The Castle Doctrine

Last updated

The Castle Doctrine
The Castle Doctrine Steam logo.png
Cover art on Steam
Developer(s) Jason Rohrer
Publisher(s) Jason Rohrer
Platform(s)
ReleaseJanuary 29, 2014
Genre(s) Strategy, roguelike
Mode(s) Massively multiplayer

The Castle Doctrine is a 2014 strategy video game developed and published by Jason Rohrer for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux via Valve's Steam platform. The game was released on January 29, 2014 for all platforms and is available as public domain software on SourceForge. Set in the early 1990s, it pits players against one another as they invade others' houses and attempt to steal money from their vaults, while also setting up traps and other obstacles to keep their own vaults safe.

Contents

In creating the game, Rohrer was influenced by his childhood fear of his house being robbed, numerous publicized shootings, and his own political views regarding gun rights and home invasions. During development and beta testing, the game went through several changes that increased its difficulty. It received mixed reviews from critics, with some praising the design and creativity and others finding it hard to empathize with the game's intended message.

Gameplay

The player character reorganizes his house to protect his vault. His wife and children are visible in the top-center of the screen. The Castle Doctrine house screenshot.jpg
The player character reorganizes his house to protect his vault. His wife and children are visible in the top-center of the screen.

The Castle Doctrine incorporates elements of puzzle, strategy, stealth, [1] and roguelike games, [2] viewed from a 2D perspective. [1] It focuses on maintaining and protecting a vault of money stored in one's house from intruders. These intruders are actually other players of the game; likewise, the player can invade others' houses and steal their money—presented in a list rather than found through exploration—in the same way. This list shows a pre-determined three-name pseudonym of each player, the number of dollars contained in their vault, how many others have tried to rob it, and how many have died in the process. [3] All deaths in the game are permanent; [1] upon dying, the player must create a new character. [4]

The player can protect their vault in a number of ways, such as building walls, keeping guard dogs, [3] setting up traps such as electrified floors and bottomless pits, [1] and giving guns to the player's family members so that they can defend the vault as well. The game does not punish the player for family members—by default, a wife and two children—being murdered by intruders; the player can even view footage of the incident afterwards. Rather, protecting the money is the goal the game emphasizes. The player starts off with $2,000 in cash and steals more from others' vaults; it can be used to purchase more objects to defend one's own vault. [1] [3] Additionally, a house is not accessible by thieves when its owner is retooling it for defense. [1]

When invading another's house, the player can attempt to deter these defenses in such ways as smashing windows, dismantling walls, short-circuiting machines, and even drugging guard dogs with tainted meat, [1] in addition to killing any residents that are armed. [3] Reaching a vault is always possible with enough skill; the game forces players to escape their own traps before other players can access them. Being caught in one's own traps has the same consequence as any other trap in the game: permadeath. [1] [5]

Development

The Castle Doctrine was created by indie developer Jason Rohrer; its ideas were drawn from Rohrer's childhood anxieties about his family's house being burgled, and his adult sense of responsibility over protecting his family. [6] The game's central theme is the castle doctrine and includes the issue of gun rights; Rohrer created it partially as an "artistic statement" on defending one's family through violence. [5] He summarized his goals with the game as creating something "that makes you feel violated and makes you want to protect stuff that’s yours, and puts you in the process of securing what’s yours." However, he has remarked that the consequence of making players feel hypocritical—since they are invading others' homes as well—was partially intentional and an "elegant" idea. [5]

Rohrer noted in an interview his aversion to creating a "ridiculous caricature of some post-apocalyptic man’s world, where we’ll all just robbing each other," and instead called his game pre-apocalyptic in setting and style. In terms of aesthetics, Rohrer aimed for a "very clean, no frills, no fluff, no filler kind of design" that emphasized function in all of its objects. He has noted that some players have complained about not being able to decorate their houses non-functionally, but is unsympathetic, saying that the game is not FarmVille . The game was, however, influenced by Minecraft , which—while heavily tied to cosmetic decoration—involves similar themes of protecting one's creations from other players as in The Castle Doctrine. [5]

Rohrer thought of adding family members for the player's character early in the game's development, but scrapped it at first because of the extra complexity and not knowing how to make them more than inanimate objects. After a dream, however, he was inspired to see if there was a practical way to implement them that would further the game's "moral dimension." [5]

