The tiny Vlad Tepes! Eeee!
Okay, I kind of love this game.

There's a swimming glitch if you can swim out of the water as long as you dont double tap up

The knight's behavior is not intuitive. It made every enemy you fight idiotically hard for what is otherwise a casually paced and enjoyable game. And the boss? Ugh.

Nitrome games are generally unplayable. I must be feeling masochistic today that I tried this one.

Most of them are hard-beyond-all-reasoning.

Why would you even spend effort making something so unneccessarily hard? Who finds that fun?

This one takes the cake. Can't even finish the first level before reaching screaming-rage-quit level of frustration.

Good work, I guess? Since frustration/unplayability/total-unfairness seems to be what Nitrome is generally going for?

I got to the point where it's dark and there are blue balls that make me think of my sword (I know), but I can't seem to destroy them? They just display a little x in them when I thwack them with my sword. Any advice? I'm sure I'm missing something simple.

Can anyone help me with the part where the pop up of an eye appears in front of the pictures? I dont get it.

like the review stated the character speed needs to be ramped up. also, the enemies (especially the knights) seem to have a longer attack range making them nearly impossible to beat. this quickly decreased the amount of fun that i had playing up to that point (when you get to the top of the room)

I'm a bit stuck. I've lit all the torches and gotten into the room with the swinging threat and the weird statue thing but I don't know what to do next. It tells me down arrow, but I pressed that and it's done nothing! I can't smash the blue orbs either.
Fun game though.

I thought the pacing was fine. I just beat it. And I will point out that in the Snowman skin, there is the character and a tiny castle. I thought is was a nice game, nice variety along the way. It could have been way longer though. And the guy in the startup didn't have much to do with the game. In other startups, they kind of give you a miniature preview of game concept. This one did not.

What the heck am I supposed to do

I'm surprised so many folks found this difficult; I thought it was pretty easy. Beat it in 18 minutes, no deaths! Though I do agree Nitrome games are usually unreasonably hard. This is the first one from them I actually enjoyed.

For the eye thought bubble:

Hint:

Answer:

To pass the eye bit :

This game is AMAZING. I love it! I hope they make more levels of this kind of thing, it's awesome.

Thanks!

I agree with the review, if only this were *faster* up & down the ladders, especially, it would be terrific.

I LOVED this game! Only thing was that I agree with everyone else on the faster thing.

Finished! The only trouble I had was with the boss: I kept missing the jumps. Other than that, this was a lot of fun and not at all difficult.

Oh, and the ending dialogue went way too slowly.

@jorf: Keep exploring, you can't do anything with the blue balls yet.

@splurgy: If down arrow isn't working, move a little to the left or the right and try again, that seemed to work for me.

For the blue globes:

Beat it in 12 minutes, with a few deaths. My score was 63rd. :(

Nitrome games aren't excessively difficult at all. Each level in their games usually requires a few play-throughs because you'll die a couple times but that's what makes them so enjoyable. They're all very beatable. A game with no challenge isn't fun.

i knew there was gonna be a comic ending from the beggining. and when it sayed thank you for comming all this way to rescue me, i thought next it would say:
BUT YOUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE!

or somthing along those lines

This is one enjoyable game.

With the checkpoint system,I didn't find it difficult,except for the last boss... and aren't those supposed to be hard?

I only wish the knight was faster when on a ladder.

This game was amazing! Hilarious end too!

The safest way to attack the enemies is from behind, but it's only really possible to control stuff like that when you have a ladder near them. I sort of doubt the "stealth" feel was what they were going for with that mid-game brawl with the dark knights, where the best battle plan is to jump over their heads and pray they drop healing items when they finally do die.

Other than that, I liked it, but would have preferred it be at a tighter zoom... yes, even though you sort of have to see the entire board to know what's going on. It's hard to care what's going on on the entire board when you can barely see if your sword is hitting!

