Castle Of Alchemists

This game claims to have controller support, but in testing that theory I have found that it is not the truth. The main menu cannot be navigated by controller, a cursor only sometimes appears. In the intro text it says 'press a to skip' and pressing the a button does nothing. I proceed no further and wish now that I could have my money back.

I do not recommend this game for a few reasons, and unlike many other reviewers, I have played more than 3-4 hours and i've got 100% of the achievements. I have actually played the game for more hours than what is shown on my profile, so I've played at least 20 hours. But if you are someone who buys games to test them a few times, maybe play 2-3 hours, and then move on to other games, check out other reviews instead. However, if you intend to complete the game fully or at least reach the end, read on.

I do not recommend the game because:

• It’s not really a tower defense game, but more like Orcs Must Die but viewed from above. The towers are a bonus, and at least half of all kills will come from you as the actual player running around.
  
• It’s very grindy. You gain XP slowly, resources are acquired gradually. In the endless mode, there’s 5-7 minutes of effective nonstop action before you can rebuild your towers again. The bosses have extremely high health; shoot, dodge, repeat for 15-20 minutes.
  
• There is no difficulty setting. If you can’t beat a level, too bad—look up a guide and grind for XP and resources.
  
• The levels are too short / you get too few resources. You have huge maps, but you’ll finish a level after 2-3 waves, meaning you won’t get a long maze with different towers combined. Instead, you get like 4 towers in the beginning and then enough resources for 1-2 towers wave 2 and 3, and that’s it. When you start to get a good kill box or a nice combo going, the map is over. Just as you’re beginning to get into it, the level ends.
  
[*] You need high APM (actions per minute) to succeed. This isn’t a game you play casually after playing Starcraft 2 at grandmaster level. This is the game you play instead of SC2—you need the same APM. The game is hard, so you have to spam all your abilities as soon as they’re off cooldown. You have little health, regardless of gear or spec, and there are many annoying enemies trying to kill you. All ranged enemies are snipers that will shoot at you from a distance. So you have to keep moving constantly. Later in the game, there will be levels with two different lanes, meaning you have to run back and forth between lanes to kill creeps on each. As mentioned before, towers can’t handle this alone—you, as the player, must get 50% of all kills.

Oyun gerçekten aşırı keyifli fakat bazı şeyler daha iyi olabilir. Boss'lar çok sıkıcı, normal seviyelere yedirilirse daha güzel olabilir. Her wave boss 1 kere döner, canı yenilenmez ve 3 wave sonunda ölmesi gerekir yoksa fail gibi birşey olabilir. Seviye puanı kasmak çok grind, oyuncuya daha fazla puan verilmesi lazım. Crafting sistemi çok kullanışsız, 1-3 arası seviyeler hiçbir işe yaramıyor, 4. seviye denk gelene kadar craft deniyorum. Melee weapon kuşanmadan oyuna girilebilmesi güzel olur. 2 tane harita bitirdim fakat hiç yeni kule açılmadı, hala ilk baştaki 2 tanesi var, xbow ve tesla tower olan, yeni bir şeyler açılmış gibi gösteriyor bug mı emin değilim. Satın almanızı kesinlikle tavsiye ediyorum, 2022'de katıldığım bir yarışmada yapımcılarla tanışma fırsatım olmuştu gerçekten çok güzel iş çıkarmışlar. Elinize sağlık.

A very fun hybrid game, and very cheap too, I recommend it to everyone who likes tower defense with action, it reminds me of Orcs Must Die but with its own characteristics.

great game has a really fun tower system and level design makes each different not only with basic ideas but even path thickness reply affects choices make

Fun core gameplay, just needs a bit more polish. Hoping for updates.

Fun Tower defense game that has a mix of traps and action combat, maybe slightly more combat and action than most Tower defense games.

If you love Tower Defense games like me, this is a great addition to your collection.

