Castle Panic

Why it's in our library

Castle Panic puts the whole table on the same side, defending one castle together and winning or losing as a team. Players can swap cards with each other and watch the monsters creep closer ring by ring, so every turn gives the group something to talk over.

How to play

The castle sits at the center of a round board. The board is cut into colored arcs, and each arc is split into rings. From the outside in, there's the forest, then the archer, knight and swordsman zones, then the castle walls and towers. Monsters appear at the forest edge and march inward. The team's goal is to defeat every monster before all the towers fall.

On your turn:

• Fill your hand back up.
• If you like, throw away one card and draw a new one.
• If you like, trade one card with a teammate.
• Play cards to strike monsters. An attack card names a color and a ring, and it only hits a monster standing in that exact spot. Some special cards fix walls, add or remove monsters, or do other things.
• Each hit lowers a monster's health. A monster leaves the board when its health runs out.

After you play, every monster on the board steps one ring closer to the castle. A monster that reaches a wall smashes it and takes damage. A monster that gets inside can topple a tower. To finish your turn, draw new monster tokens and roll to see which arc each one enters at the forest edge. Then the next player goes.

The team wins when the last monster token has been drawn and defeated while at least one tower still stands. If every tower is destroyed, the monsters win.

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