Wow, first ever Nitrome game i ever finished.
I love how instead of having levels, instead the only room of the game changed. I also disagree that the game was that hard. Personally, i found the only hard parts to be the

Which were supposed to be hard. It's puzzles are also very logical and easy to finish, granted the orb puzzle was very annoying. Overall, I thought it was a very good game.

Can anyone help me with the last part with the giant thing, i think its the boss...i dont understand what to do.

Not that bad! Although the character moves a bit slowly. (Jump the ladders to get down quicker)
A few hints:
Eye

Blue orbs

Boss

That was a pretty great game. Apart from the boss and the orb puzzle... (no you pressed the wrong one BACK TO THE TOP OF THE ROOM WITH YOU)
But yeah, a lot easier than some of Nitrome's offerings, although the final boss gave me a couple of game overs... And just when you think it's finished, everything switches up and gives a completely different perspective!
And a brilliant ending too, the details of which I refuse to divulge. Sorry people, finish the game and you'll see for yourselves!

I don't find Nitrome games as being that hard. I have beaten every single game they have made, and the only hard games seem to be Hot Air, Nanobots, and Pest Control.

@svoight I agree, the ladders (including exiting them) could have been smoother.

Just for the record, there needs to be WAY MORE games like this.

Also, The only hard parts for me was the miniboss, and slightly those 5 knights. I actually found the final boss easier than the miniboss.

But seriously, we need more games like this.

final boss=super easy

Finished it, not as hard as people are making out! Checkpoint everytime the castle changes, unlimited lives, it was fun but very doable!

And I didn't expect that ending, either!

Well, I have to say, this is the first (seriously, first) Nitrome game that I didn't play for two minutes and decide I absolutely would never want to touch again.

In fact, quite the opposite. I loved this game! Ladder movement could have been quicker, but that's such a minor detail.

Nitrome, you scored a home run on this one. :)

Seriously. Since when are Nitrome games unwinnably hard? If you want really rage-quit hard go play I Want to be the Guy or something.

Great game, BTW. I agree that the sword is a little short (compared to how far you and the enemies move) and the move speed is a little slow.

I loved the game as a whole, but there were a lot of little things I didn't care for.

The knight's movement is clunky, especially the sword swing. I would have preferred a weapon with better range, and then balanced it out with slightly smarter monsters.

The Orb Puzzle was nothing more than trial and error with a lot of backtracking. Either the orbs should all be close, or there should have been a way for a smart player to determine the order in advance.

I loved the way how the dungeon kept rearranging itself, but after the few initial events they just seemed arbitrary. Like when a trap door opens because I opened a chest, or because a door opens when I kill a monster, I don't connect those events. I'd prefer to have seen all the changes occur as a direct result of my actions (breaking a supporting wall, turning a gear, etc.).

I'd love to see sequel that uses the same concept and expands on it with new terrain and more involved alteration of the level.

-SirNiko

The fact that this game was not in the minigames section made me thing it would take more than a half of an hour. I was wrong. Too bad, it was such a great concept and, I thought, one of Nitrome's funner games.

I disagree about Nitrome being difficult. I find their games easier than those of other companies. The first 90% of their games are usually very simple and take up 10% of the total play time, but the final 10% are usually the difficult part. They seem to take several hours, and can have almost unbeatable challenges. The penultimate level in Hot Air was a case in point. There was a spiky passage with literally a two pixel margin, the most difficult I've seen in any Nitrome game. Other than that and Pest Control, however, most nitrome games have been relatively easy.

The only difficult part logic-wise was the eye-puzzle. (Thanks to StraitUp (and JIGuest) for the help.) The orbs were just far apart, and the character speed was way too slow. Otherwise, the game was pretty simple, but fun. Like many Nitrome games, this was quality stuff.

Oh, and the ending was awesome and lulz-worthy, but took way too long to display.

I'm willing to wager that most people on this site have never been used to playing games on arcade machines. And therefore I think many people miss the point of the games Nitrome release.

In my opinion, Nitrome is not about making casual games that anyone can pick up and easily finish. They're about making oldschool games with all the trimmings. That means graphics, sound effects and musics, and gameplay. So it's about giving the player a big challenge, and not making it too easy for him to finish the game. After all, where's the fun in that?