Good art design, fun gameplay, good traps and good weapons. NPC's you can visit in between levels to. The graphics are also good, controls are very good.

I can't wait to play more!

I played it for a bit and, for the price, i think it is worth it. But it has some problems. I'll list out my various gripes, but I think there's still value for money here.

Enemies shoot at you a lot. When they are below/above you, those shots come from off screen with 0 telegraph.

You are not rewarded for losing, and you get very poor rewards for winning non-perfectly. And without rewards you can't craft RNG gear or level your character, both which are absolutely critical. This is the worst thing about the game for sure. If you fall behind the curve or your particular approach isn't working, the only solution is to go back and grind lower-level stuff. And lower level stuff gives diminished rewards after beating it one.

The towers are very weak individually, and you build between waves. So you end up really struggling during the first round typically.

Some items are just missing descriptions.

Some enemies are resistant or immune to pretty much every element. Physical seemed like the "catch all" damage type that does less damage avoids resistances, but then that is all that works on a 1/4 of enemies? Not sure what was going on here.

Fun gameplay loop. Build stuff, smack enemies, upgrade traps, repeat. Easy to lose a couple hours without noticing.

Traps + combat = satisfying depth
Weapon crafting actually changes gameplay
Early waves feel slow
Endless mode is brutal (in a good way)
Not perfect, but worth mastering.

This game grew on me slowly. I liked the art and trap mechanics right away, but what really made me stay was how each items and upgrade actually changes your approach. I don’t usually care much about builds, but here I found myself trying different combinations just to see what works better. It’s a good loop build, fight, upgrade, repeat.

Crafting your build actually changes how you play. My electric-oil combo literally melted everything in endless mode, so satisfying.

The main character definitely used Asterix and Obelix's potion.

In this game, we play as muscle man who has no problem smashing through every enemy in his path. Our main goal is to defend the castle. But unlike basic tower defense games, here we won’t just use towers—there’s also a ton of other abilities, traps, and upgrades to play with.

The gameplay is very dynamic with constant battles, explosions, and chaos. The pixel art is crisp and really pleasing to the eye. And the soundtrack is so intense, it makes you wanna pick a fight with someone yourself.

The game is just fantastic and definitely won’t let you get bored. If you love Hero Siege and similar roguelikes, you should give this one a shot.

If you read the review and liked it, don't forget to give it a thumbsup;)

The further - The better♥️

My biggest gripe with the game so far, and what is actively preventing me from really liking it, is that traps just don't matter enough. Maybe this is a personal problem, I very much expected something in the vein of Orcs must Die where you supplement trap setups with personal involvement, but in this one it's the other way around.

You get a pitiful amount of resources to actually put traps down, and at least at the start, most levels have a grand total of 3 waves or so. Even the endless variants are lackluster, since the resource amount still stays small. Its not particularly worthwhile creating killzones or the like, but rather better to just spread out combinations of 2-3 traps every few blocks. Some levels having requirements of comboing 3 different damage types are kind of laughable in that regard.

The actual killing is done around 80% by you personally, mostly via gun and 4 rotating CDs. The best way to equip currently is 4 booby traps and just spam ranged shots while occasionally putting them down. I sadly invested in the melee skill at first, and there isn't a respecc function so far. Melee, while strong, tends to not be worth it because of how incredibly quickly you die. A single death usually means mission failure, as mentioned previously with you not being out there around 80% of enemies will just wander through unopposed. It's almsot always better to just craft a multi-mag ranged weapon and just spam LB as you slowly walk backwards.

Apart from that, there just isn't much here. Skill trees are kind of boring, there are no trap upgrades or the like. Music's good, I like the artstyle. But regarding the actual game itself, there are better tower defense games available.

Fun indie tower defense action RPG, CoA took me a couple rounds to get into but I got there. If you are a fan of the genre it should be worth killing a few hours with.