Release

The Castle Doctrine was first released as a paid alpha and sold at half-price from March 2013 until its official release on January 29, 2014. [3] [7] As was visible through its history of updates during beta testing, it went through several changes, primarily the increase of gameplay difficulty. One was the addition of dedicated "perma-perma-death" servers, where players could not even re-create characters after dying, in contrast to the game's generic "perma-death" servers. Another was "blueprints," which allow players to get a general sense of a house's layout before entering and thus encourage setting up puzzle-based—rather than luck-based—vault defenses. [4] Rohrer did not, however, want the game to be impossible, so he took the step of forcing players to evade their own traps before the houses would be accessible to others. [5] The game has been placed in the public domain and is hosted on SourceForge. [8]

Upon release, the game's 50% discount was scaled back to 25% for one week. It has not gone on sale since, as Rohrer believes that "sales screw your fans" as they discourage buying games one wants during non-sale periods. [9] Following the game's release, Rohrer used $3,000 USD of alpha release earnings to fund a competition in which players could win money, paintings, gift cards, and other prizes by having the highest worth in-game houses. [10] The highest prize awarded was $316 USD. [11]

Reception

The Castle Doctrine received mixed reviews from critics, with a score on review aggregator Metacritic of 58/100. [12] Patrick Carlson of PC Gamer reviewed the game well, responding positively to the game rewarding experimentation and being easy to understand, describing it as thoughtfully designed. [1] Game Informer's Daniel Tack also rated the game well, commenting particularly on its creativity, stating though that he did not think the game was "deep enough to stay interesting for long." [2] Writing for Destructoid, Patrick Hancock shared Tack's opinion that the game was a good experience, but said he would find it hard to recommend. [13]

The web-video series Extra Credits recommended it on one of their "Games you might not have tried" episodes, praising it for challenging the player to examine their beliefs, and commenting that being good at the game itself "requires the same sort of paranoid genius that the game itself is trying to warn against."

Polygon's Russ Pitts found the game a frustrating exercise, his experience determined by the arbitrary quality of player designed houses, and further obstructed by the harsh consequences of failure. Pitts felt the game valued its message over the player's time and yet found the message hard to take seriously; he would describe the game as the most disturbing he had ever played. [3] [16] Keza MacDonald, in her review at IGN, shared these frustrations, finding that tackling player-constructed houses made the game over-reliant on trial and error. She also found it hard to empathize with the small, pixelated characters, leading her to believe that the game failed in "communicating much of a message". [15] Nick Capozzoli of GameSpot also gave the game a largely negative review, criticising the nihilistic feel, and saying that it did not bring out the emotions it was aimed to. [14]

Related Research Articles

<i>Night Trap</i> 1992 interactive movie

Night Trap is a 1992 interactive movie developed by Digital Pictures and published by Sega for the Sega CD. Presented primarily through full-motion video (FMV), Night Trap tasks the player to observe teenage girls having a sleepover visiting a house which, unbeknownst to them, is infested with vampires. The player watches live surveillance footage and triggers traps to capture anyone endangering the girls. The player can switch between different cameras to keep watch over the girls and eavesdrop on conversations to follow the story and listen for clues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Rohrer</span> American video game designer

Jason Rohrer is an American computer programmer, writer, musician, and game designer. He publishes most of his software into the public domain and charges for versions of his games distributed on commercial platforms like the iPhone appstore or Steam. He is a graduate of Cornell University. From 2004 until 2011 he practiced simple living, stating in 2009 that his family of four had an annual budget of less than $14,500. They have since relocated from Las Cruces, New Mexico to Davis, California. In 2005 Jason Rohrer worked on a local currency, called North Country Notes (NCN), for Potsdam, New York. In 2016 Rohrer became the first videogame artist to have a solo retrospective in an art museum. His exhibition, The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer, was on view at The Davis Museum at Wellesley College until June 2016.

A castle doctrine, also known as a castle law or a defense of habitation law, is a legal doctrine that designates a person's abode or any legally occupied place as a place in which that person has protections and immunities permitting one, in certain circumstances, to use force to defend oneself against an intruder, free from legal prosecution for the consequences of the force used. The term is most commonly used in the United States, though many other countries invoke comparable principles in their laws.

<i>Tecmos Deception: Invitation to Darkness</i> 1996 video game

Tecmo's Deception: Invitation to Darkness is a role-playing video game released by Tecmo in 1996 for the original PlayStation. Although often referred to simply as "Deception", the game's official title is Tecmo's Deception. Tecmo's Deception was released as Kokumeikan (刻命館) in Japan, and as Devil's Deception in Europe. The game inverts the common tropes of role-playing video games by placing the player in the role of an evil lord who must use traps and monsters to kill the adventuring parties which invade his castle. As the story progresses, the player character learns he has been the victim of multiple deceptions, and must decide whether to proceed with his plan to revive the Devil or convert to the cause of good.