But it seems to me that the audience in here is more about playing games to relax. So the easier the games are, the better.

So maybe it would be better if Jay Is Games stopped reviewing Nitrome games. There are always complaints about their games, but only because people expect things from Nitrome that they shouldn't be expecting, and that they expect because their games are reviewed on a site for casual games. But that's just one man's opinion.

Superbly cute. Nice ending. I would not mind seeing a series of these scene shifters, though some of the running around was excessive like with the globes

Nitrome games are generally different.

This is no slash and burn game. You don't win be furious attacking. After all, he only has a small sword. Besides, its not the size of your sword, its how you use it. Stealth is required.

Sure the Boss is difficult but, hey, that's the way the designer designed it.

Like the idea of weaving the levels together so the screen kept changing. It may have looked odd but it was no different from moving on from one level to the next.

E.G.

I'm stuck with only two blue orbs and I don't seem to find all of them. Is there any way to find them or what?

Have you gone after the fireballs?

Tiny Castle is basically just a platformer that is one huge level, right? No. It has heaps of twists like when the lights go out and then you have to light torches etc. Sometimes it even puzzles you when I don't think it is supposed to. That has happened with quite a few games I have played but in this it is more enjoyable because when you do figure out what is supposed to happen something really cool happens.

4/5, good game. I enjoy all Nitrome games and I have got to say this isn't one of their best games but it isn't one of their worst ones either.

I've killed all the fireballs, but see only two blue globes, and as far as I can tell I've explored everyplace accessible right now.

best ending EVER!!!!

Thrust me... there's WAY better platformers, avoid.

Nitrome in my opinion, makes REALLY good games. And there is no way they are as bad as pixeljam. Their games are all beatable.

I liked this game. I had no problem with the movement speed, and I am normally very sensitive to that. The attack was perfectly workable, esp. when you take into account that health drops are super common. The only annoying thing was the blue orbs.

does anyone know how to get past the first freaking level? It's impossible!

Nitrome games are a load of fun. If all you wanted was point and shoot rather than having to use your brain - go back to Xbox.
I enjoyed this one and did get stuck a few times.

i can't seem to get past the two orbs, i am on fire.

Nitrome games are hard (compared to most flash games) and I can't win most of them, but they are fun and very well done. Ironically I found the final boss pretty easy and one of the few games I actually one was pest control (don't ask me how I did it. Mainly practice and luck. The stag beetle level was physically grueling.). Nitromes last few games have been a little different than their normal style, but fun never the less. I would really enjoy a sequel.

For what it's worth, re the globes:

If you can't see all the blue globes on the screen, then you don't need to worry about the blue globes yet. There's something else you have to do first.

When you get to the 2 blue globes, ignore them. Later on, more will appear and you'll have to smash them in order.

Friggin had to register to add a comment on this one.

I loved this game right up until the end. The whole time I was thinking "Yes, this is level design. This is how you make someone go back and forth across a level and not mind it. The whole "health drop if you need it coin drop if you don't" kinda made the game too easy, but it did allow the high score to indicate if you've done better than someone else.

And then the end. oh, that ending.

It left such a bad taste in my mouth that I almost forgot how good it was before that point.

For those stuck at the part where you have lit all the candles:

One more thing. If a just played the main game and never saw the startup or menu I would have never have guessed it would have been by Nitrome until I would have got to the ending.

Loved the ending.

wonderfull, I was looking for something like this for a long time, really nice, I wonder how people on the score board did such scores, might be missing something, may give another go.
Beat it first play, this is not hard...
for those who liked it go look for neko games, they have 2 games similar to this one, really nice, and those, believe me, are tons harder, nice work nitrome! keep it going.

I really enjoyed this game, especially the chaotic feeling when the stage is changing and all of the walls are crashing down. The animation of the wizard is very well done; I really get a sense he is over-exerting himself when he casts a spell. I loved the ending too.

I hope Nitrome makes a sequel.

