Castle in the Sands is a very short visual novel about a man who ends up in a magic desert castle while traveling with his sick brother. It describes itself as being inspired by North African culture and by the style of Arabian Nights. I can’t speak to how accurate the cultural details are, but it does at least do a good job of capturing the atmosphere you’d expect and it taught me a few new terms.
You should know going in that you’re unlikely to get much more than an hour out of this game even if you try to get all four endings (the game says three, but there is at least one more minor variant that doesn’t give an achievement) and that the story is pretty generic. Gameplay consists entirely of picking one of two options at four or five points in the story. There are a few good moments and it’s not like it can outstay its welcome at this length, but it’s all pretty standard stuff from the desert area stories you’d get in any other game. The English text is always easily readable, but frequently has missing punctuation or awkward phrases that suggest the text wasn’t checked by a native speaker.
All that said, Castle in the Sands is a $4 game with fantastic retro art and a couple of excellent pieces of background music. It may not be very long and may not tell a terribly original story, but $4 is a fair price to spend an hour with the art and music. If that’s enough for you, this is an easy recommendation.
Rating: 75%
Time to beat: About an hour to get all the achievements. 30-40 minutes if you stop after one ending.
Price: $4
For a game with similar art, see Urban Myth Dissolution Center Review – A Bumpy Ride
Feel free to leave a question or comment below!
For more reviews, see my Steam curator page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43219041
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