Year: 2009 (new edition in 2022) | Players: 1-6 | Minutes: 60+ | Ages: 10+
This Castle Panic review was made after playing the game eight times.
What is Castle Panic?
Castle Panic is a cooperative castle defense game created by Justin De Witt and published by Fireside Games.
You and your teammates have just finished building your castle in the woods, surrounded by fire, water and forest. Once you have completed your castle, goblins, trolls and orcs begin attacking. The goal of Castle Panic: Defend the castle from the bad guys and save as much of the castle as possible!
Castle Panic Rules Overview
The area around your castle is divided into three arcs. The arcs each have three zones that can be targeted by your archers, knights or swordsmen.
Each turn, the active player chooses which areas to defend. The players must draw and trade cards in order to make sure that the active player has the resources that they need to defend the tower. At the end of each player’s turn, the monsters on the board will get closer and two new monsters will show up.
The common monsters take 1-3 hits to destroy. There are also some special monsters that make the game quite a bit tougher. When you’re drawing new monsters, you could end up drawing one of the special effect tokens, which alter the board state in one way or the other.
If the monsters are able to get through the walls and completely destroy the castle, all of the players lose. If the players are able to work together to take down all of the monsters, then everyone wins!
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Pros and Cons
Pros
- Castle Panic’s theme comes through so well in this game and it’s a theme that just about anyone can get into. You really do feel like you’re in your castle trying to fight off a bunch of nasty monsters.
- Castle Panic requires good cooperation, which is obviously something that I’m hoping for from these types of games. There is no way to play only for yourself or you will have a very low chance of winning. It does a really great job of creating a truly cooperative set of mechanics.
- Those boss monsters are great. They all have unique and super-powerful abilities, forcing players to come up with ways to work together to take them down.
- I appreciate that they have included a way to play where any time a player kills a monster, they keep the monster’s token. This allows the players to name a Master Slayer at the end of the game, and provides the chance for some competition and a kind of “winner” at the end of a cooperative game. Some players will think that this could be a bad thing in a co-op board game, but others will like having the option. I like it having the option because some people in my group like that type of thing.
- Castle Panic is also a game that plays equally well at every player count. If you’re looking for board games for big groups, this would be a good one to pick up.
- I really appreciate how clearly the Castle Panic rules are laid out in the rulebook. It makes the game very easy to learn and just as easy game to teach.
Cons
- There is a pretty high luck factor in Castle Panic. You could get really lucky with your monster pulls, your dice, and your card draws early on, making the rest of the game a breeze. You can also get very unlucky.
- Players who are interested in deeper games or high levels of combat will probably not be very interested in Castle Panic. You really don’t have to put much thought into your turns, especially if you’ve played games like this before. My group is usually four or five adults who have played plenty of board games, so this one is a bit too light to play regularly. (Update: The Castle Panic expansions definitely helped beef the game up a bit.)
Final Thoughts
If you like tower defense games and are looking for a great cooperative board game for the family, you will probably get a kick out of Castle Panic. It has a very straightforward design and it’s just a lot of fun fighting off those monsters!
To me, Castle Panic is easily one of the best family games around.
- Update: Check out our Castle Panic expansions review!
- Update 2: Castle Panic is now on our Best Cooperative Board Games list!
- Update 3: It was also added to our Best Easy Board Games list!
Castle Panic Links
BGG | Amazon | Miniature Market
Thanks for taking the time to read our Castle Panic board game review!
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