The Castle Doctrine
Jason Rohrer · 2014 · Indie, Massively Multiplayer, Strategy, Perma Death, Difficult
PC
Mixed49% · 38058Metacritic
Compare prices in Official Stores
Screenshots
About The Castle Doctrine
The Castle Doctrine is a massively-multiplayer game of burglary and home defense. It's 1991, and things are bad. You're a guy with a house and family. Other players are coming to take what's yours. Build security to stop them. Study their houses, buy tools, and break in to take what's theirs. Everything you do is permanent.
I'm Jason Rohrer, and The Castle Doctrine is my 10th game. It's a bit hard to describe, because there's never been anything quite like it before. It's a brutal game in terms of its perma-death and perma-destruction consequences, and it is turn-based, so it's rather Rogue-like. But building such a brutal game in a multiplayer context, with absolutely no cushion between players to stop them from brutalizing each other, is quite strange and new.
Everything is real in this game. When you rob someone, you are actually hurting another player in a permanent way by destroying and stealing their hard work. When someone dies in this game, they lose everything and start over. If you devise perplexing security systems, you can perma-death other players when they come to rob you. Watching those security tapes, where someone gets what's coming to them, is an exhilarating experience. On the other hand, you just killed someone and perhaps caused them to lose days of their hard work. And you've been on the other side too, losing everything because of some thoughtless move you made in someone else's house.
But there is no randomness in this game, so everything is fair. When you die, it is always your fault. When things get dicey, you can always retreat back out the front door to save your own neck. Of course, human folly will get the better of you.
Here's what you get when you buy the game:
I'm Jason Rohrer, and The Castle Doctrine is my 10th game. It's a bit hard to describe, because there's never been anything quite like it before. It's a brutal game in terms of its perma-death and perma-destruction consequences, and it is turn-based, so it's rather Rogue-like. But building such a brutal game in a multiplayer context, with absolutely no cushion between players to stop them from brutalizing each other, is quite strange and new.
Everything is real in this game. When you rob someone, you are actually hurting another player in a permanent way by destroying and stealing their hard work. When someone dies in this game, they lose everything and start over. If you devise perplexing security systems, you can perma-death other players when they come to rob you. Watching those security tapes, where someone gets what's coming to them, is an exhilarating experience. On the other hand, you just killed someone and perhaps caused them to lose days of their hard work. And you've been on the other side too, losing everything because of some thoughtless move you made in someone else's house.
But there is no randomness in this game, so everything is fair. When you die, it is always your fault. When things get dicey, you can always retreat back out the front door to save your own neck. Of course, human folly will get the better of you.
Here's what you get when you buy the game:
- A lifetime account on the central world server that I'm running.
- Access to the full game source code (after launching the game on Steam, go here).
- Everything you need to run your own game server (requires a PHP/MySQL web server, download the source bundle to get started).
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
The only time to have played this game was back in 2014 and even then I can't say my experience with it was great. The basic premise is kinda interesting as you get to make a house and set up traps. Some of these traps require tools the player brings to disarm them. You get money to buy more tools and to make a more elaborate house by robbing other houses. I would normally start going in depth to describe all the various systems like breakable walls, dogs, electric floors, security doors, etc...; but nothing you can set up compares to just making a door that only opens with a combination lock. Since you can set up doors that stay closed unless you press a certain sequence of one time only switches, the invader needs to guess right the first time. This is the kind of thing you would expect out of a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ troll Mario Maker Stage but now you have a game where this 'level design' is encouraged. None of the other mechanics matter at this point either. Even back when I played any house that could afford to set this up would do this and the rest were poor newer players that you didn't get much of a reward or challenge robbing. Apparently the devs of the game got involved in some NFT …15 found this helpful
While the game seems dead at the moment, the game itself is excellent. Its more unforgiving than it needs to be, for example having to empty your entire backpack just for leaving a house seems pretty unnecessarily harsh. But for the most part the game's concept and execution is fantastic.7 found this helpful
not going to lie, this game has most likely the MOST annoying building system of any game ive played so far, after you build your house you have to test it, and if you accidently die while testing it, do you get to redo it and adjust it so its actually possilbe? NO! you have to reset ALLLL your progress. like ALL OF IT! no saves, no undos, just gone. 0/20 would NOT reccomend :/1 found this helpful
The Castle Doctrine, created by Jason Rohrer, is a game that deliberately rejects conventional ideas of comfort and accessibility in favor of something far more psychological and uncompromising. At its core, it operates on a simple premise: you build a home, protect your valuables, and attempt to steal from others doing the same. Yet this straightforward loop quickly evolves into a tense and often unsettling experience that revolves less around mechanical mastery and more around anticipation, fear, and the consequences of irreversible decisions. The structure of the game is built on a duality that constantly forces players to switch perspectives. On one side, you are a homeowner designing intricate defenses—laying down traps, wiring security systems, placing guard dogs, and shaping your house into a maze meant to confuse and punish intruders. On the other side, you become the intruder, carefully stepping through someone else’s creation, trying to interpret their logic and avoid fatal mistakes. Every house is designed by another player, which means every infiltration feels like a personal encounter with another human mind. Some layouts are straightforward, others are devious and al…1 found this helpful
Very enjoyable game, get your revenge against Mr. Getz
i loved the gameplay but has no players anymore :[
Community reviews
—
0 reviews
Sign in to write a review.
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this game.
