#35: Castle Keep

Castle Keep

• designer: Richard D. Reese
• publisher: Gamewright
• date: 2005
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: 2325/6.07
• age: 8+
• # of players: 1-4
• print status: in print
• cost: $8.95 (FairPlay Games)

The age range is wrong - my son was playing this as a five year old & doing reasonably well. As a 7 year old, he razes my castle like a professional siege expert.

And that's the point - this simple card game (yeah, I know they use cool chunky tiles, but it's really a card game) is all about building your castle and/or destroying your opponent. Both paths to victory can work.

Each turn, you draw 2 tiles, play as many as you want to... then discard down to four tiles. You have four kinds of plays you can make:

• you can play walls - they come in three colors & three shape patterns and must match the tower they are placed next to in shape or color
• you can play towers - just like walls, they come in three colors & three shape patterns & must match the walls they are placed next to in one of those elements
• you can play a keep - they come in three colors & must match one other tile present in the castle... these are the center pieces of your castle
• you can attack one other player with an exact match tile (which destroys the tile & any other wall/tower tiles connected to it that are the same color) or even their keep, though you'll need 2 identical keeps to blow it away

There is, of course, one exception - when your opponent is down to just his keep, 1 identical tile can put him out of his misery.

The first player to destroy another player OR build his full 9-tile castle wins the game. That's it.

Here's why this ends up on the Kid Games 100:

• it plays quickly & cleanly
• the components are top-notch & kid-friendly
• the dual victory conditions teach kids tactical planning & defense
• there are a variety of variants (including a solitaire variant) included in the rules
• it's fun

One warning - 3 & 4 player games can drag a bit if players aren't playing quickly. Especially with 4 players, you can end up playing "King of the Mountain" as the other three players work to pull down the leader's castle. However, the game has a built-in way to slow this behavior with the "destroy one castle" victory condition - it doesn't make sense to weaken an opponent too much if another player can then eliminate them & win.