The best game ever with an even better app
Sat Dec 17 2016 Guitar HairoI casually played the board game 2x a year visiting relatives and loved it. Bought the app on the flight home last time and have been so impressed!! Not only does it bring all the elements of the puzzle/strategy that make this game so fun, but the campaign mode functions as a tutorial. Working through the different challenges forces you to think the way that you need to think to be a master.
Well done. So worth the money.
One note... when playing, you can't tell how many bonus cards are left in the pile. Also, sometimes it gets a little glitchy and if you replay a level, when you start again it will say there's no bonus cards yet, and you haven't even started the game.
Great game, with some annoying bugs
Sat Jul 15 2017 HdarbI love "Castles..." the board game, and this app is a good proxy for it. The AI is pretty predictable, though, once you've played enough games. The AI players also make some very unusual choices at times, such as placing rooms illogically or passing on every turn simply because they have the 5-coin bonus card.
There are some rule bugs such as AI players on rare occasions closing off or blocking all of their open doorways, or being able to collect the corridor room completion bonus twice in one turn. The AI players also have a very annoying quirk of pricing very valuable rooms (i.e. king's favor bonuses) very low so the other AI players can buy them cheap, and somehow knowing which rooms are valuable for me (based on my secret bonus cards) and pricing them very high- almost seems like cheating at times. Don't get me wrong though, I do enjoy playing the app a lot, despite some annoying quirks.
Some things I'd like to see in a future update: a cleaner, tidier interface (it's hard to see the scores as they pop up, and avoid having parts of the interface cover large portions of the board); smarter, adjustable AI; INTERNET MULTIPLAYER; a digital rule book for new players (the tutorial isn't very helpful).
App is great but needs online multiplayer
Mon Jan 31 2022 DanielleFisherThis app is great except for one huge issue, it does not have online multiplayer. When I got the app I immediately told my board game group to buy it, we already had a couple other board game apps and I was kinda surprised we didn’t know about this one sooner. I bought this without checking if it had online multiplayer cause it never occurred to me that it wouldn’t, after I found out fortunately my friends hand not bought it yet. If this does get online multiplayer I know at least 4 people that will definitely buy it. The pass and play is a nice feature but in most situations if we are together in person we will just play the physical board game. The main point for my group of getting the board game apps is that we can play online. It’s really unfortunate because we love this game and functionality wise this app is better than some of the other board game apps I have but it’s essentially useless without online multiplayer.
Great game, but a couple of misprints...
Fri Feb 25 2022 TheGamingGuy1966This is an excellent implementation of the physical board game and I’ve enjoyed many hours playing it. However, I have noticed two instances of mislabeled tiles; one being the Secret Lair (it shows a bonus of 2 points for each Hallway when it should show 2 points for each Utility Room) and the other being the King’s Favor tile for Activity Room Size (it’s missing the icon indicating total area size). Other than that, and the AI often making suboptimal tile placements, the game is an awesome way to kill 20-30 minutes!
Please fix these bugs!!!
Sun Apr 02 2017 winston2876Castles of Mad King Ludwig is a top notch board game. The app is fun, but has several serious bugs.
- If you complete a bedroom bonus on the final round, IT DOESN'T EXTEND THE GAME. Though there are tiles that you have just laid on the draw stack, the game ends after that round regardless. If you want to extend the game, you thus need to make sure you complete a bedroom on at least the second to last turn. This is a game changer, and it's very annoying.
- You can't see when the Utility Bonus Card deck has run dry. You'll build a Utility Room and THEN get a message saying "There are no more bonus cards". Thanks for the heads up...
- Once when playing it allowed me to build a tile up against the face of a garden fence, which is illegal.
It would also be nice to be able to adjust the AI speed level. And the AI difficulty level for free play games.
The free play board also has "edges" to the map. It would be nice to be able to toggle that option off and have unlimited space.
Also, how do you change your player color when playing campaign mode?
Final suggestion for a major feature: I would love to be able to play my friends over the internet.
Just like the board game...with a few issues
Mon Jun 26 2017 LHoppsThe app is the same as the board game, which is great! There's even an added "campaign" which adds a nice extra level of game play. If you enjoy the game, you'll love the app.
BUT there are definitely some issues as other users have pointed out. In addition to bugs others have pointed out, I just played a game in which the computer chose to take a utility room one turn and then took a utility room in their second turn. They used that room to connect to their foyer and then blocked the final entrance. They could only build two rooms the entire game, even though always having one entrance is required in the rules of the board game.
Definitely a fun game. But I'm not sure it's worth $7 with the current problems.
My favorite board game app
Sun Sep 24 2017 jrb4jcI love the 4-player version of this game, and I've started getting into the Campaigns as well. This game plays just like the board game. There are only two complaints at this point: 1) I have 3 other friends who bought the app so we could play a 4-player game remotely, but then discovered that, apparently, is not possible with this app! 2) There is a frequent glitch that posts all the players moves in the middle of the active screen, and then you can't see where to place your next room without a lot of hassle, until the text finally goes away. Otherwise, this app would get 5 stars.
Great game with a few flaws in the app
Mon Nov 28 2016 Futuristic frothyThis is one of my favorite board games. It's fun and beautiful, and doesn't take forever to play or to teach.
The app is pretty good but there are a couple small issues. The game gives completed room bonuses for hallways and stairs and shouldn't. The pass and play isn't much fun because the bonus cards for the human players are always visible and there's no pass prompt, so you can't watch other players take their turn. Hiding the bonus cards until the player taps them would solve that problem. An online or local internet option would also be nice.
Too many bugs for a $7 game
Fri Feb 10 2017 Melting AlaskanI love the board game castles, but this version is lacking. I do enjoy playing the campaigns, but there are so many bugs. There is no indication of when the bonus card deck is out of cards, but then I see that my opponent after me gets a bonus card. One of the campaigns wouldn't end. A different campaign glitches causing you to have to restart. And on it goes. Very annoying and disappointing to have paid so much for a game that functions so poorly. I was also disappointed that playing against the computer is easy. It makes poor choices in laying out the pieces, making all of them easy to beat. I do like that the campaign is more difficult to beat. That's fun! But, I wouldn't recommend the game as it is due to the glitches that continually happen.
Bugs in the Basement
Sat Jan 26 2019 dragon76nI love the physical board game. This mobile version is nice, but doesn’t replace a live experience.
Buttons for rotating pieces and submitting turns are too close together so on multiple occasions I’ve accidentally submitted a placement when I was trying to rotate the piece.
Bugs I’ve experienced a couple times now are with the basement. When completing a stairway with a basement the free hallway bonus was awarded, but the bonus for the basement was missed. I thought maybe the basement bonus was not given at all, but I completed a basement room in the same game without using a hallway or stairs and did get the basement bonus.
