Monster Castle turns the stereotype of monsters being the enemy on its head, and challenges you to build your own fierce army of monsters to combat the evil knight Sam and his corrupt human army.

It's primarily a tower defence though, so you'll spend the main bulk of your time building a mighty castle capable of withstanding the enemy's assault and equipping it with deadly weapons like crossbows, cannons, and spike pits.

At any point in battle you can unleash your army of monsters, all of which can be equipped with items and weapons to increase their power. This adds an RTS element to the typical tower defence gameplay.

We reached out to the product team at Joycity to learn more about which games inspired Monster Castle, why you're fighting humans as opposed to monsters, and what they'd change if they could start over.

Which games most inspired Monster Castle?

"The inspiration for Monster Castle actually comes from a game we used to play in the sand as kids. Two kids would sit in the sand and draw their own castles, and then we would play Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide damage dealt to each castle.

"With that as our foundation, we also integrated some aspects we like from What Did I Do To Deserve This, My Lord?, Dungeons and Dragons, Orcs Must Die, and movies like Shrek and Monty Python."

What's your favourite monster and why?

"We like Orcs the most, and like to call them “Greenskins”. They were actually a major inspiration for the game’s story.

"Why must monsters be evil? Who says humans are always the righteous ones? Orcs are the inspiration for our pro-monster theme."

Why are we fighting humans as monsters? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

"Too many games use humans as the main characters, combatting the “evil” monsters.

"We wanted to turn this idea on its head and let players view “righteousness” and “wickedness” from another point of view."

Have you got any tips for newcomers? What's your strategy?

"The first thing to do is buy more Workers, which will greatly increase the efficiency of your equipment.

"Also, don’t release all your troops in one fell swoop during battle. Take note of the layout of the castle you’re attacking and strategically split up the waves of troops you send out."

If you could start over, what would you change?

"We would simplify and speed up the unit training process so that players could focus more on battle, instead of worrying about whether they have enough troops before going on the offensive."

Monster Castle is available right now from the App Store [download] and Google Play [download].