Many castles were surrounded by man made ditches which were then filled with water, and turned into moats. The design can be seen in Wales – a great example is Beaumaris Castle, pictured above. This new design had the strongest defences imaginable, and attackers were barely ever able to capture it. This photo is reproduced under the UK Open Government License.Įffectively it was ‘a castle in a castle’. As you can see, it would be very hard to capture. Beaumaris Castle is a ‘concentric castle’ – walls within walls. This was a castle with two seperate layers of curtain walls, one inside the other. In Late Medieval times (around 1300s), there was a new innovation in castle building technique – the concentric castle. This method of construction gave the ‘core’ of the wall extra strength, and it helped it to withstand battering-rams and missiles. Usually, the centre of the wall was made of rough rocks and rubble, and the outer parts were made of gigantic stones, laid like modern-day bricks. This wall was the main layer of defence, and it tended to be incredibly strong – for example, the curtain wall of Caerphilly Castle in Wales was more than 2 metres (that’s more than 6ft) thick. As you might imagine, it’s called a ‘curtain’ because it covered everything within. The ‘curtain wall’ was the vast stone wall which wrapped around the outside of a castle. The concentric walls of Caerphilly Castle, Wales, would have been an incredible defensive advantage. Here are the different elements of castle defences which rendered some fortresses truly impregnable. Every element of their architecture was designed to make sure that the castle was as strong as it could be, and could hold out against sieges – which could sometimes last months. Medieval castles were built to be as defensive as possible. Within the castle, it’s easy to imagine archers firing arrows at the opposition, and residents of the castle pouring boiling oil onto attackers.Īlthough these images are a bit of an exaggeration, they hold some truth. There's definitely potential here to build something more robust, with multiple power-ups and numerous enemy types, but Defend Your Castle becomes a mindless slog far too quickly to warrant repeat plays.We all visualise images of knights upon horses, charging at mighty grey stone castles. ![]() They've just about fleshed out the game enough to make 500 Points a reasonable asking price, especially with four-player co-op, but it's still a very small and shallow game that gives away too much too soon. ![]() It's good to see another internet developer getting the chance to make some money from their hard work. The demolition men are quite useful, but you can just as easily click on an enemy bomber for the same effect. Not that it really matters, since your best defence is always your own flicking actions - the archers are hopeless, doing nothing to fend off attackers directly at the gates, while the four magic attacks are cute but limited. You can easily exit each level with over 40,000 points, which is more than enough to purchase every upgrade within the first ten levels. It's all rather charming and fun, but the pace and structure of the game are such that you'll have purchased everything within a few hours - and probably developed a repetitive strain injury from making the exact same flicking motion hundreds of times. The Pepsi army had their work cut out at the Burberry catle. Archers, magicians and cap-wheeling suicide bombers are your offensive options, while yet more can be tasked with repairing damage as it's inflicted. They then become your soldiers, and can be assigned to different duties by adding special abilities to each of the four castle turrets. The Pit of Conversion, yours for just 5000 points, is a pot of blue paint into which you can drop your enemies. All are determined to reduce the "helth" of your castle to zero.įor each invader you toss to their doom, you earn points and these can be traded in between rounds to repair damage, increase your health or upgrade the castle to offer more defences. ![]() Giants arrive with heads made from cola bottle tops. Others roll cap-gun ammunition instead of demolition equipment. Some of the crudely sketched barbarians carry lolly stick battering rams. Like those epic biro battles scrawled on the covers of countless schoolbooks, it's as if a malevolent child's imagination has burst into life. Here, in Nintendo-land, it's all been sanitised with a deliberately lo-fi hand-made feel. In the original, this is a messy and bloody affair. You do this by picking them up and flinging them as hard as you can so that they squish on the ground. With so many games greedily - and presumptuously - placed in the premium 1000-Point WiiWare price bracket, it's refreshing to be able to report on a title that knows its limits.Ī remake of the popular internet game, it asks you to live up to the title by repelling wave after wave of stick-men invaders.
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