First Look: Castle Panic

Well, the time is almost upon me and the green skins are gathering amidst the trees. Thinking we cannot see them as we hurry our work upon the bastions along. The Panic will soon be upon us.

By which I mean that all being well, either tonight or tomorrow I will be taking my first shot at the tower defense come board game, Castle Panic. Carrying on the theme of firsts, I wanted to share my first impressions of the game with you all before even the first card is drawn.

As you have probably guessed from my previous posts, I LOVE the look of this game, and I had very high expectations of what was to come from the word go. Expectations that I can fairly say have been delivered upon from the moment I cracked open the box.

Unlike a lot of modern games that come with die-cut card components, the pieces in Castle Panic come pre-punched. Which is a big plus for me, as I have lost track of the countless hours (literally in the case of Descent 1st Edition) that I have lost popping games from their sprues before I could even entertain the idea of sitting down to look over the rule book. By which point I have usually given up the ghost and shelved the game for another day.

Looking over the interior of the box, I also notice that ample space has been left around the compartment designed for holding the games cards, so that if you wanted to protect them with card sleeves, you could and they'd still happily fit back in the box. That said, if you can't be bothered the space isn't so large that components are going to rattle around loose. That's good design!

All in all, I have to say that I think the folks over at Fireside Games have done a cracking job, with the only fall down points in the whole game being some of the simple typographical errors that have been overlooked, one of which can really mess with game balance if you happen to read it wrong. Which is a shame.

The error in question comes from the "Brick" and the "Mortar" cards, that both instruct you that if you have the other, you may play them both and build a wall. As the text is written however, it suggests that each card allows you to build a wall, instead of the two cards only giving you one wall. A small error but a significant one. The rules do clear this up but I still thought it was worth mentioning.

So there we have it. My first impressions are good, going on great. How will it all play out? Well there's only one way to find out!