The game has some issues with ultra wide screen monitors, and no zoom kind of sucks as critters will attack from off screen if they are coming from the top or bottom of screen. The gear is all randomly generated but there is no way to tweak any of the 4 perks per item, so you can grind forever if you want something very specific. Campaign is kind of short, and after finishing all the maps I only had 4 skills improved out of about 12 so my char is pretty much only good with physical ranged weapons and everything else lacks in DPS.

Fun for what it is, and hopefully there will be some additions/changes now that 1.0 is out.

Game slows down making (mostly off-screen) attacks practically unavoidable. Before you know it a thousand arrows swords and purple flowers are in your position as you grapple up and allow enemies in because Alibaba-Doomslayer is too cool to stay put.

The game is lagging like hell to below 30 FPS when enemies appear, while my rig is definitely up to the task.

R9 5900X
RX7900GRE
32 GB RAM

It is unplayable this way.

Controller Support is also not what it should be. Moving the cursor with the left stick is awkward and the stick acceleration does not help with the issue. I have a 8BitDo Gamepad, so it is not like it is a cheap pad with issues.

I really love the concept here — a tower defense game where the player takes an active combat role, like Orcs Must Die! (which I’m a big fan of). Unfortunately, while the idea is great, the actual experience is frustrating for a number of reasons.

The problems:

• Inconsistent Difficulty: Some levels are fair, others are brick walls. There’s no steady curve.
  
• Trap Ineffectiveness: Traps barely matter — enemies are spongey, and trap damage is too low. It’s mostly up to the player to kill things.
  
• Frustrating Enemies: Lots of annoying enemy abilities (teleporting, blinding, bouncing projectiles). It’s very easy to get hit repeatedly and die before you even realize what happened.
  
• Poor Survivability: Healing is scarce and weak. Even with defensive upgrades, you feel glassy — especially in melee.
  
• Bad Crafting System: Gear is made via a random rank system (1-4), with higher ranks having a small chance and random affixes. It’s unrewarding, feels like mobile game RNG, and you have no real control over your build.
  
• Unresponsive Controls: Combat inputs often feel delayed, sometimes refusing to register until animations finish — especially noticeable when trying to heal or set traps mid-combat.
  
[*]Visual Clutter: Pixel art style looks decent in isolation but blends together badly when things get hectic. It’s hard to read what’s happening.

I'm only writing this review because someone else mentioned you have to grind forever to progress. You don't. I beat the game, it was fun while it lasted but I doubt I'll farm for completion. I did not have to grind at all. I played each level once, and only failed a level two times. No grinding required. I did feel like melee was way to dangerous to invest into and that was a bummer.

Brilliant. Fresh air in the tower defence genre.

great TD game to add into your collection

Clunky and runs like shit.

The action feels better than before, especially with the reworked skill trees. New enemies finally make the waves feel less copy-paste. The pixel art and effects still look great, especially during chaos.

Resource gathering still gets a bit grindy after a while. Some levels can feel like a chore if you don’t experiment with traps.

It’s not perfect, but I had a genuinely good time. If you like Orcs Must Die or Dungeon Warfare but want something a bit more hands-on, this scratches that itch.

Bro the crafting is actually sick! Like I made this weapon that works with my slow traps and it was melting enemies. Didn’t think I’d care about the skill tree but now I’m out here planning builds like I know what I’m doing
Endless waves get crazy fast. Boss fights too. I was running around trying to keep everything from falling apart and somehow surviving. It’s chaotic but in a fun way.

This game really grew on me. At first, I was kinda thrown off the pacing felt weird, and the interface was a bit clunky. But after a few runs, something clicked. I started figuring out trap setups, got a better feel for the combat, and suddenly I was glued to it.

Enemies come at you harder, skill choices actually matter, and the difficulty has more personality. I wouldn’t say it’s for everyone, but if you’re okay with a bit of difficult game in exchange for satisfying chaos, you might end up loving it like I did.

