Castle Story

Castle Story is a free to play mobile social game that is developed by Storm8 (TeamLava) behind many iOS-based titles like Dragon Story, Monster Story and the like. The game lets players to build their castle with their fiery friends through a balance of managing resources, crafting items, increasing royal Points, farming and castle expanding.

Review:

Castle Story feels like what you might get used to be the way you both visually and practically have experienced in Zynga’s social game CastleVille. Obviously, the maker of Castle Story imitated everything of CastleVille, ranging from presentation, graphics, main characters, and in-game purchasable items. The idea of making an iOS game using the successful social game’s mechanics can be as good as the strategy to get a quick return from investment.

But it is bad that the execution is partially done. The whole system still works like a web-based game with a simple change from “click to do” to “tap to do”. There is much room for improvement to satisfy the needs of mobile gamers and to cope with avalanche of new games every day.

On the one hand, the game energy system seriously limits players to proceed faster, dampening their spirits to accomplish something virtually. There is not so much to do if they are out of energy. After all, the game does not focus much of social elements like the Facebook game CastleVille.

On the other hand, the game is heavily dependent of Gem, a game currency that can be used to power up the speed of building and buy ingame magical items.

If you happened to play Zynga’s CastleVille, Castle Story is not alien to you. And my concerns to such a game: is it legal? Will the company take the risk of being sued by Zynga?