Destruction is the name of the game in this week's Ioo web game of the week.  Tactical operating of siege weaponry is an art form at best.  Do you have what it takes to control medieval wall-breaking devices of doom?  If you answered yes then you will love Crush the Castle from Armor Games.

The object is to destroy castles by controlling a trebuchet with various types of ammunition.  Each level has its own difficulty, which will involve knocking down walls to kill increasing amounts of enemy royalty. Additionally, accessibility is an understatement when it comes to this flash game.  The game is entirely accessible to almost anyone who is able to click at specific times.

The Trebuchet

Armor Games is well known for creating unique, intuitive, and addicting flash experiences but you will not believe the lengths these people went to in order to understand the device they were about to script.

In an effort to make sure that they completely understood how a trebuchet works, they built their own.  That's right!  These people turned PVC pipe into a real live working trebuchet.  The word awesome comes to mind but it does not quite describe the level of dedication it takes to build your own medieval weapon.

Dedication to Excellence

As always, we don't want you to take our word for it.  AbleGamers' own Mark Barlet sat down with the John Cooney, Head of Game Development from Armor Games to chat about this game and video game accessibility.

AbleGamers:  Thanks for taking the time to sit down with us today.

John Cooney:  Thanks for the interview!

AG:  What inspired this game?

JC:  A recent game called Castle Clout came out and we really wanted to jazz up that concept and make our own version for Armor Games.  We talked to the author of Castle Clout and he gave us permission to take our own concept in our own direction.  The game was developed by Armor Games by our in-house programmer, Joey Betz.  Additional graphics and sound were created by Chris Con.

AG:  What elements do you think makes this game so much fun?

JC:  I think the game channels a bit of the carnival game where you throw a baseball at the stack of milk jugs.  It's a tempting challenge, one that involves destruction and a bit of skill.  The challenge sits in front of you tauntingly egging you on to throw another.  Something about throwing, taking down the castle, and seeing it collapse into a heap of metal and stone is strangely awarding.

In addition to the core gameplay, the level editor is a fun way to create your own levels and challenge others to your own creations.  I found myself playing with the editor more than the actual game, sending levels back to Joey to challenge him to his own game.

AG:  I have played all of the levels twice, when can we expect more?

JC:  I'm proud of Joey and Chris for their recent game and I think there is plenty of room to expand.  Shortly we may launch a challenge pack of levels created by users from the level editor, but of course, a true sequel with new weapons and gameplay additions is something we will consider pursuing later down the road!

AG:  When you develop any of the countless great games, you all are known for, have you ever thought about how gamers with disabilities would interact with the game?

JC:  A few months ago, we got an email from a gamer that had trouble playing some of our games due to his colorblindness, and we realized that we could make some simple changes to help him out.  Since then we have been keeping in-mind that distinguishing color needs to be accompanied by distinguishing shape to help additional users play our games without disadvantage.

One programmer, Tony, has also started to put a mappable keyboard on his games so that gamers can map their keys to their desired layout.

Game Accessibility and All That Jazz

This will be one of the shortest accessibility paragraphs that I have ever written.  In fact, I am not even going to write a paragraph.  This game is accessible to the following disabled gamers:

• The Mobility Impaired
• Colorblind
• Deaf
• The Hearing Impaired
• The Visually Impaired
• And Most Other Disabilities

We applaud Armor Games for taking action to improve one game before one disabled gamer but more importantly, keeping these types of gamers in mind when making additional games.  If every studio took the time to understand the minor adjustments that can be made to every videogame, AbleGamers would be out of business in no time.

If you can click a mouse in any form, this game is accessible to you and monotonously fun.  Monotonously, yes I do mean monotonously.  You will do the same thing repeatedly and the graphics are not gory by any means of today's standards.  Yet, three different members of this website beat the game twice.

Why?

Because there is something fun about operating medieval weaponry and destroying castles.  There is something fun about shooting the basketball at the milk jugs. Go try your hand at some crazy castle crushing fun!