Atrocius ugly pixelated garbage.

No experience after failed attempt.
It's bad game design when you die right before the end of the wave and don't get any EXP.
This is especially frustrating when the levels/waves are not short.

There's not enough variety in enemies.
The first few levels are pretty difficult.

Gameplay was clearly meant to grind exp and level up in order to pass default levels.
Progress is based on grinding, not skill.
You hit a difficulty wall then just grind meta upgrades until you can proceed.
Add randomness of weapon upgrades to that.
This makes you feel like anyone could do it just by burning hours.

Contrast this with slay the spire where you start with the same base abilities each time and good decision making (and a bit of luck) can get you through to the end, even with the additional difficulty set to 20.

That's not the case here.
It doesn't matter how good your decision making is, you will lose maps because you haven't done enough grinding.

It feels pretty mentally unengaging.

incredible. Orcs must die but more gore, more metal, and top down pixel. Incredible.

No Notes.

Best game I have bought in a while, really understands gamefying a task. The perfect mix of difficult and fun. however a master can't do it all. Your UI sucks ass, and could use a redesign . Would love to share more but here are a few examples
1. Start mission button is hidden at bottom left of screen should be in center with enemy types.
2. Yet to compelete but the right and left sides of the screen are used for art but are also dead spaces introduce drop down menus into those areas to make the viable for use but still ambient.
3. Good ceneter focus of art work with the mutation room this is the cream of the crop that you should be attempting to re-emulate with the rest of the center foccused art.
4. For the 1/3 Rooms, the UI's border art takes the majority of the focus, either introduce dyanmics into the art that matter or reduce the border art take up of the screen, a lot of these traps already have dynamic sprites so an increase in sprite size and on hover over being dynamic in the menu would feel SO clean
5.Show the enemies some love! I love the combat in this game and if you were willing to do dynamic sprites this would be the first place i'd start

This is coming from a place of professionalism, and respect. I love this game so far and I genuinely think you've just recaptured the "lighting in a bottle" of dungeon defenders and want to see it pop tf off.

P.S. Learn networking code and make it a p2p multiplayer game with classes and you will not have to work another day in your life

Super fun loop. You build, you fight, you upgrade, repeat. Feels great. Crafting actually matters. Items change how you play, not just stat boosts. Skill tree has real impact. You can build crazy trap combos or go full melee.

Boss fights are intense. You need to move, think, and react.

Endless mode gets wild. Super satisfying if you survive long

Art style fits the gameplay perfectly

You can experiment a lot. Nothing feels locked in
Some early waves feel slow before the action picks up

If you like games that let you mess around and build your own style, this is it.

Been playing Castle of Alchemists 1.0 for a few hours now – here’s what I think:
• The action + tower defense combo is super satisfying. Setting up traps and then jumping
into the fight yourself just works.
• The new enemies and bosses added in 1.0 really help keep things fresh.
• The updated skill & defensive tree finally feels meaningful – way more build variety now.
• Visuals and audio are solid.

Overall:
If you're looking for a fun blend of strategy and real-time combat without overcomplicating
things, this one's worth your time. 1.0 feels way more complete now.

Been playing for a few hours and it’s actually way better than I thought. The 1.0 update made it feel like a full game finally. Crafting and build variety go hard if you mess around with it a bit.

Crafting isn’t just random stat boosts, some combos actually change how you play

Skill tree’s solid, you can go full Ranged, Melee, or completely skill based.

Endless mode is fun when you’re in the zone, and boss fights are surprisingly tough. Some nitpicks are that UI still clunky in spots (especially when switching traps mid-fight) and early waves are kinda feel easy and slow before it ramps up.

A surprisingly fun mix of tower defense and action combat. The feeling of building traps and
then diving into the fight yourself is really satisfying. The 1.0 update brought a ton of polish,
the new enemies and skill trees added much-needed depth. Some mechanics still feel a bit
basic, especially resource management, but overall it's a solid and enjoyable experience.
Definitely worth checking out if you like games like Orcs Must Die!

