Starting with a tiny 3×3 castle and somehow turning it into a huge flying fortress covered in towers, cannons, and defenses sounds like a pretty good way to spend a roguelite run. That’s what you’ll be doing in Castle Away, a hand-drawn roguelite auto-battler that has just launched its first public demo on Steam.
Developed by indie studio Eternal Winter, the team behind Gladiator Manager and Rift Riff, it puts you in charge of building and upgrading a castle while trying to stay one step ahead of the demons chasing you across the map.
The demo gives you two regions to fight through, two castle factions to experiment with, and two difficulty levels, with plenty more planned for the full game. Now you just need to figure out how to fit everything you want into that castle.
A 3×3 Castle Isn’t Going to Stay Small for Long
Every run begins with a 3×3 grid, which doesn’t leave much room for your grand fortress-building ambitions. You’ll gradually expand from there, adding new structures and working out where everything should go. There are towers, walls, workshops, banners, and other buildings to choose from, with many gaining additional bonuses depending on what you place next to them.
That makes finding space for everything a little more complicated than simply putting your strongest structures wherever they happen to fit. The right combination can turn a fairly ordinary part of your castle into something considerably more useful, and as the fortress grows, there are more opportunities to find synergies between everything you’ve built.
By the end of a run, that little square you started with should be almost unrecognizable.
Build It, Then Let It Fight
Once you head into battle, your castle takes over. Castle Away is an auto-battler, so you won’t be manually aiming cannons or telling individual towers what to attack. Instead, battles are where you find out whether all those decisions you made while building the fortress actually worked.
Different structures bring their own abilities into combat. Walls can generate Bulwark to help protect the castle, while offensive buildings deal with the enemies trying to tear it apart. Elemental effects add more possibilities, including ways to burn and freeze enemies.
Your job is to put all of those pieces together before the fighting starts. Of course, discovering that your brilliant new setup isn’t quite as brilliant as you thought is all part of the roguelite experience.
You Can’t Visit Everywhere
There’s another problem to worry about between battles. Something is following you. Each move across the map brings an Archdemon closer, so you’ll need to decide which locations are actually worth visiting before it catches up. Towns, shops, shamans, plague doctors, and resource nodes can all help strengthen your castle, but trying to stop at everything isn’t an option.
Sometimes that could mean passing up one useful opportunity because there’s something better waiting further along your route. Other times, you might desperately need whatever help is available right now.
Eventually, the Archdemon catches up and you’ll have to find out whether the fortress you’ve spent the run building is actually ready for it.
Two Castles to Try in the Demo
The newly released demo includes two different castle factions, giving you more than one way to approach building your fortress. There are also two regions and two difficulty levels available, so there should be enough room to start experimenting with different layouts and combinations before Castle Away gets its full release.
The finished game is expected to include more than 50 structures alongside additional castle types, regions, encounters, and an Ascension-style system for anyone who eventually decides the demons aren’t causing quite enough trouble.
Castle Away is currently due to launch later this year, while its public Steam demo is available to play now. Starting with nine little squares might not sound like much. Give it a run or two, though, and you could have a flying castle full of cannons on your hands.