► WTF Is... - CastleStorm ?
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- TotalBiscuit takes a look at a recently released 2D physics destruction/tower defense brawler from Zen Studios.
Get it on Steam: bit.ly/1bFHbdO
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I'm sure he's already noticed by now, but in case anyone is turned off by how the editor is presented here, the reason you can put stuff in the sky is so you can plan out the supports afterward. You don't have to tear down your castle. Just select rooms and trash 'em, then replace with what you need. There's an option to "test castle" to see how your layout works. It's like Jenga, only... not.
may i just say one thing? this game is 1000000000000000% better because of the Music. the Music was made by waterflame. and he's more than awsome, check him out.
Age of war POG
You can edit a lot in the castle to make all kinds of defense options. You just played it like a noob is all. Put up a ton of rock walls on one side, keep your primary rooms to the bottom left. You choose priority by keeping the rooms you want most buried under others.
As far as the editor being 'fiddly' you just can't click on graph paper. Because you never used it before. Use the bottom left square as your anchor point. Not that difficult to get.
a review is a full outlook on a game, this is an impression on what the game has given him early on.
With this game coming out on Switch it just felt like the right time to watch TB's video on it again
You got that right :)
In defence of the game allowing you to build rooms in the sky, it probably does that so you can place a room and then place supporting architecture under and around it to make it part of your castle.
There's a TEST MODE button in the editor which would have let you see if your design was stable or not without having to actually play a real level.
Click ''TEST MODE'' in the castle editor to enable physics. You can also use the ballista to see how strong your castle is.
get your hero out and use the 3 basic moves you know
story of my sex life
TB there is the option, when looking at your castle, to cycle through all available pre-built castles, each different one adds your available bonus rooms....the screen at 6:28, click the arrows, they're nicely hidden.
This game is definitely silly at times BUT it is alot of fun
@all of the people complaining about this review
If you have seen any of his other videos, he mentions the same types of things on EVERY game.
Also, these reviews are for people who haven't purchased the game, and want to get opinions about it. Opinions (being a plural word) means looking at multiple different reviews.
Multiple (rather recent) comments are complaining that he "wasn't professional"
Really? You honestly think it's not professional to have an honest first impression on something that is fairly important to a lot of pc gamers? (Like the graphics options, or lack there of)
Tl:Dr
TotalBiscuit knows what he's doing.
personally I like the idea of having more freedom in a game (castle placement) even if it has unwanted consequences in certain circumstances. In a day and age with so much hand holding in games (especially RPG's) I think it's a breath of fresh air to be given the choice to fail or succeed.
Currently 66% off on Steam for those interested.
And yet it lets you save with that still being the case.
There are plenty of games that let you do stuff like that but will warn you before you finalise it. The game lacks that. Letting you do something like that is indicative that the editor was something of an afterthought.
The Mass Effect remark was so very true. Anybody who played as much multiplayer as I did on ME3 will know how hard it was to revive an ally, you had to learn to subconsciously time your button press prior to arriving at the downed teammate.
The castle editor actually looks really fun to me
He should have played more from the campaign... Actually, MOST of the levels put you against another castle, there are even bosses from time to time. I've never played it multiplayer yet and already put around 5 hours into it. The campaign is nice and long, you even get to play as vikings. I really like this game!
I was yelling "Test your castle!"
TotalBiscuit did NOT have a stick up his ass. This is not a let's play it is a critical assessment. If you wanted to see a youtuber playing a game and praising everything to do with it then a let's play is for you. A critical assessment instead is here to inform you about what is desirable and what is undesirable concerning the item evaluated. TB does this remarkably well, in fact I believe that he is one of the gaming industries best critics. He does his job incredibly well because almost everything he says is backed up with evidence and always very well explained, he tells is why he is at a certain opinion and will show us how the feature is detrimental or well fitting to the game. Furthermore he is not afraid to give criticism, which is rare to find in youtube reviewers. This is why when I want to see whether a game is worth buying(I prefer to play a game rather than watching some random person play it) I will see whether there is a WTF video on it.
Wasn't there a flash game with almost identical music, the aim of the game was to throw wave after wave of your units against someone else's castle directly opposite to you on a 2d path,. You also had to spend your resources now progressing technology and adding tower defence. Wish I could remember the name...
I think you really need to acknowledge or use the "test" piece to the castle editor. It's instant and allows you to see what is valid, not to mention it just lets you destroy your own castle which is just fun. I didn't have a lot of issues with the editor, except how selecting and moving pieces is kind of buggy and wacky and selecting a custom castle in skirmish is a bit broken. Outside of that this was a good WTF. I especially agree that it's sad how skirmish is completely locked up.
best part of the video is the football field in the background, on the hill with trees in it
I'm not 100% sure because of the pronunciation of the last consonant. But now i have a idea and an answer i can live with, so thanks!
While the castle building is indeed janky, you don't have to rebuild your castle every time you want to add a room. You can demolish rooms in the middle temporarily and then insert the new room. Also of note, the default castle has a LOT of space taken by structural stuff that you can just replace. I agree that it's a little weird, but I'm so willing to forgive the game. It's just...ridiculous fun.
