Try to survive in the marsh with minimal starting resources, and raise a small village on a clear spot. The vendors does not really like the marsh, so you will be on your own. Nor does the trees, there are just a handful of them, and I swear I saw a deer... or was that my mind playing?
Prepare for a slow death, 'cause none can survive this cruel place.
"Courage my Lord, courage... you must stand alone for now!"
Playability: 3
The playabilty was very scarce (obviously) for that is the intended behavior, I did enjoy the mere and hilarious 10 minutes I was able to survive for. The least you could've done was allow the trader to sell limited items, for lore reasons i'd make them sell rubbish the player doesn't even need for an even more humorous approach.
Balance: 3.5
This map was obviously not balanced, you even rated it impossible yourself so i'll just continue onto the next.
Creativity: 4.5
I love the creativity in this map, the idea to make a torturous map is not as common as you think it would be.
Map Design: 4.5
The map design was very well! Hell, I put days of work into a custom map and it'll still look like a symmetrical piece of s***. My only suggestion would to maybe put castle/building debris around the map like perhaps the corners.
Story/Instructions: 5
The story was pretty straight to the point, which was good (Short and Sweet as they call it.) But the one thing that questioned me the most was why in God's name would anyone want to a build castle here?!
Additional Comments:
I like this type of map, continue making evil, devilish maps like this. But at least make couple actually playable. And use signposts, I love all the custom invasions you can do in the Castle Builder via the F1 key! It's a good way to test your castles defenses...