The Castle

A little fan-made masterpiece that I can't recommend highly enough! In fact, 'The Castle' does not pretend to be too original as it clearly follows tne plot and the look of 'Maniac Mansion'. Still, it does play and feel much better than even 'Thimbleweed Park' (sorry, Ron)! The world (i.e. the mansion with its many rooms) is open, the puzzles are hard and clever, and the five different playthrough paths are surprisingly interesting and partly even non-linear! Maybe some topics are rather too morbid for my taste (the authors are Spanish, so instead of good old Dr. Fred we now have vampires, tortures, a bit of mutilated pixel corpses and so on...). But then again - no adventure game lover should pass over this little gem!

The Castle is a very nice homage to Maniac Mansion. Despite cloning (and reusing) quite a lot of MM's elements, from graphics to gameplay mechanics, it retains its own identity and manages to tell a different story. It is refreshing to see a developer who avoids the direct refererences to the classics that pester most of indie adventures since the dawn of the genre (if I had a cent for every time I've found the infamous "I'm selling these fine leather jackets" I would be rich by now). Some of the puzzles have a couple of ways to solve them and the flow of the game is quite good, even though it's easy to get stuck looking for the "a-ha!" moment that opens up the path to the next puzzle. There is a lot of backtracking involved, but the castle is easy enough to navigate, thus it should not be a problem for most players. The biggest issue I had with the game is that some characters are not well developed. I'm not referring to the lack of dialogues between the "kids", but because some of them do not react to certain things as you would expect. Like Roger, the student with 5 degrees who can't identify the stuff you find in a room full of antiquities. Not a huge issue, because the characters are more or less "tools" with slightly different abilities, but a little more personality would have enhanced the whole experience. All in all, I would dare to say that The Castle captures the mood of old adventures in a better way than Thimbleweed Park did. PROS: >Clever re-imagining of the father of Point'n'Click adventures >Good puzzles >Multiple endings >No useless references to Monkey Island CONS: >Characters are a bit too flat >Old-looking graphics could make younger players avoid it >English translation needs to be polished

It is a really nice game if you are in for a nostalgic trip to Maniac Mansion, of which I am a big fan. Certainly a lot of love went into the game from what I undertsand it is one single developer. However the Vampire Lady really spoiled the game for me as soon as she comes in which is why I just followed the walkthrough from there on. She will rabdomly appear and lock you up and you have to go through a boring procedure to get out again (no way to escape her). It really killed the mood and the joy of solving puzzles. You just want to get it done as quicky as possible from there on. So unfortunaltely I can't reccomend.

A great game! Maybe the best adventure since Thimbleweed Park. It is basically another Maniac Mansion, but with the Monkey Island 2 interface. Practically identical to Maniac Mansion, not only in look and feel, but in quality as well. Very challenging, with some great puzzles. It is a puzzle-driven adventure game, not story driven, with very little text (like Maniac Mansion). So far I found only one illogical puzzle (unfortunately near the beginning). The atmosphere is great and it keeps you going. The graphics is good. The sound atmospheric. The humour (especially in the intro) is great. The villains are very tough to beat. Overall, same quality as Maniac Mansion. Maybe the only flaw is that the playing characters don't say "hi, what's up" when they cross each other. They don't acknowledge their progress. Except from that, great job!

