CatchaPrince

Unless you’re a character from a historical novel or you move in extremely exclusive social circles, it's highly unlikely that you'll ever find yourself in the position of having to fend off a herd of desperate princesses.

Such situations are usually the stuff of dreams, but for one prince it’s a genuine reality. And not the good kind of dream.

Tower defence game CatchaPrince isn’t quite a nightmare, but its one-dimensional nature and lack of options means that it adds little to an already crowded scene.

Royal nightmare

The predicament that our hero finds himself is the result of years of conflict following from the devil’s attack on a world composed of seven kingdoms. The princes of six of these kingdoms attempted to defeat the devil, but were unsuccessful and lost their lives.

The seventh prince, however, defeated the devil and seemingly restored peace to the realm. But the princesses, who had already been changed by the devil’s corrupting influence, are intent on claiming the last remaining prince in the world.

So the prince takes the only rational, mature, and gentlemanly course of action available: he locks himself in a tower to guard against the princesses and their minions. His main weapon is his bow, from which arrows can be fired by touching and holding the screen in the desired direction. The prince is unable to defend the tower alone, and so he's joined by three faithful companions. Robin Hood is, unsurprisingly, an archer; Jeina is a white mag; while Aragon is a knight wielding a sword. Castle crashers

Each ally has a different range and can be used in a different section of the battlefield. Once deployed (by dragging) the allies will fight for a period before returning to the tower to recharge their batteries.

The action takes place in five different worlds, where you overcome waves of enemies before taking on a princess. Should you let your tower take too much damage the game will be over and you will have to restart from scratch.

Given that the hero is the weakest of the characters, the main strategic aspect of the game is to use your allies efficiently to survive. Your allies receive experience as they fight, which enables you to level-up and become more powerful.

The prince himself does not level-up, but can be strengthened by using coins acquired during battle on new equipment. Such items can be bought from the shop after each wave, but they're expensive and lost when you're conquered.

Final siege

The colourful graphics and sprite-like characters give the game good cheer, but that's not enough to prevent it from growing stale.

The combat itself isn’t bad, as it combines the challenges of using your prince’s bow and positioning your allies simultaneously. However, the difficulty is steep, and without the ability to save or select your stage it's unlikely that your patience will see you through to the climax of the campaign, even if your ability level is sufficient.

A lack of such options means that repeatedly negotiating each world, without the experience and equipment acquired from each playthrough, is a joyless and exhaustive process.

While an update to remedy this problem is promised, it’s difficult to recommend CatchaPrince in its current form.