Heh. Other than maybe the movement speed and the one bit with the backtracking, I don't see what the problem was myself--this was one of the few Nitrome games *I* bothered to finish, either. Lesson folks--this isn't a platform game as such, it's a *puzzle* game. Clobber everything, open everything, and grab all the keys. And pay attention, because there *is* a lot of backtracking--especially when you're on fire. :-) Granted, seeing all the elements that don't mean anything until the next 'scene change' *is* a little irritating, but not too much so. The only problems I had were the enemies that took multiple hits, a few mis-timed jumps, and a life lost on the final boss because I didn't realize I was hitting the wrong spot. :-) Otherwise, nice little game. The only other spot I got stuck at was because I missed the blatant clue...and even then wild flailing saved the day. :-)

This might actually be one of my favourites. I hope they make a sequel!

For the hard parts:
The eye thought bubble:

Brawl with the black knights:

White knight:

Boss:

I'm surprised by the negative attitude toward Nitrome exhibited by many of the comments. I understand that a lot of people find a lot of their games difficult, but I agree with others that I'd classify the games as challenging--they're definitely beatable if you spend enough time trying to figure things out, and I personally find them enjoyable and interesting enough that it's worth it to me to keep playing.

I agree that many Nitrome games are derivative or lack good play control, but they more than make up for these deficits with fantastic retro graphics, fun music and sound effects, inventive mechanics, goofy humor, supreme level design, and, yes, an appropriate level of challenge.

Heck, my favorite Nitrome game, Mutiny, is not original in the least, nor is the play control that great. ("Lining up my shot, almost there, just moving the cursor a little closer to the edge of the scre--OH NO IT'S SCROLLING AGRGHHH!!") But it's just so darn fun, especially because not every level is trivial. The one with the skeletons where you're horribly outnumbered? And they've all got exploding bananas? And super aim? Cripes, I play that over and over all the time, and I might still only win one out of every five times... But I love it.

This game rocks...I usually don't care for Nitrome for reasons I can never quite put my finger on, but I LOVED this one.

It's really not that hard. I'm terrible at games like this, but I was able to beat it all the same.

P.S. The boss really isn't as hard as some of you seem to think. Figure out the pattern and where to be when and you can beat him without even breaking a sweat.

Official list of hardest/most annoying bosses in any video game I've ever played:
Safer Sephiroth
Ozma/Osma/whatever it was
Blargian Snagglebeast
That big black knight from Tiny Castle

He's not really that hard, but I keep on MISSING AS I JUMP AT HIS HEAD and then I fall down. D:<

I had fun playing it as far as I got, but for me, there were too few checkpoints. Maybe it was the slowness of the motion up and down that made it seem just too much like work to start that level all over again. Those ding dang monsters.

So I got decently far, up to after the wizard woke up, and now I literally have no idea what to do. I kill all the enemies, nothing new pops up for me to do. I'm totally lost, which is quite frustrating... Any hints?

I have a lot of time for NITROME's games and the sheer amount of content they create is always going to throw up duds occassionally but I thought that (ignoring control issues etc) the conceit behind this game was really really great with the play area changing throughout the game. I'm sure it's been done before but I think that was a really lovely aspect of th is.

Well done NITROME!

Hahaha, the payoff at the end made me laugh. Another enjoyable game from Nitrome, my only qualms are that the knight definitely needs to be faster and jump better, and that it was quite short. But still a very good game; wonderful music, wonderful artwork, great gameplay: just what we've come to expect from Nitrome.

I'm also quite excited by the new skin, with the box that says 'Nitrome Gifts' on it. Could it be that the shop is finally going to open?

And @Plorf: If you're where I think you are, maybe you should trying hitting the blue orbs...

After I awoke the sorcerer from his painting I can't get any farther. What do I do now?

tiny bug: after you kill the final boss, if you move under it as it falls, then you can't get back to the left to get to the caged lady. if you don't move under it as it falls, you can't get to the right. it's the same barrier both ways. no negative affect. i just want more levels and more to do!

great little game here.
people, nitrome is nitrome, games are of a moderate difficulty,very fun to play.
I've ALWAYS loved the graphics, nice background stuff too, these are some DEDICATED artists at work, give em credit folks.