Wonderful little oldschool point and click adventure game! I very much enjoyed the graphics, environments and the atmosphere! Absolutely LOVE the comfy castle interiors! It's a real pleasure exloring it. The artstyle is absolutely on point and gave me huge nostalgia vibes throughout the game. Multiple endings and achievements keep you coming back for more. No so good: - this game feels unfinished with the writing. Apart from some dialogue, there really isn't that much text in the game. I was especially disappointed with the lack of (humorous) comments when interacting with the environments. I tend to "look at" every object I can identify. In this game, the characters usually repeat the same few words. For example: "nice door" - "interesting" - "I don't want to [b]insert action[/b]" etc. This is a missed opportunity in my opinion. - The puzzles were way too cryptic for me, so I used the guide for a hassle free playthrough. I enjoyed the game much more with the guide. Here is one example that I remember: [spoiler] At least one ending requires a character to be caught in prison. In order to escape the prison, a second character must find some ingredients to create a potion that changes the first chracter into a tiny mouse. The second character must find a hookah, a vacuum cleaner and a special helmet. Then you give the hookah to the prisoner. The prisoner uses the hookah to steam up a mousehole. The second character then must go to the museum, destroy a painting which reveals another (hidden) mousehole. Then, he must use the vacuum cleaner to catch the mouse. In the torture room, he uses the paper-shredder to cut the mouse in to some slices (this is one ingredient for the potion). You must then go to the power room, use the special helmet to protect yourself, disable the power and collect a copper-wire, a metal bar and a battery (hidden). Combine these three items and go outside. Go around the castle to the well, where you can see a pile of dirt. Use the battery-copper-bar on the pile of dirt to reveal some worms (isn't that obvious?). The worms are another ingredient for the potion. To make a long story short: you collect some more ingredients, create the potion using a book you found in the library, give the potion to the prisoner, the prisoner enters the mousehole and MUST leave through the leftmost exit, ignoring the 4 other exists on the way. There, we escaped the prison. [/spoiler] Apart from those negative details, "The Castle" is an awesome hidden gem well worth checking out. The graphics and the artstyle are on point and I absolutely love the entire castle-environment! The humour is great! I highly recommend this game to anyone longing for an oldschool adventure game set in a super-comfy castle!

A strictly puzzle-focused game. To be fair, I was put off by the dialogues between the characters, they are so basic, there is no story, character development, just a series of mind puzzles, which have average to high difficulty. So, if you want a brain teaser, this game might hit the spot. Not for adventure gamers who also care about the story.

Great homage for fans of Maniac Mansion. Being that MM is one of my favorite games of all time, and I have a thing for Dracula movies, this was a real treat for me. I was able to achieve all 5 endings and enjoyed all but Ending 5. The game's default language is Spanish, but you can change it to English. The English translation has some issues, the biggest problem being that there are two important recipes for potions in the game that call for "seeds" but the correct word that should've been used is "grains." Please note that this isn't a spoiler. It's just clarifying a translation error that actually makes the game harder than necessary. At one point, you pick up a pair of horns, and the game refers to them as "ravens" while they're in your inventory. Once you've used them, the game correctly refers to them as horns. Other than those problems the translation issues are minor (though annoying). Still, I really enjoyed my time with this game.

The Castle es un sentido homenaje a Maniac Mansion desarrollado por un chaval de Barcelona al que, parece ser, este clásico de Lucasfilm Games le marcó tanto como a mí. Es una obra faraónica para un solo-dev, en la que, homenajes al margen, se pueden percibir su personalidad e inquietudes, además de un gran ingenio y buen hacer para los puzles. Una excelente aventura gráfica desarrollada con AGS, en la que es imposible quedarse atascado gracias al "manual" al que se puede acceder desde esta misma página de Steam.

[i]"Let's get the vampire! "[/i] The Castle is a fun little game inspired from Maniac Mansion (MM) (but without a microwave). I discover MM not too long ago while playing the remaster of Day of the Tentacle. That was the first old-school PnC of this genre I played and I had quite a lot of fun with it. So when I discover this look-alike on Steam, I bought it. The game consists of controlling a team of 3 vampire-hunters while exploring the various rooms of a castle, the main residence of a long dynasty of vampires. Peter is a mandatory character, but you can choose 2 others among 6 different characters, each having a different ability or trait. I recommend reading the last part of the game manual (found on the library game page) that gives a description of the different characters to choose from. The manual also is a good place to look if you are stuck. The game has a plethoras of dead ends, so saving often is a requirement. There is no hamster, but you'll find all kind of animals (or plants) to become (or not) friend with: mouse, bat, octopus, frog, carnivorous plant... In all, if you enjoyed playing MM, you should definitely give this game a try.

I could play another 10 games with this precise setup. It's full of humor and excitement: a perfect mix of homage to Maniac Mansion and being its own world. If you like adventure games at all, give this a go.