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After a short break due to personal matters, back to game night.
One of the players pulled out his new to him copy of Castle Panic.
This group is a young men, very young men, and a few gray beards.
"Castle Panic" is a cooperative board game where the castle is in the center and the monsters come in wave after wave to destroy the castle. The waves are relentless and eventually they wear you down. It is a successful product line offering many variations on theme and expansions.
The young guns are loaded up on testosterone so they poo poo "cooperative" games. I must test myself.
The gray beards, myself included without the beard, know this is a futile exercise as the baddies will eventually breach the walls based on the will of the dice, chits, cards, and whim of the player. Seen it before. We want the opportunity to express our strategic genius and through the power of calm control, dominate the game.
The youngest has no clue and just wants to slay the beasts. Perhaps the best perspective on the day.
But, the dude had his new to him game, the game was pretty, and it was out of the box .... what could a game hurt?
The field is arrayed in concentric rings where the monsters "Space Invader" their way in. Bump Bump Bump.
Bowmen bow. Swordsmen sword. and various other things do what they do. Each player has a hand of 4 cards which control such things and generally are played each turn.
The special sauce is the active player is allowed to "trade" 2 cards of his 4 with the other players each turn. This helps mitigate the risk of the draw and allows the players to assist each other.
The competitive players have concluded that, though the game is cooperative, they can show their overwhelming skill by keeping the tokens of the beasts they have slain AND keep their cards hidden to prevent anyone from knowing their true strategy.
The Gray Beards expose their cards immediately. You are welcome to charge out and kill all you like. Here, take my heavy shield that hurts my arm to carry.
The cards all flipped face up after one or two goes.
The first few rounds went as expected. We are invincible!!!! Then, a boulder smash, and a mini-boss appeared and things got real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyfriipc61A (We just got our asses kicked pal.)
The alphas kicked in and dictated each card to be played. The cross chatter went up a notch and each tried to shove their best card at each player in a desperate attempt to be relative.
You know, like a .... Panic!!!!
Well, to be frank, the game mechanic is ... well ... ho hum. It's a light weight game so it needs to be pretty simple.
The point of the game is to get you to panic. Phases of a round were skipped. Alphas had their blood up. Young guns got to kill things. Gray beards were laughing at the absurdity.
This jalopy is coming down hard towards the runway ... no way this thing survives.
Down to one tower, the team is resigned that this was not our day. If you lazy Gray beards had only bearded better. If you young bloods had only drawn better from the random bag.
Play it out was called. Captain Chaos pulls his cards. It doesn't matter, we've seen the cards, there is no combination what holds the field. What Ho? There is ONE combination and Chaos drew the coup fourre. What, I wet myself over that?
The day was ours with a single tower left.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KClpLzFftU (Catch the first 15 seconds or so.)
Well the night was not over and who had time for another game so we added an expansion from the new old game and went again. A deck of magic spells on top and a wider variety of monsters. Plus fire and variable towers.
Our first assessment ... F this ... we are done.
We had a moment of reflection and the Alphas promised not to Alpha. Everyone agreed to pay attention and pay their dues to the coffee fund BEFORE charging out.
2 minutes in and the oaths had been shed. The hoards are coming. No time for niceties.
Gnash, grunt, magic, magic. Walls down. Faramir has fallen. Kill the children to prevent the Orks from ... uh .... killing the children. Drink the Mead. Don't let them have the Mead.
Down to the shattered rubble of the keep with a few monsters on the board, they were set ablaze to perish in their match to the keep and the last TWO Towers saved. That is some amazing balance.
Queue the Morning After ** hic ** .
The young guns were drenched in sweat. The old beards were chuckling and talking about the good old days. The youngest was dancing around the game store having slain the Chimera.
It's a dumb game. But .... somehow it works. Perhaps that is all that is required.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/439084/castle-panic-big-box-second-edition
(The base game shows 24th printing.)
Yours,
IronConrad
25-Sep-2025