Castle Scout describes itself as “color match meets arcade action”.
I immediately understood the arcade action part: when the monsters fall on your floor, you better get out of the way because they will explode. The ground beneath your feet will be no more. But I will plainly admit I did not get the color match part at first because what is crucially lacking in this game is an actual tutorial. We are welcomed by some sort of animation that is supposed to make us understand how to play the game, but it wasn’t terribly obvious as my first few gameplays I was faced with utter failure. Very frustrating to start a game and die on your first move.
After the goold old trial and error method, I noticed we need to suck in the flying ghosts. This charges our backpack device with the color of the ghost, which we will need to aim to a matching monster to destroy him. If more monsters of that colour are adjacent, the merrier, for they will all die a fiery death.
The monsters don’t kill you on contact in Castle Scout. Rather they make the ground where they landed crumble to dust as they explode, hence why you need to get out of the way. After they did their bit, you can resume your ghost busting, monster shooting.
The music is a dark and gloomy, to match the atmosphere: you are stuck in a castle with ghosts and monsters after all. It’s a bit too repetitive, but yet fitting. Thankfully the controls are top notch: You only need a finger to play: you slide left and right to move, and tap to shoot.
As you can guess, the gameplay left a bitter taste in my mouth at first. No one likes to start a game and not have the faintest clue what they are doing. I took a better liking to the experience once I figured out what was required of me. While the game does need better instructions, I would still recommend you give it a try. It has a low price point and the gameplay is entertaining if you are into this genre.