50 Castles
Rusty Axe Games

It’s tough these days to find an original type of game out there. Most games are remakes of other popular games. Rusty Axe Games breaks that tradition by releasing 50 Castles! It’s a unique puzzle game where you must match the pieces of the puzzle and put them into place. It’s a bit tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’re good to go! All kinds of obstacles are there for you to overcome.

• Three difficulty levels each with 50 castles to complete!
• Infectious background music!
• 3 narrators to choose from including a Scotsman, a cheerleader and a surfer dude!
• Customizable backgrounds using one of 6 different skin sets!
• High score table for ultimate bragging rights!
• In-game instructions and a newbies tutorial mode!

Each level is unique in the type of play. It could be large squares that need to be replaced or very small squares. You are only given so much time to complete the level before the game ends. Be accurate and be quick. The game play looks simple, and it is. On the left side of the screen, you’ll see a box with a picture of a floor pattern. In the larger box to the right, you’ll see the main castle. There you will see black squares. Those are the pieces where the missing pieces are placed. If the orientation of the piece on the left is not correct, it will automatically rotate 90 degrees each time you click the black square. Once it’s correct, it will be placed. If it’s not the right piece, nothing will happen. Some squares have coins. Those give you extra points. Match several identical pieces in a row and earn another bonus. Some squares give you more time.

Three game levels from ‘Newbie’, ‘Smarty’ and ‘Gene-Yus’ will keep this game going for a long time to come. Each level offers 50 castles to complete. Some of the levels, even on ‘Newbie’ are rather tough. Level 14 for example has 39 blank squares and only 1 minute and 23 seconds to complete. You can earn extra time (or lose time) by playing particular squares. Watch out for the chickens, snakes and the crazy marauder. You are also armed with a cannon on some screens. Use the stylus to blow up the snakes or the marauder with the cannon! Don’t let the snake eat the chickens or let the marauder destroy your hard work. The game play is fast playing and extremely addicting!

The music and sound effects are first rate! You’ll get a chuckle from the different characters as they talk during the game. The options menu allows you to change the volume of the sound effects as well as the music. You can also adjust the light and colors. The voice option allows you to select all of the voices, or just one in particular. The skin option changes the menu backgrounds from comic bookish to realistic castle photos (plus a few other choices).

The game is currently available for the Pocket PC, Zodiac and also your Windows PC (with DirectX 9 installed).
The Pocket PC version sells for $19.99 and a demo is available for download for both the Pocket PC and PC versions. The Zodiac demo will be released very soon.

All in all, it’s a very fun game to play. I recommend always clicking ‘save and continue’ after completing a level, however you won’t get the bonus points. There is a no-save bonus to entice good players to go back and try to play the game through, start to finish, without saving. The very highest scores will be obtained by playing the game start to finish on Gene-Yus with no saves!. After only a few days of playing, I’m up to level 14 and have a score of 47240. That’s low compared to the scores that are obtainable. So… saving after each level isn’t always the best way to go! Determination and quick responses will ensure hours of playing time and those higher scores. Download the demo and give the game a shot.

The game requires about 4.7MB of storage space and works fine from a storage card. You will need a minimum of 8.5MB of RAM available to play the game. The sound effects and voices need that much memory to play properly. Try it or buy it here.

Special thanks to Lennard at Rusty Axe for sending us a full version to review.
This game was tested using a Samsung i700 Pocket PC Phone edition running Windows Mobile 2003.