in play ones advance one level towards the castle.... And then you have to kill them. 

You have a number of cards in your hand, of three types: Swordsman (hits in circle closest to castle), Knights (hits 2nd circle out) and Archers (hits furthest circle). Each of these types has 3 colours, representing the three arcs on the clearing, Blue, Green and Red. So to hit a hostile say, in the second circle out, on the blue third of the circle, you'd need a Blue Knight. Most of your enemies will need more than one hit to die. 

At this point, I hear you cry at the screen: 'But Rui! It's too much! 3 arcs and 3 circles, that's 9 sectors! Statistically there is no way you can have THAT ONE card you need! IT CAN'T BE DONE!' But wait! All is not lost! Castle Panic is a cooperative game through and through, if you don't have the card you need to kill the closest enemy, you can trade cards with another player. 'Does anyone have a Green Knight or Swordsman??? Now-ish would be good!!!' 

(I heard recently that the game's difficulty drops dramatically if you play with 4 players, as someone is bound to have THAT card you need. I've never played with more than 3, but I would recommend drawing less cards, or only drawing on alternate turns)

Some nasties randomly spawned will be specials (tougher to kill, different powers to other nasties), but some of your cards will also be more powerful. If you kill them all and there is ANY part of the castle still standing you win, Otherwise....

Rui's conclusion: The game is fast, funny and non stop fun. Really good strategy games for young'uns, people that like shouting at board pieces, or people that like to have inane amounts of fun for 30 minutes. Highly recommended.