Porter's World

Castle Crashing the Beard

Castle Crashing the Beard is an incredibly short game, but it offers a great amount of fun while it lasts. The game has fluid controls, great graphics, an addicting level up system, and an awesome boss that you’ll insist on seeing the death of once you start playing this great game. It is a bit on the hard side for the average casual gamer, but as a whole, it’s a great example of an awesome action flash game.

The game has a bit of an interesting back story, so we’ll look at that quickly. Tom Fulp, creator of Alien Hominid, and owner of Newgrounds, was working day and night on finishing Castle Crashers, which the characters of this game are based off of. As motivation to complete the game, he vowed to stop shaving his beard until his job was completed. As a result, Tom had a beast of a beard (not really, but in comparison to his normally shaved self, yeah, so we’ll go with it). This beard inspired his friends and co-workers to make a game joking of how his beard will grow beastly and destroy all.

The object of the game is to play as a Castle Crasher and destroy Tom’s beard before it destroys you. It’s a simple 1 on 1 boss battle, you vs the beard. You can attack at close range, or charge your attack if you have mp and shoot a semi long ranged attack. Each hit earns you experience points to level up your character, which gives you better attack, combos and a sweet new look. Although the boss AI follows a simple pattern as all classic arcade games did, many players may find the challenge a bit overwhelming as you must be a bit cautious about taking damage since your life is low.

The strongest point of Castle Crashing the Beard is the simplicity of it. You press one button on the start menu and are immediately in the middle of your one and only fight of the game. Aside from the jump in and play action element, many players will find the game strongly addicting as they not only try to beat the boss, but level up their character to the max level, win or lose. The controls are as simple as can be, and because of this instructions really aren’t needed. The movement is fluid, the speeds perfect and the action is fast paced, all very welcome attributes for any game.

In the end, Castle Crashing the Beard is a simple game that will take you between 3 minutes and an hour, but it’s enjoyable for what it is. It lacks any serious depth (although the engine could certainly be used for a longer game), and it is, as I mentioned, a bit on the hard side. In addition, there’s also a neat Easter egg for any oldschool gamers like myself out there, the ending credits screen is based off of the credits screen from Super Mario Bros 2 for the NES. That aside, it’s a fast paced arcade boss battle that will surely entertain you until you destroy the beard.