Defend Your Castle: new awesome date, new awesome look

by JC Fletcher { Feb 29th 2008 at 3:00PM }

XGen Studios has revamped the look of Defend Your Castle significantly for its May 12th Wii Ware release, swapping out the, well, "Flash game" look of the original for a lovely "made of junk" theme. The castle has become a set of construction-paper rectangles decorated with paper flags on toothpick poles, and the enemy invaders have become doodles with button heads. Our absolute favorite detail is the user interface: the health bar is now made of fabric scraps.

We hate to make the comparison to a not-particularly-awesome game, but this style was used to excellent effect in the Napoleon Dynamite DS game. The art was by far the best thing about that game, whereas this has already been proven to be a pretty good game.

Gallery: Defend Your Castle

Tags: casual, defend-your-castle, defense, flash, xgen-studios

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 29th 2008 3:17PM

Nintendo fanboyism aside...

Really, I'm pretty impressive by how good WiiWare is shaping. Almost every WiiWare announced title looks very good, both graphical and gameplay side.

I'm proud of this developers, because they are peopel who actually wants to work, and actually wants to make good games.

Eternity's Child, World of Goo, Plattchen, Final Fantasy, Star Soldier R, and a lot of other titles. And all the games at a bargain price.

This developers only need one chance... they don't have the resources to make a big game, but they are proving to be very creatives. Developers like Data Design Interactive should be ashame for their mediocre games.

Now is your move Nintendo... we need external storage (at least run the games directly from SD cards)... without external storage, WiiWare can't survive.

Unbreakable_idea @ Feb 29th 2008 3:20PM

Is it just me, or do the bottle cap heads of some of the attackers look an awful lot like Pepsi logos? I wonder if it's a case of coincidence, of paid product placement or of copyright infringement. ?

Unbreakable_idea @ Feb 29th 2008 3:26PM

for example:

Cyantre @ Feb 29th 2008 3:24PM

Wow, that looks absolutely horrible. I was interested in this before, but now I don't care at all. *shudder* That's so ugly.

Unbreakable_idea @ Feb 29th 2008 3:26PM

oops, can't post pics...

3cubed minus 3squared plus1 @ Feb 29th 2008 3:30PM

"4 Player jump-in cooperative gameplay - Defend your Castle with up to 3 pals!"

This part right here interests me. I might buy if it is good.

Jonathan Tran @ Feb 29th 2008 3:32PM

This is awesome, starting and ending with the "helth" [sic] bar. WIN WIN WIN!

Also NWF, you forgot to mention:

Game features four player co-op and versus.

phantomexe @ Feb 29th 2008 4:03PM

so.....yea like really is there any other games for the wiiware that may be good.Has anyone seen a good list of all games due to come out for it?

Mr Khan @ Feb 29th 2008 4:11PM

Video please? I like what i'm seeing, but the still images look very awkward

They did a good job of up-porting a simple flash game, gave it a completely original look

Dash @ Feb 29th 2008 4:13PM

Don't forget you can play the original game for free (http://www.xgenstudios.com/play/castle), to see it in action. It's really funny to kill the guys by throwing then (hopefully it will be even more fun with the Wiimote instead of a mouse).

I do like how Wii Ware is shaping up, and I'm very happy to see indie developers are really boarding to it, not only the big guys.

hvnlysoldr @ Feb 29th 2008 6:24PM

Looking good. Very interested in buying it.

Patrick @ Feb 29th 2008 11:37PM

I think the upgrades are cool, except for the graphics. I knew they were going to do redo them, but why this? What does Defend Your Castle have ANYTHING to do with construction paper and crap.

sbmikkim @ Mar 1st 2008 12:54AM

I would be interested if i didn't have to shell out cash for sh*t!

I mean c'mon...these pics actually make it look worse...

Spend your money towards better games.

Patrick @ Mar 1st 2008 1:24PM

I have no idea what's wrong with the complainers here. From an art design perspective, this looks phenomenally well executed. It's supposed to be a fun, light-hearted distraction and I think the graphics suit that perfectly. We'll see about the gameplay, I suppose. Color me intrigued.