Castle Conflict is a simple strategy game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This app is very similar to “Merlin's Legacy” which we did a video review on not too long ago. The basis of this game is to collect resources and defeat the enemy castle.
When you first open the app, you are given the option to start a new game, continue a previous game, change the settings, or view the help screen. Tapping the “Help!” button will allow you to view all of the available units and their special abilities. Tapping an individual unit will reveal their name and what their special ability is.
To start a new game, tap on the “Start!” option on the main menu. The app will begin a very brief introduction and then launch you into a skirmish. The blue castle on the left is your castle to defend, and the red castle on the right is the enemy castle to attack. The blue and red health bars represent how much more damage you or the enemy's castles can receive. The green valley between the two castles is where ground units such as knights or lumberjacks travel in order to deal damage to the enemy. This valley is also where the trees grow, which you must send lumberjacks out to to collect in order to gain more resources. Your resources are represented by the number to the right of the tree next to your health bar. The enemy resources are also shown next to their health bar, which will allow you to calculate what kind of attack would be most effective on them. Each unit costs a certain amount of resources, which can be determined by the blue number under each individual unit.
If you run out of resources, you will have to wait until they are automatically replenished. As I have said before, each unit contains special abilities to defend, counter-attack, or attack the opposing forces. Lumberjacks collect resources, however they are easily vanquished if they are sent without other forms of ground support. Thieves too are also very weak, but can be useful as their job is to steal the resources from the enemy castle. Swordsmen are fast and are able to defeat each other as well as any lesser class. When two of the same type of attack units collide, both of them disappear. The knights are very slow, but are able to defeat swordsmen and other knights.
The mounted knight is the most powerful and the fastest of the ground units, destroying all lesser units and dealing a lot of damage to the opposing castle. The cannon is useful for quick attacks, or for blasting enemy air units out of the sky. The blimp is a small aircraft that flies into the opposing castle to inflict heavy damage. The bomber is a larger version of the blimp, but drops bombs as it flies to wreak havoc for the ground units below. The icon with a tree and the “X2” symbol will allow your resources to replenish twice as fast.
From the settings menu, which can be accessed by tapping “settings” on the main screen, you can tweak the type of game you would like to play. The game play elements you can change are: health pick up in game, the length of the game, the difficulty of the game, and how fast the trees grow.
What is really disappointing about this app is the lack of a multiplayer mode. All of the right elements are there to make this app truly amazing, but sadly falls short in terms of replay value. The graphics are similar to the ones found on the Super Nintendo, which works surprisingly well. This game is very fun, and it takes a lot of foresight and strategic planning in order to launch counter attacks and offensive strikes, all the while collecting more resources to fund those units. The three tiers of difficulty are great, but fighting another human being would be infinitely better. Considering all of this, I give this app a hesitant recommendation. At $1.99, I would gladly give my full recommendation if there was multiplayer, but seeing as there is no multiplayer, $1.99 seems to be asking a little bit too much. If you do not mind the lack of multiplayer, and would much rather face an AI, go ahead and pick this app up. As for the rest of you, I'd recommend waiting for a price drop, or passing on this app altogether.