It's going to be a quick hit this week, guys, because I'm being run a little bit ragged at work and while I didn't want to leave you hanging, I also didn't have time to dig into anything terribly epic. Lucky for me, though, I'm not being run as ragged as the knight you'll be controlling in this installment of Free and Worth Every Penny. Ohhhhhh no. That guy is having a really bad day.
Tiny Castle is a flash game by Nitrome, known for their pixel art and charmingly retro game design. Their work shows up over on Bytejacker on a regular basis (FYI, if you don't watch Bytejacker... you should watch Bytejacker), and with good reason: they make games that are usually easy to get into while providing a pretty high entertainment return on your time investment.
You'll take charge of a miniature knight, tasked with saving a damsel in distress from her imprisonment... or at least, that's how it's presented to you. She's trapped in a one-screen-high castle, and you need to make it to the top... or at least, that's how it's presented to you. I'm sure you're getting the idea: Tiny Castle is all about turning the tables on you as you play, and they do a good job of re-using the map in clever ways to keep you on your toes as you fight and puzzle your way through. It isn't a terribly long game, but it will probably take you longer than you initially assume it will based on your first few minutes with it.
This castle? It is full of lies.
Controls are tight and simple: arrow keys to move and jump, spacebar to swing your sword around. Enemies move based on simple patterns and frequently drop health refills when killed, so excessive combat difficulty shouldn't be a problem. What was a problem for me was a little too much emphasis on making the player guess which action would allow them to proceed; there were a couple of times when I definitely felt like Nitrome was padding the gameplay length by making me pick one of multiple directions to go with no guidance, and making me trek all the way back across the map if I guessed wrong.
In the end, though, that didn't keep me from finishing the game, and I'm glad it didn't. There's a charming atmosphere to the whole thing, with enjoyable background music (I have it going in the background while I write this, in fact) and some really excellent, detailed animation that was a pleasure to watch while I played. Having to figure the castle out anew each time it changed was a fun challenge, and the payoff at the end, while not exactly mind-blowing, at least earned the grin and chuckle that it was going for.
Tiny Castle is...
- perfectly suited to being a webgame; plays well in a small box, done within a lunch hour.
- full of some really top-notch pixel art and animation.
- occasionally frustrating in a bad way, but never for long.
- ultimately a forgettable diversion, but a pleasant one.
It'll play anywhere Flash does (sorry, new iPad owners, but it wouldn't really work on a touch screen anyhow), and you can check it out right over here.
"Free And Worth Every Penny" is a column I collaborate on with Mike Bellmore at Colony of Gamers. This piece also appears there.