Katko v. Briney, 183 N.W.2d 657, was a court case decided by the Iowa Supreme Court, in which two homeowners were held liable for battery for injuries caused to a trespasser who set off a spring gun set as a mantrap in an abandoned house on the homeowners' property. The case thereafter received wide attention in legal circles, becoming a staple of tort law casebooks and law school courses.

<i>Double Switch</i> (video game) 1993 video game

Double Switch is an adventure interactive movie video game originally released for Sega CD, Sega Saturn and Microsoft Windows and later remastered for mobile, Steam, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. The game was produced by Digital Pictures and has a similar "trap-em-up" format to Space Panic, Heiankyo Alien, and Digital Pictures's earlier game, Night Trap. Apart from the HUD, the graphics consist of live action full motion video clips starring Corey Haim.

Permadeath or permanent death is a game mechanic in both tabletop games and video games in which player characters who lose all of their health are considered dead and cannot be used anymore. Depending on the situation, this could require the player to create a new character to continue, or completely restart the game potentially losing nearly all progress made. Other terms include persona death and player death. Some video games offer a hardcore mode that features this mechanic, rather than making it part of the core game.

<i>Wizardry 8</i> 2001 video game

Wizardry 8 is the last installment in the Wizardry series of role-playing video games developed by Sir-Tech Canada. Serving as the third game in the "Dark Savant trilogy," it follows Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge and Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant. Originally published in 2001 by Sir-Tech, it was later re-released by Night Dive Studios on GOG.com and Steam in 2013.

<i>Borderlands</i> (video game) 2009 video game

Borderlands is a 2009 action role-playing first-person shooter video game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K. It is the first game in the Borderlands series. It was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Shield Android TV. The game was released worldwide in October 2009, with the Mac OS X version being released on December 3, 2010, by Feral Interactive. The game's story focuses on a group of four "Vault Hunters", who travel to the distant planet of Pandora to search for the "Vault", which is rumored to contain advanced alien technology and other priceless riches. The hunters piece together clues to find the Vault while battling the savage wildlife of Pandora and the bandits and outlaws that populate the planet, ultimately banding together to prevent the Atlas Corporation and its privately funded paramilitary forces from reaching the Vault first.

<i>Diablo II: Lord of Destruction</i> Expansion pack for the action role-playing video game Diablo II

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is an expansion pack for the hack and slash action role-playing game Diablo II. Unlike the original Diablo's expansion pack, Diablo: Hellfire, it is a first-party expansion developed by Blizzard North.

<i>Estate of Panic</i> American TV series or program

Estate of Panic is an American reality competition show in which seven strangers compete to find cash in a large estate. The show is hosted by Steve Valentine, and produced by Endemol USA.

Passage is a 2007 experimental video game developed by Jason Rohrer. Since its release it has become a significant entry in the burgeoning debate of video games as an art form. Rohrer himself has been an outspoken proponent of advancing the artistic integrity of the medium.

<i>Diamond Trust of London</i> 2012 turn-based strategy video game

Diamond Trust of London is a turn-based strategy video game by Jason Rohrer, with music by Tom Bailey. Following a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter the game was published by indiePub and released for the Nintendo DS on August 28, 2012. The game has been placed in the public domain and is hosted on SourceForge.

<i>Infinity Blade III</i> 2013 video game

Infinity Blade III was an action role-playing video game for iOS, developed by Chair Entertainment and Epic Games. It was the third game in the Infinity Blade series. It was released on the App Store on September 18, 2013. The main characters of the game are Siris and Isa.

<i>Civilization: Beyond Earth</i> 2014 video game

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is a turn-based strategy, 4X video game in the Civilization series developed by Firaxis Games, published by 2K Games and released for Microsoft Windows on October 24, 2014, the Mac App Store on November 27, 2014 and for Linux on December 18, 2014. A spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri, Beyond Earth shares much of that game's development team, as well as some concepts which were introduced in the 1999 title. The game's setting is unique to the Civilization series in that it takes place in the future, with mankind traveling through space and founding colonies on extraterrestrial planets after Earth becomes uninhabitable due to an undescribed disaster known as "the Great Mistake".

<i>Sid Meiers Starships</i> 2015 turn-based strategy video game

Sid Meier's Starships is a turn-based strategy video game developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K. It was released on March 12, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and iOS. The game is a stand-alone title but shares the same universe as Civilization: Beyond Earth, putting the player in control of a fleet of space-faring craft. The player will use the fleet to explore the galaxy, meeting other human and alien forces, and dealing with problems through a combination of military, diplomatic, and other strategic options. Spacecraft in the fleet can be highly customized for meeting certain goals. The game features cross-connectivity features with Beyond Earth for those that own both titles.

