Castle Panic Review

   Castle Panic is a fun filled co-op game that is great to play with both adults and kids, especially if they still need a little bit of help playing. The point of the game is to work together to try and save the castle from the monsters that are trying to break it down.

   Inside, there is a board that has six sections, two in each color. The outside ring is the Forrest. Then it is the Archer ring, Knight ring and the Swordsman ring. The castle towers and walls go in the middle section.

   Here are the Monster tokens, walls and tower pieces, plastic stands for your castle pieces and a deck of cards.

   The triangle pieces are called Monster Tokens. These are what you are playing against.

   There are four monster bosses. These tokens do different things such as: moving the Monster tokens closer and making you draw extra Monster tokens.

   There are also Special Monster tokens. These have you do things such as draw more Monster tokens, discard all of a certain type of card from your hand, move all monsters in a certain color or move them on the board.

   There is a Boulder token. If you draw this, roll the die. Whatever number is rolled is the number the Boulder rolls through. The Boulder keeps going until it hits either a wall, tower piece or a fortify wall. If there are Monsters in that section, they are all killed off. If there is nothing in the center to stop the boulder, it goes right through the middle and keeps going.

   The last type of Monster Tokens are the actual monsters. There are Goblins that have one life point, Orcs that have two life points and Trolls that have three life points. Each Monster token has the number of life points on it. The current number they have should be pointing at the Castle. If they get hit, turn it to the next number. If it is on a one and they get hit, they are removed from the game.

   There are two fortify wall pieces and a tar piece.

   There are a couple different types of cards. These are what you use to get rid of the monsters. There are many different ones that do special things such as moving a monster back, letting you draw extra cards and helping you to hit the monsters. Then there are the Archer, Knight and Swordsman cards. These either have red, blue or green dots around the name. The cards are used to hit the monsters in the corresponding color and ring. There are also Any Color Archers, Knights and Swordsman. These can be used in any of the colors. The Hero cards can be used for any ring of the corresponding color. Each card can only be used on one monster but you may play as many cards as you are able.

   There are Brick and Mortar cards. If you play these together, you can rebuild one wall and place it wherever a wall is missing. You can never rebuild the Castle towers.

   There is a Fortify Wall card. This lets you add a little token to the wall. This makes it so that the monsters have one more layer to get through before they can knock down your tower.

  There is also a Tar card. When you play this, you can place it on a Monster. This keeps him there during the monster moving phase for that turn.

   To set up, you will place your castle pieces in a ring around the center of the board with a wall in front of it. Then you will take three Goblin tokens, two Orc tokens and one Troll token. Place these randomly around the archer section below the numbers.

   Once the board is set up, pass out the number of cards depending on the number of players. The turns go as follows:

  - Draw cards until you are back up to the hand amount

  - You may discard and draw one card if you'd like

  - Trade cards with a fellow player. You may trade one card with one player unless you have six players, then you may trade two.

  - Play as many cards as you would like

  - Move all Monster tokens one ring closer to the castle. Monsters will keep moving forward until they are killed. If they are in the Swordsman area and are not killed, they will run into a wall or tower piece. When this happens, the wall or tower falls down and takes one life point from the monster that hit it. If there is no wall or tower piece, the monster moves into the tower circle and will move clockwise one space around the tower until it either knocks down all of the walls or is killed.

  - Draw two new monsters and play them in the order drawn. If they are a Monster, roll the die and place them on the number you roll in the Forrest area. These can not be hit until they are moved into the Archer ring unless they are hit by a Boulder.

  - Play continues clockwise

   If you roll the die and a number comes up that already has a Monster token on it, place it next to the monster that is already there. There is no limit to the number of monsters that can be on any section of the board.

   Once all of the monsters have been killed and taken off the board, if you have any pieces of the castle towers remaining, you win! If all of the Castle towers are knocked down, the game ends and the monsters have won.

   I think this game is a lot of fun and a great co-op game. You really have to work together to win at this one. There has been many times when it has been a close call or we have lost. It is also a great party game since you can play with up to six people. It's easy to learn and play so you won't use up all of your game night trying to explain it. It's also a great family night game!