Game Reviews

The Big Big Castle!

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| The Big Big Castle!
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The Big Big Castle!
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| The Big Big Castle!

Modern buildings are basically rubbish. The Big Big Castle! gets this. It understands that buildings that are well-ordered and sensible are no fun whatsoever, so rather than asking you to build with common sense it forces you to build using shapes that never quite fit together.

And on top of that it positions obstacles and rewards so as to tempt you to sacrifice structural integrity for something else.

Glinting golden coins entice you to stick out a buttress where no buttress should go, and floating servants hover nervously as they wait for you to rescue them from the effects of gravity.

King of the castle

Each level starts with a flat piece of ground and a string of bunting marking how high you need to build. At the top of the screen are four slots, which represent the four pieces of building material you have to play with.

You tap on one, put it in position, and it's replaced in the bar by a new one. Sometimes these pieces are helpful, letting you build uniform structures that laugh in the face of falling down. Other times, the pieces are explosives, or peasants, or just won't fit anywhere.

Then there are the coins, which you can use to buy upgrades in the shop, but you'll always find them hovering in the most awkward positions, tantalisingly out of reach of the extreme corners of your ziggurat.

Blocky

You can only break a set number of pieces per level, and once you run out you have to start building again. This is compounded by the lumps of masonry that often hover halfway up the screen, waiting for the slightest brush from another piece to come into play and smash to the ground.

Cannonballs pepper your construction, too, and what started off sedate becomes a desperate struggle to nudge a parapet over the line.

It's not all building, though - if things get a little too frustrating you can take to the Destroy menu and fire cannonballs and lasers at the creations of your friends and strangers.

Deliciously frustrating and wonderfully addictive, The Big Big Castle! is the perfect mix of creative thinking, mindless destruction, and that arcade urge to push on just a few feet higher.

The Big Big Castle!

Clever, experimental, and a little bit special, The Big Big Castle! tempers its frustration with bouts of crashing masonry and moments of joy as your teetering creation stands up for long enough to finish a level
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.