The only thing you need to know about Monster Castle is that your base is a cutaway side-view of a multi-floor castle. Attackers come in through the only door, walk across the ground floor smashing things, make their way to the stairs and repeat. You get a decent troop selection, hero special abilities, and spells. Maybe that makes up for only having one entrance and a single path. And the animation of the front door getting kicked in is just darling.
Defenses are a little interesting. You can slide around the ladder on each floor. Monsters seem to clear one floor before going up, so you can try to make them walk across and back, hitting every trap twice. The short-range bolt gun is best placed on the floor above a tough obstacle, a little in front. The mortar should be placed even higher (it’s funny to watch it arc up though floors, back down, then finally decide the target floor is solid enough to cause it to explode). As you level, three customization options unlock for every defense. The bombs have an option to be wider, or stun, or knock victims down through the floor. The “barricade” (just a strong 1-space obstacle) can turn to tougher steel, reflect some damage, or explode on death. There are cute pictures for each.
The dragon trap is a fun gold sink. It’s basically a bomb — your dragon flies across that floor, breathing flames. Off-the-clock, your dragon lives in a cool cavern below your castle, asking you to plow extra gold to level it. If you have extra “wine”, you can use it to water your magic beanstalk (which levels up the quests it gives).
The troops are the usual – close-range orc warrior, gnoll archer, bearman tough-guy, healer, 2 floaters (they go through floors, which I assume means they get quickly slaughtered). 9 troops total, plus 5 spells. And every troop also has 3 customization options. The bears can get extra HP, reflect some damage, or a chance to resist the spring-away trap. That seems like plenty to play with.
As you upgrade your Throne (your HQ), the floors get wider and you sometimes get a new one. This is also a problem, since attackers can also be dropped in vacant spaces. Plenty of abandoned bases have an empty top floor with a straight route to the Throne Room.
The game suffers from the usual hero inflation. You’ll eventually be slaughtered at the front door of a castle by a bought epic hero, upgraded using tokens from bought chests. It’s difficult to know how fair it is. In some games the $3 hero is practically required, and the $50 hero isn’t that much better. But the dangerous heroes here seem to have lots of paid upgrades.
The theme is monsters uniting against humans, the main baddy is an over-proud big-jawed Duke, who constantly mocks you in cut scenes. It’s cute and cartoony. As you admire that, have another look at the loading screen — it’s lovely 2-1/2D with depth planes that shift as you tilt your device. Lemix game studio did a nice job. But the publisher is TenCent – a huge Chinese internet conglomerate. I’ve seen them in the news, but this is the first of their games I’ve played.