👑🏰 Castle Kong | Nintendo Switch | Review | 6/10 | "For Die Hard Donkey Kong fans Who Want to Really Challenge Their High Score Prowess / Patience" 👑🏰 @DrowningMonkeys #IndieGames #GameDev

Castle Kong is a homage to the legendary Donkey Kong and comes from the Drowning Monkeys devs.

The initial big draw for this game was the high score comp that was run alongside its release which was a great way to get people hyped for the game coming out.

In the cold light of day though now the competition has concluded what is the game actually like to play. Well if you like Donkey Kong then you’ll like this.

The game draws all its inspiration from Donkey Kong including the level of perseverance it requires for you to progress to the higher levels.

The game gives you the same level of control that you have with Donkey Kong and that is to say, it is very limited. 

You play as a Pauper who’s trying to save the Princess from the Evil King at the top of his tower. All very familiar except there is a lack of primates in this game.

The King will lob things at you and you’ll have to try and avoid them with a jump that requires you to concentrate on its timing as there’s no room for errors as one mistimed jump will see you lose a life.

The problem I found was that the restart from losing all your lives takes too long as you will die often and this will get annoying. I suppose the answer to that is to get good and don’t die. But it still doesn’t take away from the 12-second restart lag that started to irritate me lots after a while as I had to watch the King steal my Mrs over and over again!

The other thing to consider is that the deaths are cheap and require you to be pixel perfect to proceed otherwise you’ll keep on dying over and over again with no mercy.

In terms of looks this game perfectly captures the retro aesthetic, it’s going for while making the visuals serviceable for the type of game it is. The level designs are very much Donkey Kong type levels with a castle theme and some extra gameplay details such as cutting chandelier supports to clear the level.

"Right, I’m off to jump slowly over pixel ducklings and pitchfork a ball of crawling lava."