You play as Doomguy with homefield advantage.

Very fun.

In this game you play as a Giant Ubermensch White Man keeping filthy Foreigners out of your castle, Recommend!






Okay are the Normies gone? Good!

Castle of Alchemist is like a cross breed of Orcs must Die and Doom I haven't played the former but I played the Ladder in this game you play as the Black Swordsman, wielding a Automatic Crossbow, a Cannon, and a Giant Hunk of Iron you call a sword? wait... Wrong story... In this game you play as Bellator a Super Soldier made with Alchemy who wields a Automatic Crossbow, a Cannon, and a Giant Hunk of a Iron you call a Sword among other weapons.

This game make you channel your Inner Goblin Slayer by making you use your Thinking Meat using Various Traps Mechanical Turrets and Weapons that will make the Doom slayer and Punisher want a guest appearance in this game.
You have to use these in various ways to Maximize your Deportation, wait no I mean kills any way moving on.

This game has somewhat of a steep learning curve, though it no were near Ninja Gaiden Nes level (no I'm not gonna say Darksouls because that a game made for babies who can't dodge and parry) Ahem, now like I was saying traps are better use in combination with other traps like fire and oil, or water and electricity and some enemies are weak and resistant to certain combination and optimizing your placement also helps, kinda like trying to navigate Astolfo Thighs with out getting poke somewhere on you body wait did I say that out loud moving on.

On top all that this game has a great sound Track, from primal chants to ripping guitar solos it has it all.

Now on to the summary.

Castle of Alchemist

Pros

:Great Sound Track

:Great Weapon Variety

:Fun and thought out Combat and Tower Defense Mechanics

:Decent Replay Value

Cons

Somewhat Steep Learning Curve

And the game might be short for some people


Anyway Recommended and if I have to give it a score it a 8.5 out of 10

I did not like it and it does not seem to bring anything new to the genre, but "Castle of Alchemists" is definitely a solid tower defense game.

pretty fun action defense! i will admit the tutorial at the start didn't really sell it to me, a lot of information in game/hub (mentioning because i get info overload sometimes), but it does at least tell you everything you need to know! once i played the second level and got a actual feel for the menu systems things started making sense to me in a more intuitive/automatic gamer way!
i would say this is like orcs must die but top down. it is difficult, but then once you start crafting better gear and weapons it gets easier.

the game play is great imo, maybe a slightly clunky menu but overall it works. which is important in a game like this so i am happy there.

i do have some criticism however: in default mode i cant tab out without the screen going black and for some reason speeding up youtube playback somehow (yes i "watch" youtube while playing games on second monitor) anyway im always needing to tab out to answer messages, emails etc, so it would be nice if the screen didnt like force minimise and instead stay active, idk what that setting would be called tho.
i did try setting it to window mode, admittedly i was halfway thru a run, (perhaps why it bugged) but it froze the entire screen and forced me to task manager it to close the game!

((edit: the screen issue is kinda fixed by setting it to windowed mode (coming back into the game relaunched it in windowed) however, its now smaller (1080v1200p) and i had to drag up to see the full screen, which i imagine may become finicky, but its not a deal breaker so we good overall!) ))

anyway, aside from that paragraph long issue, the game overall runs well, is pretty fun and has a nice challenge!
(i will admit i had this wish-listed for a while, but after completing orcs must die deathtrap recently and well, kinda losing interest since theres no true endless atm, i found out this game did otoh have endless mode, so instant buy for me lol.)

