Building castles and eventually watching them fall are both fun in equal measure. The joy of creation is only matched by seeing your virtual bricks topple, and Cataclismo understands this perfectly. The unique blend of wartime strategy, physics-based destruction, and castle building is now coming out in Steam Early Access a little later than expected, but developer Digital Sun is doing this to make it the best version of Cataclismo it can.
Cataclismo is part RTS game, and part city builder. Start by building your castle brick by labored brick, before the creatures of the night appear and attempt to invade your home. With over 100 building blocks to pick from and a physics-based system, verticality, traps, weather, and troop positioning need to be on your mind as you create. If the terrain permits a Helm’s Deep build, don’t hesitate to make it.
Make sure the castle walls protect your city, because the more prosperous your people are, the more siege defenses you can implement over time. Just don’t build straight up without any support, because the moment that bottom layer of brick starts coming down, the entire structure follows with it.
With the slight delay to Cataclismo and the reveal of early access, the launch gives access to the main campaign, a skirmish mode with two biomes, an endless mode, and a detailed level editor. The campaign will get more levels added as Cataclismo marches towards a full 1.0 launch, alongside new biomes, features, and game modes as well.
“Steam Early Access continues to be a wonderful path for games,” CEO of Cataclismo publisher Hooded Horse, Tim Bender, says. “As we have seen with our recent EA to 1.0 transitions, it affords developers the time they need to develop a great 1.0 offering in collaboration with their fans.”
If you’re worried about spending too much time on form over function with your castles, we spoke with Cataclismo design director Ramírez Luzón at GDC about that exact problem. “We really wanted [it to be] that beautiful castles are also the most useful castles, and that was not what was happening [during testing].”
To rectify this issue, Cataclismo is designed to boost optimal setups. Archers work better the higher you place them, and other soldiers benefit from being on the ground. So you need to build your castle with all these placements in mind – it’s not just about looks after all.
Cataclismo is now coming to Steam Early Access on Monday July 22, with a demo available letting you try the game for free right now.
While you wait there are plenty of other strategy games and city building games to keep you busy after you’re done with the Cataclismo demo.
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