Castle Battles: A Guide

What it is:

The story behind the game is that Kings Skarl and Hagan used to build block castles in the nursery as youngsters. Then they would take turns shooting cannonballs to knock the other’s down. In the game, your objective is to knock his gold treasure out of the red square that it sits in. He will be trying to knock yours out of its green square.

Getting Started:

First of all, you have to have Shockwave. I didn’t play this game for a long time because I put off downloading Shockwave. Shockwave is free, takes hardly any time to download, and takes up barely any space on your computer. It is used for a lot of things online, so you should get it even if you aren’t going to play this game.

Once you open the game, click “Start Game” and then you have to pick your castle. Click the left or right arrow buttons until you find a castle that you want to use. You start out with two, but as the game goes on, you unlock more. I would recommend just using the second one.

Once you choose your castle, you have to place the treasure. Just click on it and drag to place it anywhere in or around your castle. You just can’t put it where a block is. I would recommend putting it inside the castle in the back corner to start out with. This is so that if the cannonball hits your treasure, the wall might keep it in place.

Playing:

Now you click “ok” and you are ready to play! I am not going to tell you how I play each level because the fun part is figuring that out. Basically, use your arrow keys to aim. Always aim lower than what you really are wanting to hit, because the cannonball goes high. Take all the time you want to aim, as there is no time limit.

Once you have aimed, hold the space bar to shoot. Hold it and watch the power meter (that sword off to the left). Once it is where you want it, let go and watch the cannonball fly! The cannonball can still be moved by using the arrow keys, but not enough to substitute for good aim. This is where the game is truly amazing. Once the cannonball hits the castle, the blocks start falling over and the castle starts falling apart. Why is this so cool? Because it is so realistic! If you hit the corner of a block, it might spin and hit the treasure off of the square. If you don’t hit it with enough power, the cannonball will just bounce off. My favorite part of the game is just watching a tower of blocks wiggle, wondering if they are going to fall.

So to knock the treasure off of its block, you can hit it directly with the cannonball. Usually it is surrounded by blocks, so this is not an option. In this case, use the cannonball to knock blocks into it and let them push it off.

Once you win a level, you get to move your treasure. One of the most important aspects of the game is deciding where to put it, because your castle is not rebuilt. I would recommend putting it either behind a wall that is still standing, or somewhere in the middle of a giant pile of blocks. As you play the game you will figure out the best places to put it. One of the best things that you can get in the game is what I call a ramp. It is a block that is partially laying on another block to make a ramp. If the cannonball hits this, it might just roll right over the top. So putting your castle behind a ramp could be a good idea. However, remember that one well placed shot could send your ramp flying, and you don’t want your treasure out in the open, so don’t rely entirely on the ramp.

So put your treasure behind some blocks that won’t easily get pushed into it and in front of some blocks that will keep your treasure where it is.

One of the hardest situations is if your opponent's treasure is buried under a pile of blocks. It can take forever to finally get to the treasure and in the meantime, your treasure will probably be destroyed. So aim for the treasure, and don’t try to knock down the entire castle unless you know it won’t bury the treasure.

So that is basically how to play the game. Here are some special tips.

-At 1000 points your castle gets rebuilt and you can choose to change castles.

-If you hit the gold flag that is hidden somewhere behind the castle, you get a giant cannonball on your next turn. This is not always a good thing, especially if you are trying to aim at the treasure and not knock a bunch of blocks down on top of it.

-If you type supercannonball while you are aiming, you get a super cannonball, which is huge and flattens their castle, sending blocks flying everywhere. You know you have typed in in correctly if you hear a cannon shot when you are done. This can only be used once per game.

So play this game at least once, just to see how cool the graphics are. Once you let that first cannonball fly, you’ll be hooked. Have fun!

theodenking