Edit: the GMS 1.4 export might give you virus false positive issues, so I exported it from GMS2 as well (after the deadline but with no changes; I was at work when the deadline passed), google drive link is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IFuxz4mGWrQc8RYQjnHhgKDrxBCAYG8f/view?usp=share_link

Build a castle with sufficient defenses while accounting for structural integrity; anything built above anything else weakens what's below it, but anything built next to anything else strengthens it, generally speaking. Plain walls are the strongest but don't fire on the enemy. Gates don't fire either, but if the enemy destroys all your gates you lose. Everything else can shoot arrows, some faster than others. The higher you build a thing, the further the enemy archers will have to walk to shoot at it.

Because that's what enemy archers do, they shoot at your defenses. Meanwhile their catapults will just aim at whatever. And the enemy melee infantry, and their battering rams, will attack your gates directly.

The game is controlled entirely by mouse. left click on a component to select it, then left click somewhere on your castle to add it. If it won't go, it isn't compatible with how you're trying to place it. Right click to cancel, or right click on a previously added component to remove it. Middle mouse button (or SHIFT if you don't have one somehow) to toggle the display of HP on your components.

I've made it to wave 16. How long can you survive?

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  • gyd geza
    Lv. 2

    I have successfully made it through ten waves. On a first glance, the way structure integrity is calculated doesn't realy make it worth building vertically, especially above gates, so I just ended up making a very long and flat building and replacing damaged pieces, which carried me through without much issues. Still had fun with it though!

  • Villany
    Lv. 6

    The concept is pretty cool, and I like the system for calculating the structural integrity. I unfortunately found that I never really used certain pieces like the towers and the roofs, but other than that, it was nicely balanced. The difficulty goes up very quickly, but that's how my games usually work as well so I enjoyed it. Great work.

    • Jaspo
      Lv. 16
      Jaspo Developer of Castle Builder

      11mos ago

      I spent a bit of time working on the difficulty scaling, ended up with a flattened exponential increase added to a base number based on how many pieces you could place that wave. If that makes any sense. Anyway its a lot better than it was at first. Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it!

  • Tydecon Games
    Patron

    A really interesting concept with some fun mechanics - it wasn't entirely clear why some blocks increased or decreased in health when I placed others next to them and some sort of gui interface to say what would happen and where I can build might have helped with that (perhaps something to consider for an update if you plan on doing that), but that aside I enjoyed this one and had a fun time building and defending my castle, good job :)

    • Jaspo
      Lv. 16
      Jaspo Developer of Castle Builder

      11mos ago

      I did address some of that in the game description but yes it would be better as gui, but you know, time constraints. Thanks for playing and participating and reviewing, I always enjoy checking out your submissions and playthroughs!

  • s7stringmadness
    Lv. 4

    Pretty fun little game! Other people pointed out that building vertically is a bit inefficient, but I didn't realize it on my first try. Needless to say I didn't last too long, but my castle was pretty awesome :) Nice job!

    Dystopic
    Submitted

    Dystopic

  • singleshot
    Lv. 43

    I streamed your game, https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1803296797?t=02h15m08s

    didn't really get what I was needed to do, so I just built a wall and got killed like a french noble would.

  • GoblinBoy
    Patron

    Designing your own personally castle is really fun, I'm a sucker for designing little bases. But as I've seen pointed out here builing vertically doesn't seem to have much value outside of it looking cool so I just ended up squeezing in as much dps horizontally as I could. Having some random generation or a couple of preset starter castles might have made for some interesting early problem solving.

    • Jaspo
      Lv. 16
      Jaspo Developer of Castle Builder

      11mos ago

      While its true that I wasn't able to add all the design nuances I would've liked due to time constraints, it is also true that the game was intended just as much as a creative sandbox as it was a min/max highscorefest. In other words, looking cool has considerable value too. But I had originally intended for increased height to result in more damage or more protection or both but neither range nor damage got fleshed out enough to accomodate that.

  • crazidev
    Lv. 2

    Fun concept! It's a neat idea to build around, but I think that verticality not really having a con to building to it and the rate of increase at the build cost makes for a very stale meta. When I got to wave 14 I was basically just doing remove and replace with the archer slit block - perhaps programming enemy behavior to aim for lower, less structurally integrable blocks would punish that kind of block spam?

    • Jaspo
      Lv. 16
      Jaspo Developer of Castle Builder

      11mos ago

      Yeah I wasn't able to implement a full robust system of features and tradeoffs within the time constraints. Had some ideas but no time so I had to settle for what could be accomplished.

  • COMRADECHOnKy
    Lv. 2

    The game is really fun. The concept seems fun. I think the game could be much better with better art and music

    • Jaspo
      Lv. 16
      Jaspo Developer of Castle Builder

      11mos ago

      Agreed. I worked a lot this weekend so I had only about one day total to work on the game, so I had to cut as many other corners as possible to get the core game experience included fully. The music was certainly the fastest composition I've ever done, I did it at the very end, and I was fortunate that it turned out as good as it did; it could've easily been a complete dumpsterfire instead...I'll give it a junior high band concert out of 10 at least.

  • Xor
    Lv. 4

    Neat concept! Flat bases seem to work much better than vertical bases. I wish there was a way to place a bunch of the same pieces quickly (like holding control to place multiple)

    • Jaspo
      Lv. 16
      Jaspo Developer of Castle Builder

      11mos ago

      Thanks! Yeah I was noticing that the need to click on the desired part every time was definitely the game's weakest link, but ran out of time to improve upon it. Thanks for playing!