Castle Survivors: a Castle, an Island and Ninety Weapons
Castle Survivors is a survival and tower-defence game of one kind: a castle in the middle of an island, armies wading out of the sea from every side, and no troops of your own. The castle fires every weapon you buy on its own. Your part is the shop: every 30-second round you choose what to buy, and the choices stack until the castle becomes an absurd war machine. The rules are those of Tower Survivors 1.91, the Warcraft III map: 30-second rounds, +5 income per round, a restocked shop each round, a 100 + 100 reroll, the Clear and the final boss at 60:00, doubled armour affinity, and top-four placement.
The first day
On October 6 the game went from nothing to running. The foundation is the same Castle Arena uses: a headless simulation, 30 steps per second, with a seeded random, giving the same result on any computer. The tests check that. On top of it, still on the first day, came the island arena with a fixed camera and enemies arriving from 360 degrees, a HUD in the style of classic RTS games, a dev panel, 30 weapons, a Windows package, the menus, and the tower and specialisation pick before a run with a 30-second preparation. And multiplayer: Steam lobbies, direct connections between players and AI rivals when you play alone.
The island
The island is real terrain: a coastline, relief, a pond, islets, and a sea that knows its depth. Units follow the ground, raise wakes when they wade in, and ground effects drape over the relief. The scenery was laid out again on the new terrain: groves, landmarks, the coast and a fishing cove, with fewer trees so the battlefield stays open. The sky became a dome with sun, moon, stars, clouds and weather, with rare events, and the camera can tilt to the horizon so you can see it. There is day and night, night lights and wildlife.
The castle grows with you. It is assembled from the pieces of a medieval hexagon pack: it grows with the level, gains a piece per weapon bought and shows its damage. The castle got bigger, with walls, towers and gates to fill the plaza from level 1.
Ninety weapons, one by one
Weapons and upgrades were checked one by one against the map's reference database: today there are 90 weapons (plus 3 unlockable), 97 upgrades, 36 enemies, 9 bosses, 15 attack packs, 28 tower challenges, 11 unlock challenges and 29 achievements. Every ability in the database has a visual effect of its own, every weapon a signature, and hits use stylised effects ported from a pack. The 1.91 spawn system was ported line by line, enemies use the map's Object Editor values, the economy is 1:1, and armour and attack types and random targeting follow the original. Enemies change their looks by era, drawn from three creature packs.
The Codex shows all of it: every weapon has a looping animated preview, which is a real miniature simulation drawn from above, enemies and bosses have portraits and a live 3D viewer, and the extra weapons show as locked or unlocked.
Bosses, and the game around the game
Bosses are mechanical: each has one to three mechanics, with a telegraph before the big hits (a stun interrupts it) and a stagger under burst damage. Around them came the meta's foundations: challenges, unlocks, cosmetics, the Daily Siege, leaderboards, and co-op, where several castellans' islands are linked over the same match protocol, with an island overview and spectators. In co-op the horde grows gently: 10% more pressure and boss HP per extra castellan. Stacked bonuses have diminishing returns, so the late game does not snowball.
All of that in two days, October 6 and 7. What came next, the seventeen worlds and the road to Steam, is in the next post.
— The team