<i>The Lab</i> (video game) 2016 video game

The Lab is a virtual reality (VR) video game developed by Valve and released for Windows on April 5, 2016. It uses VR technology to showcase a series of play experiences accessed through a hub room. The game is set in the Portal universe and offers eight different game types that involve short demo experiences that use different aspects of the VR capabilities. Variety is also offered beyond the experiences themselves by the amount of interactability with objects in the environment that is included.

<i>Destiny 2: Forsaken</i> 2018 expansion of Destiny 2

Destiny 2: Forsaken was a major expansion for Destiny 2, a first-person shooter video game by Bungie. Representing the third expansion and the second year of extended content for Destiny 2, it was released on September 4, 2018. Forsaken revolved around the player's Guardian seeking to avenge the death of Cayde-6 by the hands of the Awoken Prince Uldren Sov. Uldren, corrupted by the Darkness, was in search of his lost sister, Queen Mara Sov, both of whom were thought to have died in Destiny: The Taken King. Along their journey, players faced the Scorn, undead versions of the Fallen race that had been revived and morphed into a new race. Forsaken added content across the game, including new missions, Player versus Environment locations, Player versus Player maps, player gear, weaponry, a brand new PvE/PvP hybrid game mode, and a new raid. The expansion also introduced the game's first dungeon, a new challenging three-player activity. A seasonal model was also introduced, in which smaller content packages are released periodically throughout the year between the releases of the major expansions.

<i>One Hour One Life</i> 2018 video game

One Hour One Life is a 2018 survival massively multiplayer online game developed and published by Jason Rohrer. Each player lives for, at most, 60 minutes in a large, persistent world, with each minute representing a year of life. They must gather and grow food, craft tools and build societies in order to survive. The game's source code and assets are placed into the public domain, and are freely available on GitHub, with accounts being sold for access to the primary servers hosting the game. Originally available only on the website onehouronelife.com, it was later released on Steam in November 2018.

<i>Hood: Outlaws & Legends</i> 2021 video game

Hood: Outlaws & Legends is an action video game developed by Sumo Newcastle and published by Focus Home Interactive. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X and Series S on May 10, 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Carlson, Patrick (February 1, 2014). "The Castle Doctrine review". PC Gamer . Retrieved February 3, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 Tack, Daniel (January 29, 2014). "The Castle Doctrine: Only The Strong Survive". Game Informer. Archived from the original on February 7, 2014. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Pitts, Russ (January 31, 2014). "The Castle Doctrine review: the great wall". Polygon . Retrieved February 3, 2014.
  4. 1 2 Meer, Alec (June 5, 2013). "Die Hardest: Perma-Perma-death in The Castle Doctrine". Rock Paper Shotgun . Retrieved February 4, 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Meer, Alec (February 1, 2013). "Rohrer On The Castle Doctrine, Guns & Chain World, Pt 2". Rock Paper Shotgun . Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  6. ↑ Alexander, Leigh (6 August 2013). "The strange, sad anxiety of Jason Rohrer's The Castle Doctrine". Gamasutra . Retrieved 4 February 2014.
  7. ↑ Meer, Alec (March 13, 2013). "It's A Steal: Castle Doctrine Alpha Released". Rock Paper Shotgun . Retrieved 5 February 2014.
  8. ↑ Jason Rohrer (2011-10-17). "HC Software". SourceForge . Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  9. ↑ Hillier, Brenna (January 15, 2014). ""Sales screw your fans," says Castle Doctrine dev". VG247 . Retrieved March 1, 2014.
  10. ↑ Tach, Dave (January 22, 2014). "The Castle Doctrine contest will reward in-game thieves with real money, home security gear". Polygon . Retrieved 5 February 2014.
  11. ↑ Owen, Phil (4 February 2014). "Castle Doctrine competition winner earns $316 through digital burglary". VG247 . Retrieved 5 February 2014.
  12. 1 2 "The Castle Doctrine". Metacritic . Retrieved February 4, 2014.
  13. 1 2 Hancock, Patrick (8 February 2014). "Review: The Castle Doctrine". Destructoid . Retrieved 11 February 2014.
  14. 1 2 Capozzoli, Nick (17 February 2014). "The Castle Doctrine Review". GameSpot. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  15. 1 2 MacDonald, Keza (4 February 2014). "The Castle Doctrine Review". IGN . Retrieved 6 February 2014.
  16. ↑ Russ Pitts (2014-01-31). "Status update". Twitter . Retrieved 2014-02-10. A review of the most disturbing game I've ever played. "The Castle Doctrine"
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.