Castle Panic

One of the great things about having boys is that, as they get older, you get a chance to relive your (misspent) youth as you introduce them to the geek way of life.  By way of example, let me show you the latest game that we have been playing.

Castle Panic

Castle Panic is a co-operative board game by Fireside Games.  The easiest way to describe it is to liken the game to a board game version of the tower defence games that seem to be so popular online these days.  in essence, you are the master of a castle under siege by the orc and goblin hordes.  If your tower still stands at the end of the game - you win.  Otherwise, you become fodder for the bellies of the neighbouring horde.

Getting ready to defend against the goblin horde

Part of the reason that I got this game in the first place is that its a co-operative game.  Currently, Gerry isn't really mature enough to handle losing so playing most normal board games with him just tends to result in an appearance of the Incredible Sulk.

Our princess - safely ensconced deep within our castle

The game is fairly simple and easy to learn.  The developer recommends an age of 10+ but it is actually playable by children of 6+ if you play with the easy variant and help them out a little with tactics.  The base game itself doesn't give you a whole lot of tactical depth but I hear that the Wizards Tower expansion corrects this.  Of course, when you are playing with kids, a simple game is actually a good thing.

Gordon rolling to see where the next monster shows up

The game is also quite well designed in that it brings out moments where you have the entire group all rooting for the same thing to happen.  In particular, one of the monster tokens is a boulder which flattens everything in its path on the way to taking out one of your castle walls.  When you have a ton of monsters in an arc and draw a boulder, the entire group starts to chant for the die to come up in the right number and conveniently help you take out a bunch of monsters.

My kingdom for a boulder!

Overall, Gerry and Gordon really enjoyed this game.  Its fun, easy to learn and really gets them pumped up every time they take out one of the invading monsters.

The dance of (minor) victory

More info

If you are looking for more info on the game, the developers website is found here.  You can also find more information about the game from Boardgamegeek here.

The Tabletop episode showing Castle Panic is also a good watch if you want to get a feel for how the game plays.