The best catapult game on mobile is still Crush the Castle. Armor Games’ trebuchet series has three versions on the App Store: the original from September 2009 ($0.99), the free Siege Master, and Crush the Castle Legacy, which collects more than 300 levels from the older games for free. If you want something that’s actively updated, The Catapult 2 and Castle Crumble both get regular patches, and Kitty Kaboom does the same job with a slingshot instead.
One thing to sort out first, because it decides what you’ll enjoy: most games sold as “catapult games” aren’t catapults.
Catapult, trebuchet or slingshot? #
A catapult stores energy in twisted rope or sinew and releases it into a throwing arm. A trebuchet drops a heavy counterweight to swing an arm, which is how the medieval versions of the 12th to 14th centuries worked. A slingshot stores energy in stretched elastic and fires whatever is in the pouch.
For a player the difference shows up in the controls. Trebuchet games usually ask you to time a release as the arm swings. Slingshot games ask you to set an angle and a stretch. We pull the two apart properly in slingshot vs catapult.
| Game | What you fire | Cost | Last updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crush the Castle | Trebuchet | $0.99 | July 2017 |
| Crush the Castle: Siege Master | Trebuchet | Free, ads and purchases | April 2023 |
| Crush the Castle Legacy | Trebuchet | Free | March 2022 |
| Catapult King | Catapult | $0.99 | June 2018 |
| The Catapult 2: Castle defense | Catapult | Free | July 2026 |
| Castle Crumble | Explosives and spells | Free | August 2026 |
| Castle Wreck | Cannon | Free | October 2025 |
| Kitty Kaboom | Slingshot | Free, ads, no purchases | August 2026 |
The Crush the Castle family #
Crush the Castle (the original) #
The one that started the genre. It reached the App Store on 18 September 2009, three months before Angry Birds, and it’s still sold for $0.99. You load a trebuchet, tap to release, and watch a carefully balanced castle come apart with the king somewhere inside it.
Wrong for you if: you expect modern polish or support. It hasn’t been updated since 2017, and on a new phone that’s a real risk.
Crush the Castle: Siege Master #
The free modern entry, published in October 2018. Its store page calls it “the physics projectile puzzle game that started it all” and promises more trebuchet action. It’s funded by ads and in-app purchases.
Wrong for you if: you want something maintained. Its last update was April 2023.
Crush the Castle Legacy #
A free 2022 collection that gathers more than 300 levels from the original series with upscaled graphics. If you just want a lot of trebuchet levels without paying, start here.
Wrong for you if: you want new content. It was updated the day after release and not since.
Actively updated picks #
The Catapult 2: Castle defense #
A stick-figure catapult game from BYV, released in January 2019 and still getting updates, most recently in July 2026. You fire at towers of stick soldiers and they fire back, which makes it a duel rather than a puzzle. There’s a sequel-of-sorts, The Catapult: stick man game, from the same developer.
Wrong for you if: you want structural physics puzzles. The pleasure here is aim and reaction, not toppling.
Castle Crumble #
Orbital Knight’s free destruction game from 2023, updated as recently as August 2026. You bring down kingdoms with explosives and spells across a series of themed settings. It’s the closest thing on this list to a modern, well-supported demolition puzzler.
Wrong for you if: you specifically want a launcher. The verbs here are closer to planting charges than firing an arm.
Castle Wreck #
Voodoo’s cannon game. You fire at a castle, it collapses, you move on. It’s simple and fast, and it’s the sort of thing to play in a queue rather than for an hour.
Wrong for you if: you want depth. There isn’t much beyond the collapse.
Catapult King #
A 3D catapult game from 2012 with a dragon and a princess, sold for $0.99. It’s charming and it plays well, but its last update was in June 2018, so treat it as a period piece.
The slingshot alternative #
Kitty Kaboom #
If the appeal is watching a tower come down rather than the specific launcher, a slingshot gets you there with better controls. Kitty Kaboom is a cats-versus-robots slingshot game: you drag back, a line of dots previews the arc, and you fire cats at robot vacuums perched on cardboard, wood, glass, brick, metal and battery packs. Six of the seven cats have a power you trigger by tapping mid-flight, so a single shot can explode, split into three, slam straight down, shatter every glass block in range, dash over a wall or magnetize metal.
It’s free with ads, has no in-app purchases, and includes 60 levels plus a daily challenge that’s identical for every player. Structures behave the way you’d hope: knock out a leg and the roof falls on whatever is underneath, and battery packs chain into each other.
Wrong for you if: you wanted a trebuchet specifically, or you dislike a permanent banner ad. There’s also no online play.
What makes a good catapult game #
Four things separate the ones worth keeping from the ones you delete in a day:
- Structures that read at a glance. You should be able to see which piece is load-bearing before you fire.
- Honest physics. If the same shot produces a wildly different result each time, aiming stops being a skill.
- A reason to replay. Star ratings, destruction badges or a par score give a good shot somewhere to go. Kitty Kaboom’s Gold Paw is the total-destruction version of that.
- Recent updates. A game last touched in 2018 may not survive the next OS release.
For the wider category these all belong to, see what is a knock down game. And if you’d rather stretch a band than swing an arm, best slingshot games covers that side.
Frequently asked questions #
What is the best catapult game for Android? #
The Catapult 2: Castle defense is the best-supported free one, and Castle Crumble is the best-looking. Crush the Castle: Siege Master is the closest to the classic trebuchet formula, though it hasn’t been updated since 2023.
Is Angry Birds a catapult game? #
No, it’s a slingshot game. The birds are fired from stretched elastic, not thrown by an arm. The two get lumped together because the goal is the same: topple a structure and everything on it.
What came first, Crush the Castle or Angry Birds? #
Crush the Castle. It started as a browser game from Armor Games and arrived on the App Store on 18 September 2009. Angry Birds launched later the same year.
Are there catapult games without in-app purchases? #
The paid ones. Crush the Castle and Catapult King are both $0.99 one-time purchases, though neither has been updated for years. Among free games, Kitty Kaboom has ads but no purchases.
What’s the difference between a catapult and a trebuchet? #
A trebuchet is a type of catapult that uses a falling counterweight to swing its arm. Other catapults, such as the mangonel and the ballista, store energy by twisting rope or sinew. All of them throw something at a wall.