Online game "Hustle Castle"

Hustle Castle is a mix of adventure, strategy, and role-playing game in a medieval fantasy world, developed by Studio Nord of the Mail.ru Group. It entered the market for a free-to-play MMO relatively recently, in 2017, but already in its first year, when it was available on mobile platforms, it gained a base of 16 million players and earned more than $20 million. Now it is also available on personal computers. Of course, much of this success is due to the fact that Hustle Castle is oriented on such a popular hit like Fallout Shelter. But is this the only reason, and what are Studio Nord's own findings?

The first and main difference is obvious - the action of Hustle Castle takes place not in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but in a fantasy medieval world, and the story is told in a humorous tone. According to the story, we must save our bride, Princess Olivia, who has been kidnapped by the not quite alive Lord of the Abyss, who intends to make her his wife.
To do this, we train and dress up glorious heroes in our castle and send them off in succession to clean up the various regions where the villain is escaping from us along with Olivia. Various amusing henchmen of the Overlord try to detain the player - including dumb orc leader Grav the Mighty Head, sad lich Mortalis, who after defeat from the humans informs that he is going to move from the graveyard, evil forest lord, elf nicknamed Shrum the Mighty Roots, pulling his limbs to Olivia and flirting with her unmistakably, and others.

Olivia is not to be envied at all - she is a capricious girl, demanding to be rescued before evening (she does not like to spend the night in a strange place), and she is taken further and further away, through the woods, where she admits it smells worse than the royal soldiers, she is pestered by villains. And to rescue her, the narcissistic leader of the knights, Donald the Glorified, is sent to brag and quarrel with the court sage. It is not surprising that the princess is constantly hysterical and demands to be rescued as soon as possible, but in response she is forced to read another post of praise from Donald, in which he reports how well he beat someone there.

Yes, this is the equivalent of Twitter, in which all the protagonists of the story communicate. Here, for example, the Lord of the Abyss scolds Donald, and when his subordinates tell him that they masked his tracks as he had requested, the Lord hisses at them, "Next time, write such things in the 'private' box!". All in all, reading all these amusing correspondence and messages makes you smile and clearly enlivens the consistent mopping up of enemy regions and bosses. And the characters themselves, the characters are bright, convex - and this, you must agree, is not often seen in the conditional-free MMO.

The battles themselves are quite traditional for such games - our fighters and enemies automatically attack each other, and it depends on us which of our heroes we choose for the squad, how we pump them up, what we equip. In addition, after building the magic lab you can create and use various spells in battles.

That is, all the training and all the most interesting things happen in the castle, which, like in Fallout Shelter (and you can also remember the XCOM series), is a constantly expanding area where we erect various buildings and clear a space for new rooms. There are barracks, where the heroes appear (the higher the level of the barracks, the more characters the squad contains during missions); training halls, where they are upgraded; canteens, where food is prepared (it is spent on combat missions); treasury, which brings gold; cellars and safes to store all these resources; already mentioned magic laboratory (there we also save mana to create spells and other useful actions); armory, which allows to use siege weapons, and so on and so on. The main one is the throne room, where you can open new types of buildings and upgrades for them. There we are also free to change the look of the castle - the possibilities for this abound.

At the same time, we must personally drag the inhabitants of the castle into each room to work, train, and benefit from them. Everyone initially has a certain level of development in each of the four classes - warrior, alchemist, treasurer, cook. And this, of course, has to be taken into account when "assigning to jobs". Also have to personally equip residents - if with the warriors, archers and magicians everything is clear, what to dress them in, but we give chefs hats, ladles and pans of varying degrees of sophistication, and the treasurer - the accounts. All of these increase their productivity and resources. And to collect these resources, we click on the characters ourselves. That's why it's important to place such buildings next to each other - that way the "harvesting" goes faster.

If you ignore them for a long time, the inhabitants become bored, hungry, depressed - or their rooms are invaded by some monsters and ghosts. By clicking on the corresponding icons, we satisfy their needs/desires, get rid of dangers and increase the overall happiness level of the castle inhabitants - it affects the efficiency of their work.

And if we want new inhabitants, we build living rooms and drag a man and a woman there so that they can have a child after a while. The higher the potential of the parents, the more capable their child will be. And potential affects the level of maximum boost in each of the four classes.

Some time children just hang around the castle before they become adults. Naturally, this process, as well as all the construction and upgrades that take minutes or hours of real time, can be accelerated for special crystals - they are both purchased for real money, and are earned in the game itself for all sorts of achievements, passing tests and activities. There is also its own analogue of a combat pass that allows you to receive rewards for completing daily and other tasks - the purchase of "Premium", as usual, will increase the quantity and quality of such bonuses.

So what activities are there in Hustle Castle? And there are, in fact, many. Periodically, our already conquered lands are invaded by enemies, or we ourselves can send our heroes on a journey of many hours, from which they will bring certain resources.

At regular intervals Portal opens, from which pryut especially dangerous monsters - the more battles of different levels will pass there (and win them, of course), the more we earn dark souls, for which the store can buy cool equipment. When we sufficiently level up the throne room in the castle, first the Gems Cove opens where we find resources for equipment upgrades (such as gems, which inlaid combat items), and then the opportunity to go with other players in the Dungeon - there is a chance to find fragments of special relics to create the coolest things.

For winning tournaments in the Arena, where we fight against other players, we get not only valuable chests, but also a special currency, which we are allowed to spend only in the tournament store. At the "Lighthouse" location we also fight against other players, but in single duels rather than tournaments - each battle takes energy, which is restored over time. Victories bring a resource called "Lanterns", and when we reach a certain level, we get chests with different valuable elixirs - only for them (plus the need for mana) are allowed to increase the parameters of our warriors, archers and mages.

You're also free to attack other players' castles to rob them. But the main PvP-activities, of course, are related to clan wars. When you join a clan and reach a certain status in it, you can apply for participation directly in battles and field your troops - battles take place on a large map with many regions, and the more your clan takes them, the closer they are to victory.

But that's not all - you also gain access to clan territory, where new activities and opportunities open up. For example, you can fight huge monsters in the Gates of the Abyss - they are summoned specifically by clan members to test their skills and get cool rewards. You can also invest in improving the Town Hall, in the development of different areas (there are quarters raiders, miners and traders), to perform tasks from the bulletin board (in fact the same test and achievements, but there are only counting actions and achievements for the clan), to send their heroes in new expeditions - all this brings various bonuses. You can even eat your fill in the tavern, so that your fighters for a time to get a boost in health or damage. There is also a store and it is planned to open a kind of analogue of the Exchange, where players will keep track of exchange rates and make smart investments.

By the way, Hustle Castle is constantly evolving. So, recently added monthly events, which will turn into seasons, offering to earn unique rewards. There was a "Royal Challenge", allowing you to get extra bonuses for completing activities and weekly quests. And in the Arena launched its own League of Champions, where the best earn special "helmets" to enhance the power of his squad. Finally, in the arsenal of items with the latest patch introduced Totems, which we improve with the help of wood and spirits.

Answering the question at the beginning of the review, what is the difference between Hustle Castle and Fallout Shelter, let's say - our compatriots from Studio Nord made a full-fledged MMO with a lot of activities and clan wars, so there is no feeling that here you developed to the maximum, and now there is nothing more to do - constantly something new appears. Also it's just a cute, funny and really "addictive" strategy RPG, which is banal fun to play. Well, after all, where else will you read how the villain who kidnapped the princess asks his subscribers for advice, whether the picnic, where he's going to go with his bride, needs performances with executions and torture, and what meat is better to take!

July 2022