Castle Story is a downloadable game, and another title created in a recently popular voxel design. The game is a representative of the RTS genre. It’s a blend of war strategy in a dynamic world similar to that of Minecraft. The goal of the game is a successful defense of a special crystal. In order to achieve this, the player needs to build castles and entrenchments, They have to stop the invaders from destroying the crystal. The studio behind the game is Sauropod Studio and Castle Story is their first commercial project. The game was released on 17 August 2017 and is available for PCs running Windows.
How to Download Castle Story
The game can be downloaded from the Steam platform.
How to Play
The storyline of the game is a bit vague and is definitely not set in stone. The plot takes place on the islands that drift in the air and which are build of voxel blocks. Such construction of the world makes allows the player to reshape it with ease. The developers let us dig, create tunnels, mine for resources, build trenches, and cut wood. The gameplay is mostly focused on castle building. Then our strongholds have to be defended. The player plays as a warlord who issues orders to his subjects – the Bricktrons. It’s thanks to their hard work that the structures we think of are raised and the new areas explored. The devs implemented a few modes of play into Castle Story, including the well-known survival mode in which the gameplay is not so freeform.
Each stronghold, before it is built, has to be designed. In the design stage, we have to take into account the location of our structure and the natural conditions which can be advantageous in our defensive project. Before we come to the execution of our plan, first we need to gather all the necessary resources.
The Game Mechanics
The mechanics of the game and the process of castle building are quite intricate. Our goal is to plan the scaffolding, the elevator system, the bridges, and the stairs because our little subjects need routes to follow. Once we finish the construction of our structure, the opposing army appears on the map. Since then our goal is to put or defenses to the test.
Castle Story puts a lot of stress on planning and effective defense in real time. The fighting system is designed in an interesting way and so is crafting. We can create long-range units – the archers and also those for hand-to-hand combat – the knights. Before we strategically put our units on the walls of our castle, first we need to produce arms.
The graphics engine in Castle story is the famous Unity engine. The colorful graphics and the cartoon models of the in-game characters make the game pleasant to the eye. The voxels in the game (the counterparts of pixels in a 2D environment) make the world easy to modify as each of the small elements can be edited, deleted, or moved. The physics engine in the game allows for the real-time calculations of how the decisions of the player affect the world.
Castle Story – the Game Guide
The following guide has been created for the players new to the game of Castle Story. The goal is to make the player familiar with Castle Story and to facilitate the first steps in the game. We will show the most important game mechanics and techniques in the game. If you’re a beginner to the game or if you want to broaden your knowledge of Castle story, don’t hesitate and dive in.
Game Controls in Castle Story
The first and arguably the most important aspect of the game is the control system. The camera is set on the map and we can freely move it and turn. In order to do so, we need to use the middle mouse button. Besides that, we can rotate the view with the WSAD keys and zoom in or out with the help of the mouse wheel.
Harvesting for Resources in Castle Story
Castle Story is centered on gathering or resources, castle building, and, of course, fighting. The first step to make is to get to know all the types of the blocks and the methods of obtaining them. When harvesting the resources, we need also a place to store them. That’s what the Stock Box is for – our storage facility.
Stock Box is built from wooden blocks. In order to obtain wood, we need to find forests. To cut a tree, one needs to open the commands menu. This is the place in the left lower corner of the screen. Then we choose the command responsible for woodcutting. Afterward, the area on the map needs to be chosen. The area for woodcutting can be smoothly enlarged or made smaller. To do that we use the yellow circle which is visible on the game screen. The command is accepted with the green checkmark placed in the lower left corner. After this confirmation, we can watch our minions running to cut the wood.
The next step is to create a place for the lumberjack. Preferably in the close vicinity of the woodcutting area – we don’t want to unnecessarily transport the wood for long distances. The guy will be able to cut the wood into smaller pieces. To achieve this goal we again open the commands menu, choose the necessary objects and from the list, we select Chopping Block. Then we choose the Produce Plank command. Once we have the planks in abundance, we can finally build our storage. Once again we enter the commands menu and this time we look for Stock Box. Our storage is built.
