The Castle Doctrine

In short: A multiplayer only game with no players. Don't buy. One of the most dissappointing games I've ever played. The premise isn't even that bad: set up traps in your house, foil the traps of others. However, the way the system was implimented leads to nothing but tedium and frustration. High level players had mountains of cash to build over-elaborate deathtraps, exploiting every quirk of the game mechanics to make houses that required knowledge of what objects were placed OUTSIDE the walls of the house to complete, as things like dogs would run around in the yard, totally unseeable, pressing switches and unleashing hell unless you knew exactly how to dance around to get them where you need them. And this does not even include the "fun" designs players could begin making when their family had been killed, allowing even more freedom in how they set up their dungeon. The effect was t

In this current state The Castle Doctrine is dead. This game lacks new players which every MMO game needs. At the time i'm writing this review, only 20 houses are available, and almost all of them are the experienced players so it's almost impossible for a new player to get used to it. In my opinion, it's developer's fault, who thinks this game doesn't need sales. Just don't buy it. 29.06.2019 Edit: Game is still dead. 09.03.2020 Edit: 6 years after the release, developer finally decided to abandon his stupid policy of "No sales". Game currently have about 100 houses, and influx of new players made this game actually playable. Although i still wouldn't recommend this game at full price, developer is planning to bring more updates, like state owned houses etc. so my opinion on this game is subject to change. At least, now i can say: Try it when it's on sale. 14.03.2021 Edit: Develo

Don't bother. There is plenty of cheating. Some people even bought the game for two accounts so they could ghost and get insider information into peoples layout. Since it's release, the playerbase has fallen apart. I was so excited for this. This game was brought to its knees by the dev's personal politics and his failure to close some basic gaps. EDIT: Player base is totally gone. No one is left. Jason, I told you so.

I've had the alpha of this for a long time, so I've played it much more than my Steam account would suggest. I love the concept of this game. It's really a great idea behind it. The problem for me is that the game itself has trouble matching up to that actual concept. I don't think this is the developer's fault at all. He clearly has tried to balance the game as much as is possible. It's just that it quickly devolves into a sort of class system. If you've got a ton of money, you can protect your house amazingly well and do some incredibly intricate work. If you don't have a ton of money, you're pretty much screwed, because you can't protect anything well at all. And the problem here is that being able to get more money depends on robbing some other houses of people who do have money... meaning that you're up against near-impossible traps and schemes. And another issue for me is the fam

Good idea, deeply flawed execution. You are not given enough resources to protect your own meager safe, nor go out and rob someone else's. I have a feeling only those who have been playing a long time have been able to experience the intricate trap building that should be accessible to every player in this game; and is in fact the primary allure of purchasing The Castle Doctrine in the first place. For new players, however, the game is simply a race to rip off someone else whose stash is as equally completely defenseless as yours. For new players, this is not a thinking man's game. You don't spend your time solving puzzles and building. Instead, you leave your "castle" empty so you can attempt to rip off other new players, as they too cannot afford defenses. While you are out you're hoping you aren't ripped off from someone more powerful or equally desperate, so you can put togethe