Buy merch like t-shirts when they're available, a great way to support your favourite UA-camrs :)
well now that he says it, I can understand how someone might hear it that way. the was "EPIC" is said makes it sound like a few other words as well. kind of like "enhanced eyes" in Dishonored sounding like a number of things as well, and example of which is "god's dice"
revenue is also gained based on when somebody skips an ad after five seconds, when they watch a full ad, and when they actually click on the ad. each nets more money than the previous, but he gets no money if an ad is not played. it's why adblock is bad.
I've already sunk 7hrs into this game, I love it. All the modes in thier own way are great and getting most/all unlocks only takes a few hrs, less if you skip dialog and race through each level and don't replay them.I haven't tried MP yet, I'm still going through all the single player modes :)
Welcome to the internet. A guy like that would never even dare to talk to you in real life but here he can be someone.
Because the game stops you from placing rooms if they wont work in other ways but for some reason acts like it's fine to place them in the air. It should have been easy enough to also stop rooms from being placed in the air. While it might seem minor a small change by the developer could have prevented anyone from thinking that the floating rooms were ok.
With TBs love for Warhammer 40k, I would not be surprised if he published WTF is Space Hulk without your request.
I have often heard of castles in the sky, but have never before seen one constructed.
I think this would be a great mobile game without the hero mechanic! Just think, castle editor and troop spawning would work perfectly on touchscreen and scrolling the screen and tapping to shoot ballista would also be pretty cool. It just seems line it was made for touchscreens.
this comment chain could have been much shorter if it had opened with that. as your comment is clear and explains it very well.
Obviously didn't watch past the first 5 minutes of the video.
I go into every video with an opinion, these are not done blind.
you can take a premade castle if your bored with the castle editor
when you unlock new rooms new premade castles will be unlocked too to get these new rooms ready
This looks like a game I'd buy on the app store.
Well the game should be designed to tell you "hey, this won't work, you can't just place floating things" instead.
And yes.. He went into the game already with some knowledge of it because he played a few levels before as he mentioned.
Didn't you notice in the My Castle screen instead of manually adding your own rooms after each level you can just choose a new unlocked prefab castle with the arrows above the castle ? You can unlock up to 16 prefab castles to choose from which saves you the hassle of upgrading it yourself.
Of course if you want to you can go nuts with the castle editor. But I also think the editor works to unintuitive / slow on pc.
Every level in the campaign unlocks a new castle with the new buildings. Customizing your castle every level seems pointless. Just choose the new castle layout after every campaign mission, once you finish the campaign customize to your liking with everything unlocked.
Fortunately he already made a 20 minute video for that. Though that 5 second version might have much more impact.
trust me - he will do a wtf. He's a HUGE 40k lore nerd.
Games with 2D movements and 3D graphics are what I like to refer to as 2-and-a-half-D.
Picked this up yesterday, I was really surprised how fun it is, surpassed my expectations.
No, i haven't nor do i have any intention to play it. Its a castle defense game, adding a physics destruction element. Castle Defense games have been around along time. I've seen now 2 different half hour long videos on it. With an average of 4minutes per round, i am not sure i'd even call it a real game. If you enjoy this type of game, there are flashgames that do every aspect of this game just as well if not better, and it doesn't cost you a dime.
as he said in content patch, theres an embargo, which means he can't make a video on it until it lifts, which is why no one is doing a first impressions for it.... He said there will be a video out as soon as it lifts.
I would've liked to see this as an episode of WifeTF. Like one of the earlier episodes where you showed another tower defense game. I think it would've showed in your words the best part of the game well.
Not completely invalidating them, it still never taught how to use the editor, or the fact that floating rooms don't work yet allow you to edit them and save them that way. The only thing different is it doesnt let them use them that way.
The enemy get a ballista 1-2 missions after the mission you're playing in this video. Its pretty easy at the start, but the missions only gets harder and harder, its pretty challenging later on.
No he just does everything. If he didn't then we might be an indie game and find out it's crap or ignore a smaller title and find out it's actually amazing!
Except that you're wrong. He gets ad revenue, but he also gets paid by UA-cam just for supplying content. If someone doesn't see the ad, he still makes a bit of money from UA-cam. If someone /does/ see the ad, then he still gets paid from UA-cam as well as the revenue from the ad.
I honestly can't find in this video were theres a big button to reset your castle. I looked on every screen in regards to the castle and can't find it... so what are you people complaining about?
"massive gate, i should use that" guess he changed his mind
Recettar is not a new game so that will probably not happen. However Tb has mentioned that he has played Recettar and found it very enjoyable.
Imagine if Starcraft worked like that. You can only play Terran until you complete the campaign! And you probably want to at least complete a few missions, unless you only want to build marines.
Sometimes these kinds of decisions makes me wonder if the developers ever think through their designs, or if they just decide that they can't be arsed to remake it.