The blocks are represented by semitransparent cubes. In order to start building, we need to confirm our wishes with the green checkmark. We should remember about it every time. When building storage, or any structure for that matter, we need to account for the fact that the blocks can be put in place by clicking and by dragging. The second option after some practice is more comfortable when larger structures are considered.
The production of wood can be stopped at any time if we think we have enough. For that, we click on Chopping Block and choose Stop command marked with a crossed circle.
Another important resource in Castle Story is stone. There are three ways of obtaining it. The first method is to get it from separate stones scattered n the ground. The second options is to dig underground tunnels in the rocks. The last option is to dig in the ground and create a sort of open-cast mine. The first method is similar to the woodcutting process. We issue commands in a similar fashion. Digging tunnels is a bit more complicated. We choose the appropriate command and we place the entrance to our mine in the spot of our choice. Then by dragging and dropping, we set the direction in which we want to dig. It can be changed at any moment by dragging again. We also decide whether we want to dig up or down.
In order to change the direction vertically or horizontally, we use the up, down, left, and right arrows. In the case of the third method, we also mark the area of the ground which we want to remove in order to search for stone. Again we choose the relevant command then we determine the size of our mine. Also, we can decide to build stairs in our trenches. We simply drag them where we want them to be.
When digging for stone our miners will often find other resources. These may come in handy in later stages of the game. Besides the two basic resources (the wood and the stone) we also have the rare ones, which are required for the creation of some items. First, we have plants that are used in the production of ropes. Then we have sulfur and iron ores, which can be used in ironwork. The manner in which the resources are gathered is identical in each case.
Besides the commands that are used to gather the respective resources, there is also one that allows for collecting all the resources available in the area. it can be particularly useful if we want to quickly receive the components for raising our castle.
The last important thing we should know at this stage is how to get new workers. We invoke them with the crystal. Each unit, however, needs time to be created. We get information about its readiness by observing the crystal. If a yellow is circling around it, it means that the crystal is ready. Then we click on it and we choose the unit we need. In order to accelerate the process, we can intercept new undiscovered yet crystals.
Castle Story – the Building Process
Now it’s finally time for building. If we already have the necessary amount of the gathered basic resources, we can start to transform them into materials required to raise our proud structure. The most rudimentary building component in Castle Story is brick. In order to produce brick, one needs to combine 80 collected stones which we get in the manner described above. When we have all we need, we start to build. We select the relevant menu for this task and we open the building panel to choose the blocks that we need. The blocks and the structures are placed by clicking or dragging, which we also described above. For example, if we want a wooden structure, we simply choose the menu with the wooden elements in it.
When building a castle wall we need to remember to put the bricks in such a way that they overlap. Thus when opponents hit our wall it does not collapse easily. To place a door or a window we need to remove blocks from our wall and then choose the element we need from the menu.
The goal of the game is the defense of the crystal and this has to be taken into account when planning the fortifications. Our builders have limited skills as far as building tall structures go. Without special equipment, they can only put one block over the first one. In order to make building castles possible we need to provide them with scaffolding systems which will enable them to climb upon. Thus we construct stairs from wood and stone which can be removed when the construction is finished.
Each selected element of our castle needs the required number of resources. If our loyal subject doesn’t want to build one and it is still semi-transparent, we need to click on it with a mouse and check how many resources we still need. The Bricktrons will finish their work once we give them the materials.
Fighting in Castle Story
The last gameplay element in Castle Story is the fight in defense of our crystal. In order to effectively defend and attack, we will need an army, and the army will need armament. To this end, we need to construct a special place in which we will create arms for our soldiers. From the commands menu, we choose the Structure menu and in our castle, we place weapons racks. It’s worth placing a forge in the neighborhood which will produce iron necessary for the production of weapons. Next, to the forge, we should poot the loom and the workbenches for other artisans. They will be helpful in the creation of ropes, bows, and arrows. The smithy will produce the sets for the knights. The last bench will serve as a place for the creation of siege engines, which will be necessary for the final stages of the game, where it will be us putting sieges to the enemy castles. When the racks will be filled with the complete arm sets, it’s enough to click on a worker, then on a rack and the little guy will be equipped. If we reverse the process we will make him a worker again.
This is the end of MadDownload’s Castle Story Guide. We hope that now you are familiar with the game mechanics and can move on and play to win.
