Castle Panic – Bring on the panic!

Castle Panic cards — You’ll need great heroes to save the castle!

Actually, now that I think about it – go ahead and panic!

Castle Panic is a board game where the name says it all. In this board game you’re trying to defend your Castle from the onslaught of goblins, orcs, and trolls. And at the rate they come at you, you’ll find yourself in Panic mode pretty much right from the start.

But it’s a healthy, fun kind of panic of course. The kind of panic that you share with your closest friends and family – because Castle Panic is a co-operative board game. (We love co-operative board games and are happy to see so many now available.) You team up to defend your castle towers and as long as you have at least one tower standing when all of the monsters are defeated then you win. If they take down all 6 towers, then you’re monster toast.

Jaden was the perfect person to do the video review of Castle Panic for our family because of how insistent he was that the game was impossible. Even after we defeated all the monsters in a subsequent game session (with 1 tower remaining) he kept shouting with a big smile on his face “I know we won, but this game is impossible!”

Castle Panic monsters — Some of the monsters you’ll face.

Is it a board game for the whole family?

You bet.

Not only do you get to play as a team, but you can play with up to 6 players (perfect for our family size). And even though the game says ages 10+, our 6 year old played it right from the start and loved it too.

It is very simple to learn and easy to understand. With 3 simple color areas, 4 basic rows of attack, 3 basic monsters, and easy to identify and understand cards we didn’t find any drawbacks to having our 6 year old play. But that’s also because he can read and comprehend the cards and actions.

Would we have anyone younger join us? Since it’s co-operative you could coach them along easy enough, but I don’t know if they would enjoy it. I don’t think I’d go younger than 5.

Yes, there are monsters, but as you can see from the great comic artwork, we didn’t have any scared siblings.

How does Castle Panic score on the “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

Castle Panic is a light fun board game that scores high on the “let’s play again” game meter. However, when playing just before bedtime, the answer is typically, “not again tonight”.

But it does have a prominent place on our board game shelves for easy access. Because when you’re in the mood for a light cooperative board game to play, it’s a great one to pull out.