^ Nailed it. Looking forward to your further-processed thoughts. And only 8 responses to this thread! I realize the game hasn't been out long, but this seems like the type of game you guys should be all over.
I've been heavy on permadeath games lately, so the fact that this new "MMO" about home defense/invasion included such brutal permadeath was immediately attractive. As I've had no experience with Rohrer's previous games, I went into this one free of expectations. I was sold after the first few videos I watched. I've had about 8 hours with it now, not counting the goddamned dreams I'm having about trap design. I have to say it's one of the freshest online multiplayer experiences in recent memory. This game really got under my skin.
The permadeath aspect is of course what makes it tick. It's what makes it so simultaneously satisfying and terrifying. Your first few experiences with the game will not be forgiving at all. You will die, and you will lose everything, and you will have no one to blame but yourself. You'll construct what you think is an excellent trap only to return to your home and find your design flaws embarrassingly exposed and your vault empty. Depending on your personal constitution, you have the option to hang yourself and start over, or to try robbing houses with whichever tools you may have remaining so that you can acquire the money necessary to rebuild your broken home and keep its intrusion:death-dealing ratio alive. Viewing your security tapes gives you the names of your trespassers, which you can use in turn to rob their homes, but you'll have to act on any vengeful desires quickly--it's only a matter of time before the person who successfully robbed you falls victim to someone else and is himself forced to restart with a new name and new family. And when your house does its job as planned and you kill an intruder? The satisfaction in knowing that you just wiped someone's slate completely clean is incredible. Doesn't hurt that their full load of tools goes to your vault, too.
I'll leave the rhetorical analysis to flabberghastly and describe the meaning of your family in The Castle Doctrine purely in terms of gameplay. When you're away from the game for a number of hours, both you and your wife bring home wages. Your wife makes twice as much money as you do. Beyond that, there is no reason to keep her around. One caveat to the liberties you're given in constructing your defenses is that you must provide your family with a clear path to the entrance/exit. Couple this with the fact that upon intrusion, your wife immediately begins to flee with half of your money. It leads to security tape after security tape of intruders walking back and forth at the entrance of your home until they draw out your wife, kill her, and run away untouched with half of your money. It's absolutely unavoidable. In fact, the longer you play the game, the more you may realize your family has to die if you truly want to protect what's yours. Queue flabberghastly.
For gameplay's sake, the inevitable loss of your wife isn't without its perks. Protection of your vault is suddenly all that matters. The kids are more annoying than anything, and I'll often rejoice to return and find them dead. Without a family to protect, you no longer have to provide a clear exit path, and your home is one step closer to becoming the ruthless killing machine it was always meant to be.
"Ruthless killing machine" is of course only one approach to home construction. With the types of switches and wiring tools provided, it's also quite easy to make an array of toggle switches acting as a combination lock if you'd rather frustrate your intruders than fry them. Mazes are also quite popular as you may expect. You need a good deal of money to construct complex defense systems, though, and while carrying out a successful burglary against a nicely designed home and scoring several thousand dollars is a fantastic feeling, the risk involved in doing so will make you want to poach newer homes with less-than-well-protected wives and vaults. You have to be careful for other reasons too, as having a lot of money only makes you a more attractive target for others, and you have not yet witnessed determination until you watch the same person try to rob your house 30 times before succeeding and ruining you. This constant balancing act is where the game shines, and when you finally build a house that protects your cash and allows you to rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars relatively safely, you feel like a fucking king. Just remember that all kings die sooner or later.
Despite a handful of flaws, The Castle Doctrine is my kind of fun. It's frustrating, clever, terrifying, vengeful, enraging, but in the end victoriously, almost overwhelmingly fun. I've played few games with higher stakes, and the rewards come rolling in quickly if you're determined to learn. For $8, it's a steal. I can't wait to see how this game improves in the coming months.