anyway, there just aren't enough good action defence games out there, but this game is definitely one that i would call a good action/tower defence game. (tower may be generous here, it really is more puzzle/kill-box/trap orientated)
i found i could use multiple strategies, from using traps as a last resort and killing everything myself, or using the traps to weaken while i picked off the rest.
despite being top down and a different art style, don't let that fool you! this game feels deep, game progression and meta prog wise. it also requires alot of kiting, and push/retreating etc. you cant just stand still and kill everything (ok in second level i did but only because i pulled some like god teir level weapons) buuut that "god tier level" i think was to make me feel good, because in the third level i noticed things starting to heat up again...

missions give resources, completing them also gives access to like trap upgrades and stuffs. and you can use them to create new weapons/gadgets etc as you receive more and more blueprints to take a chance at a new thing!
i admit i failed the first mission when i played, so i tried again with a new strategy and then i realised where i went wrong (don't sleep on melee)
for what i have experienced so far, i think the price seems fair.
i had fun playing this title and look forward to playing more sometime in the future!
(p.s. if you are looking for another game with a similar charm to this, but pure tower defence perhaps also check out dungeon warfare 2)
but definitely play this game if you like action defence, this is a really cool game imo!

I like the style of the game, definitely a 2d top down orcs must die, great in concept. But, when I can't get past the first wave on the third level of the game on base difficulty, you've lost my interest. You're clearly meant to grind exp and level up in order to pass it which I'm not a fan of. The game already has higher difficulties on the levels and challenges, those are great, make us come back to complete those, but don't make a wall where you have to grind in order to possibly pass it at all.

I love this game! I wish there was more content. Outstanding value. More please!

This is a pretty fun combo of ARPG combat and Tower Defense, I'm not sure why it's not more popular.

please consider for your fantastic game

ability to create custom buildout / loadout in the armory so we can have a " electric hydro build " and a " oil furnace build " without having to manually switch each mission. same with the loadout for traps.
a button to sort based on rarity, weight, also. what is there is really useful already.

tell us how to earn each skull on a mission, is 1 for no lives lost, 1 for time limit etc?

is acrobatics using your spacebar/dive? if so then what is " x triggers on 'hop vs acro' " ?

ability to scroll in and out to see more of the map - mouse wheel?

level 5 advanced training for those that dont have the perk upgrade yet!

change the sound of clockworks, when deploying 4 every 10-15 seconds it gets a bit annoying

maybe designed this way on purpose:
ability to bring in both types of a certain trap to battle. for example " ceiling dart trap, and ceiling electric trap "
ability to bring in only one weapon saving lots of weight and playing risky, with heavy usage on clockworks, flasks,trap.barrel..
gain exp even for losing a match

Great game so far! But using the controller is rough...i think a controller sensitivity feature in the menu would fix that easy. 9/10

If you like making big-brain builds, Doom, and TD games, then this is quite the treat. However, the game's UI has been pretty buggy as of this review. Lots of notification icons that end up being nothing, and even some of the traps have missing stats and the wrong animation previews. IMO it's an easy fix and just not a big deal since the actual gameplay works fine.

yes :^)

amazing gameplay, feels therapeutic at best.

The idea is good, Orcs Must Die in 2D it just lacks that something that doesnt make it JUST a 2D reskin of OMD. Randomness of weapon upgrades is just dumb, no experience after failed attempt is demotivataing and makes me close the game everytime i fail the run instead of trying again with differnet tactics.
Variety of the traps, atleast at the beginning ot he game, leaves no room for different approach, because You lack the opptions, You just take everything they give You.
It can be a good game, it just needs some reworks, especially in metagame, but ATM i can't recommend it.

very nice

A great combination of creative traps, quick ranged/melee combat and a beautiful artstyle. For this price it offers enough content even though it is not yet the 1.0 version.

My short 4 minute video review can be seen here:
https://youtu.be/sCI4MU46x9Q?si=54aS0LNoobW2AaNs

30% Hero Siege , 60% Bloons TD, 10% Heavy Metal

It's fun, fast, and has a rich upgrade system, with breakneck action.
Some of the controls/camera settings feel a bit counter-intuitive at first, but you get used to them quickly.

9/10