Becastled review: a fun and immersive strategy game

Adam Buck
Oct 12
3 min read

Looking for a fun, easy-going fantasy strategy game? Then Mana Potion Studios' game Becastled is your next all-day immersive adventure.

In Becastled, you build a castle to survive against waves of enemies that come every night. Build your defenses, manage your resources, explore and expand your territory.

How long can you survive?

Becastled is a fun survival strategy game with a high fantasy theme. Different types of maps are randomly generated, or you can make your own map. For my first play-through, I went with the Castle on the Hill map generator.

Sure enough, in the center of the map was a large hill to begin building my castle.

Downside, there was no tutorial, so it took me a minute to figure out the game mechanics. The text was very small, so I had to lean in close a few times to be able to read. My partner even warned me that I was using bad posture while playing, but laughed after I told her why.

You start with a few resources and villagers at your disposal. The player collects wood and stone, then constructs buildings and assigns villagers to tasks. There were some starting soldiers and archers to help defend my newly built castle and resource buildings.

Once you have gathered enough resources, you can expand your castle by capturing adjacent territories. But you need to be smart. I found out the hard way that I players can only capture new territories a few times in a day. I had to wait until after the enemy wave came and then continue my glorious expansion.

To be able to expand my castle, gain new resources, and provide enough food, I had to upgrade my technology tree.

This allowed me to build walls, towers, new military units, upgrade buildings, and more. This tech tree is essential to long-lasting survival. I figured out how important when I experienced my first winter. I needed charcoal to warm my villagers' houses, and I couldn't find it in the world. I had to unlock the kiln to create charcoal to keep my villagers happy and warm. Otherwise, they didn't want to come out and work.

Happiness is an important factor in the game as well. If your subjects aren't happy, then it takes longer to get new villagers. You can keep them happy by building a tavern and surrounding it with houses. Decorations and other buildings can help add to happiness as well. But if you have a mine or mill too close to houses, then that can subtract happiness due to loud noises.

Let's talk about the bad guy. I don't know if they have a specific name, but they only come out at night. The villagers run inside their houses and then the waves spawn. The night only ends when you have defeated the wave.

There are also enemy towers around the map in which you can attack during the day. Destroy the towers and you weaken the enemy. Or so I thought. I waited too long in the game to attack the enemy towers, so I just endured the waves until they became too powerful for my military to handle. The enemy wiped out my army, destroyed my defenses, and razed my castle to the ground.

I survived 21 days, which was almost 2 years. I only know this because I unlocked an achievement for surviving a year.

Let me tell you, for not having a tutorial, I feel like I did pretty good for my first play-through. Things to do for my next play-through: prepare for winter! Winter was rough, and it was hard to gather resources to keep building and expanding. Also, I don't need to expand as fast as I did. It only made it more expensive and harder to upgrade all my defenses in the end.

There were other elements on the map that I didn't get a chance to interact with, like horses, wolves, and their dens. So while it took me three hours to be defeated, this is a game I could probably spend all day playing. Though it can be very slow-paced, players can set the pace at normal speed, slow speed, or even pause the game if they want.

I highly recommend Becastled, and the game is available on Steam for purchase. You can also check out Mana Potion Studios' other games there as well.

Sharpen those swords and prepare for a siege! The night is just beginning.