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How does a game developer successfully sell a game for five dollars when they were giving it away before? Just ask XGen Studios, they seem to be doing a bang up job doing just that. Defend Your Castle was originally released as a free flash game playable on numerous flash game portals, and has made the voyage to the Wii as one of the first WiiWare games released in North America.

Just as in the original you play as a god character tasked with protecting and improving a sacred castle. I say sacred mainly because there is no story to be found in this game that explains WHY you are protecting the aforementioned castle, and why would a god stick around to protect a useless castle? As you progress by slaughtering wave after wave of attackers you can spend the points you earn on spells, repairs or castle wall upgrades. It’s a simple game that can be played by all, but is deviously addictive.

Speaking of upgrades, you can purchase such items as a pit of conversion to convert the nasty enemies to work on your side, a mage tower and archery range. The towers get more powerful based on the number of people you have staffing them. So get converting to unlock some of the upper tier spells. The lack of a real end game would be my only complaint. There are four towers to unlock and a pit. Once you’ve bought all of them you can only spend your points on castle upgrades, which takes some of the fun out of it. I would of been nice to see some tiered upgrades come into play later in the game. As it is currently you’ll own everything there is to be had after about 15 rounds.

The simple MSPaint-esque design of the flash game is gone replaced with a graphical style that hearkens back to elementary school arts & crafts class. Your castle is now made of construction paper, the clouds in the sky are made of tissue paper that slowly float by. It’s definitely an interesting art direction that has to be seen to be appreciated. XGen Studios will not win any awards for photo-realistic graphics in this title, but I’m of the belief that the best graphics are ones that you don’t even notice. They blend into the background allowing you to focus on the increasingly frantic game play as you get further in the game.

The one place where Defend Your Castle shines most is it’s pop in/drop out multiplayer. At anytime when you are playing the game, another player can jump into your game by simply turning on a Wiimote. The score is cumulative for all of the players in the game, and the player with the highest score for the round is called the “King”. Only the king is allowed to assign the captured minions or choose the end of round bonuses, so rivalries can quickly develop.

Defend Your Castle was definitely worth my 500 Wii points, or $5 in real money terms. If you are looking for a quick distraction or a decent party game you should look no further; especially if your party is of the type where adult beverages are consumed en masse. There isn’t anything confusing here, just a fun quirky game to get people cheering.

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