NO boss is EVER hard when you reconize its attack pattern

they ALL have weaknesses, if they dont, then just hack at them, most cant attack when you are.(just play Knight Elite and see what I mean on lv. 50)

for this its the 6 fireballs then laser or 3 critters, then overload? where you can hit it

never diss a game until you play it all the way through or until you are truly stuck.(walkthroughs and spoilers will help prevent #2)

the joke at he end is too long but the final part is worth the wait

OK I am missing something here. I cant get even half way up the first level. I get to a point where there is no way up and if I break the green orbs a monster comes and destroys the lower levels. But I can't see a way up... help please

I enjoyed the game. I didn't expect it to be just one big level into I got about halfway through. The ending was quite clever, too.

What do you do when your character has a thought bubble with an eye?

Sweet game really enjoyed it. Great job Nitrome!

I dont want to see a sequal, I knever ever want to see a sequal of nitrome games, because with nitrome games, each new on has a unique concept or gameplay or something like that, and with a sequal, its just the same but with a few more ememies and stuff, nothing "uniquer" about the sequal than the original

and yeah, the ending was verry long, at first it was good, then it just droned on. the money feeding pets bit was funny, but just to long.

I was expecting something short and really random. yes even randomer than that.
like he turns out to be toad and the princess is in another castle.
or the princess is a man or something.
or even the knight guy or the princess randomly implode :)

I got into the room with the sleeping wizard, he got up a few times and made the castle change, and now I am locked inside in the goddarn bedroom, don't have the key out. (And no help from the wizard, he's just plain lazy.)
What to do? Thought it was a bug but no one else seems to be having this problem?

Ok, it was a bug. When I restored the game I ended up on the roof with the black knights. The game now has me playing several levels at the same time. Confusing.

Orb guide;

Personnally I don't get why I am even bothering to rescue such an ugly princess. Still, awesome game :)
[ thanks to HeroForge and RentRoom#105!!!!!]

how do i get past the part with 2 globes? there's nothing to do i can't get anywhere

I cant get pas level one after checkpoint 2 any help???? PLEASE!!!

Princess?? My god, I thought it was a monkey! Seriously I did!

So did I!

I thought it was a wizened professor or something. Like Rocky Horror.

Very cute... very easy.

This game is an almost direct rip off of xananeko1 and 2 from nekogames the original author. If credit was given for the blatant and obvious rip than I would understand. However no credit or even "inspired by" is unacceptable in my eyes. Nice game but it reeks of plagarism...

ok i think ive forgotten sumthing. its dark ive litten all the candles there are 2 blue globy thingys but no eye thought bubble popping out.i am on fire and when you say what are the portraits looking at? how am i supposed to know i cant figure it out. i mean the're looking at bricks and them torches and this statue thing but i cant get to the statue. all of them are looking in different derections and then it says to attack the nearest or lowest or 2nd from left portrait on the bottom right edge but each of those theories are different and none of them work. i don't even get the last theory. I think ive forgotten to light a candle or somthing which is keeping the eye thought bubble from popping up

one word...
HELP!

btw
ihave 2 globes
3 mummy statues with torches and 16 candle things
is that how much theres supposed to be

HEEEELLLPPPP!!!!!!!!!!

This game was quick, fun, and easy. Why everyone is saying it was insanely difficult, I don't know. The monsters were easy to fight, it wasn't difficult to figure out the orb or the picture puzzles, and it was just relaxing. The only part I looked for help on was the boss, although I probably could have figured that out by myself too. The knight did move slowly, which was annoying on the orb puzzle, but it wasn't that bad. This game was very fun and enjoyable.

I thought this game was really fun! Although, I believed it was too short. I hope they make more levels of this! If you complain this is too hard you are obviously not an accomplished platform gamer in any sense. I thought it was relatively easy.