There’s a place in my mind
No one knows where it hides
And my fantasy is flying
It’s a pantry in the sky
good bonus objective, in order to complete this objective you need to not ignore 1/3 of this game
Wow just wow at that comment. You know WTF Is... is a first impressions series. I'm pretty sure you can get a good first impressions after playing five levels of a game, whether the levels be a minute or an hour.
First impressions are everything.
Yes.
Because WTF is, is a first impressions that is heavily opinionated, but gets across the first part of the game to show what it is, and if the viewer likes it, then it's up to them
I don't like how you discard the castle building without even haveing built a single castle. The castle building aspect actually looks kind of fun. Also they have a physics engine. So it makes sense that buildings in the sky will fall down and die. Why would you artificially restrict that?
This game looks very much like Sword & Soldiers which was a Wii online game? It was a great game by the way with some very good quality sound and a bit of cartoony humour.
there's a test mode on the editor for a reason TB :/ if you place something that defies physics in a semi physics game I think it's totally fair for them to punish you for it, I normally use the "floating" mechanic to align buildings underneath it with minimal structure usage :) I'd get annoyed if I had to rebuild it ground up each time just because I left one square over.
Fair enough. Wouldn't mind him mixing it though, instead of going small indie after small indie after small indie...
Yep, lets tolerate the mistakes in games. Over the road Big Rigs racing is an ok game, you just have to ignore the lack of AI, game modes, physics, objects that aren't just painted on and that you just drive through, the inability to loose, the fact that the bridges or houses are just there for decoration, and you just drive through them, like they were made of mists. But remember, tolerate mistakes in games!
You unlock the Norse kingdom once you get near the end of the game
Well, since Mighty Quest dropped their Bling Upgrades, i know where i'll build my castle!
I'd assume that's what he meant, considering he saw it was locked and went on to talking about having to unlock stuff during the campaign.
i like the idea of a PvP demolition 2D game way too much
someone needs to do a game of that
If you don't like the editor why do you use it, Totalbiscuit?
The custom castles are good enough as it is and if you really want a specific kind of troop or room, you just shortly go into the editor click on a room and change him into something else. It's pretty fast and not hard. I think your comment on how long it takes to prepare for a battle wasn't good. The game gives you the option of just doing one battle quickly after the other, if you don't use it it's your fault.
Actually, you're wrong. First of all, he gets paid by TGS (now Polaris) based on how many ad views he gets. If someone uses, say, adblock, he will not get paid for that view.
I agree, maybe if they take more time and polish it up a bit there might be some hope for this.
You understand that big name channels (like Total Biscuit) make money from being partnered with YT. He uploads a video, it gets a bunch of views, YT pays him for bringing in the viewers. It's entirely separate from the revenue ads net.
I know I know I know, But he said he was going to look into it, and I meant it more as a 'I wonder if TB is going to do a video on it'. I really don't expect him to see the comment anyways :')
Thanks for the quick reply!
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Multiple people have said it, TB assumed nothing, he was complaining that he had to go through the campaign to unlock it.
This reminds me a ton of a flash game called Bowmaster Prelude. That game was sooo freaking fun! Might pick this game up just because of the strong similarities.
For games that progress slowly, they are first impressions.
I was surprised how fun it is. It's a lot more 'hectic' to play the game than you would think from watching the vids.
Epic, I believe it's from an old podcast TB used to do
You can go into the settings and disable AdBlock on specific websites, like UA-cam.
Well, not a lot of originality here in the game idea department; Age of War, Crush the Castle, and Bowmaster combined basically become this title.
Visually the game does look quite good, but don't know if it is distinct enough for me to justify buying it when there are free flash games so similar.
I can tell tb didn't play this enough to understand how to build rooms in the castle
The graphics in this game are actually really good.
It basically is. Just because he says its not, does not mean it really isn't.
Also the ballista has the sound of a watchtower firing
TB should upload a 5 seconds video where the only thing he says, with a dark and deep voice, is "I take no ...requests.".
*looks at comments* I'm surprised TB doesn't do a yogscast and disable comments altogether because THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!
missed the part were you can test your castle build before saving it ^_-
Have to agree - there is a reason the 'test' button is there - to stop stuff like that happening.
you know with you saying this game has physics I was expecting the floating rooms to fall onto your castle and damage it.
yes I was almost done catching up to your other 72 videos I've missed while away for the summer :P
he gets complaints if he does big titles, he gets complaints when he does lesser known ones.
Definitely.
Great game, by the way. If the graphics style hadn't made it so cramped, it would be a true classic. (Bowmaster prelude, that is.)
I usually don't play these types of games but I highly recommend ruse just because of the mindset and strategy
"You have probably played something like it on Newgrounds."
I was already thinking about Storm the Castle 3...
Aswell as the fact that there hasnt been any triple a titles released recently.
"I build something that defies gravity in a physics based game and it didn't work, therefore it's stupid." Also with the complaining about the editor size. It limits the number of rooms you can add, adding a bit more strategy to building your castle. Also he completely missed the "Test Castle" button. Not saying this is the best game ever but he didn't do it justice.
Who turns off ad block when watching TB's vids. I DO!
I've been looking forward to playing this for a year.