This game was VERY easy....all of you people who had problems beating it must be idiots. The only hrd part was the part with the eye bubble beecause i didnt know what to do. And by the way nitrome games are not all impossible. i have beaten this game, al of the ice breaker games, and rubble trouble and i enjoyed them a lot.

I like this one! Loved how the castle 'morphing' several times to give you new puzzles to solve. And the ending is epic!

Easy game. I found that the checkpoint system didn't work. The end bad guy was a putz. Nitrome games are the pleasant exception to the internets' games: fun and easy at the start, but by about the 4th level in your gonna take an ass-kicking first time through. It's always such a monumental task to finally slog through all the increasingly-insanely-difficult levels, but by the end, every single level of the game will seem easy as pie (and not that demonically-possessed type of pie, either; the easy-stuff that one usually refers to in the analaogy, "easy-as-pie").

Miniclip has a gold award for getting 4000 gold. But I killed every single baddin' and only got 3000 gold... anyone get close to the 4k mark?

to get past the knights at the top of the level:

I found that out the hard way

how to endamage the last guy?

Hahahha holy crap this game was fun! First nitrome game that I actually genuinely enjoyed! It was kinda of tricky at parts cause I'm pretty thick headed... but other than that, it was really fun. And the ending was hilarious. I was cracking. I don't really see why you guys are complaining ;p
I just finished it for the first time, and it took me an hour. lol, I'm slow. I'm gonna play it again and try to get a higher score :D

And that was a butt ugly princess. She didn't even look like one. I thought it was some kind of man.

"I got to the point where it's dark and there are blue balls that make me think of my sword (I know), but I can't seem to destroy them? They just display a little x in them when I thwack them with my sword. Any advice? I'm sure I'm missing something simple."

Well, I'm pretty sure you have to do them in a specific order. I've gotten "1" and "2" to show up on two of them...

But as I find it tedious and annoying to run up and down redoing the sequence every time I mess up, I'm giving up...

Haha, yes I also thought that was an old man in that cage.

But this really was the first Nitrome game I was able to finish. All the othes are kind of fun, but flash to me is casual gaming so if I get stuck for 3-4 minutes I quit. Which I why I never finished any of them...

This was exactly the right kind of difficulty for me. Could have been longer though, but for those who like such games, try Hapland. I'm sure it's already on this site.

How do you get the third key in level one?

Nitrome's games aren't ALL hard. I completed Cave Chaos, Double Edged and Twin Shot Two, plus Mallet Mania and Avalanche. This one isn't INSANELY hard. . .
I quite like this one.
-Anna

P.S. if anyone is stuck on a particular level of any of the games above, feel free to ask me.

I do not know WHAT you are talking about. It was SUPER-DEE-DUPER EASY for me. I've only played two Nitrome games before. One-I can't remember what it was called-was SCREAMING-RAGE-FIT-HARD. (of course,I was only 11 then)and the other is this one.

This game was amazing! I loved it soooo much. It wasn't very difficult EXCEPT for the puzzles. (I hated the Blue Orb puzzle. "Wrong one. RESTART! Wrong one. RESTART! Wrong one. RESTART! Wrong on--- wow, you're stupid, aren't you? RESTART!"

Anyways, don't give up on this game because the ending is hilarious!!

Also, the first time I saw that princess, I thought she was a guy. Anyone else agree?

AT THIS PERSON : honey, obviously you're not very good at computer games, because, play this on and off, it took me about two hours total to beat the game (including the boss, which i admit was INSANELY hard). so before you give a scathing comment, realize that maybe it's just you.

"Nitrome games are generally unplayable. I must be feeling masochistic today that I tried this one.

Most of them are hard-beyond-all-reasoning.

Why would you even spend effort making something so unneccessarily hard? Who finds that fun?

This one takes the cake. Can't even finish the first level before reaching screaming-rage-quit level of frustration.

Good work, I guess? Since frustration/unplayability/total-unfairness seems to be what Nitrome is generally going for?

Posted by: JIGuest | April 6, 2010 2:19 PM"