After Jason offered a discount half a year ago, the player base has died down again, hopefully this guide will encourage people to be more people to be more active.

This guide is to provide more information to players on how to break into houses, maybe when starting off and you have nothing to lose, or you need a little extra cash to make an upgrade. This guide is to minimise risk, so this guide cannot help you break into the higher end houses, but may help with easier houses.

The MOST important thing is to note things down, a good way to do that is to use CastleDraft[castledraft.com] slowly take it one step at a time and note down EVERYTHING, including dead pit bulls, Chihuahuas and cats, the reason for this is explained in the broken houses section.

Before I start, one last thing. This is my first guide, and my writing skills are very weak, if there's anything which is a bit difficult to understand, let me know and I'll try to add more images and re-write it.

The first time you enter a house, before you even take a step, look for closed powered doors like this:



TURN BACK NOW, block this house and never visit, chances are that there is a pit bull behind that door. The trap looks something like this:


The trigger might not be hidden behind a corner like the image shows, it could be hidden beyond the field of vision, so when you move up/down, you will move into vision of the trigger, and it’ll already be too late. Even worse is if it is a timed trigger, so after a few steps, the door opens without you even seeing the trigger. A guide for clocks can be found here[thecastledoctrine.gamepedia.com]
When you see any powered device, it is recommended to move back and forth several times on the 2 tiles to check for any clock based systems.
If there is no powered door, then you can enter and explore, remember, NOTE THINGS DOWN, this is very important, you can save the house and refer to it if you ever want to come back and attempt it again, or in case you are exploring a maze, so you don’t get lost while looking for the exit when being chased by a pit bull. The hollowing traps are also way easier to see if you map the house out.

Another potentially dangerous thing is an empty house, I’m not talking about the default setup, but where safe is moved out of vision and you cannot see anything, no walls, no danger, but this is not safe yet, there could be a pit bull hiding just outside of vision waiting to ambush you. Imagine, an empty house, you walk right all the way to the end, and find nothing, so you move down and start heading back to the entrance, or even worse, start aimlessly exploring, trying to find the safe, then you encounter a pit bull on your left side as your field of view moves, now you have a pit bull between you and the exit and there's nothing you can do without items.

















The safest method and the method I use is to explore right from the entrance, when I’ve reached the end, I would left to retrace my steps, towards the entrance, then shift the field of vision down, and move right to explore that row, and repeat that for the whole map.
Sometimes you will explore a small maze then it opens out to a large open area, you can treat this as the new entrance, and proceed as mentioned previously.

Next thing to watch out for is corners. Corners sound innocent and safe, but like an empty map, it can potentially lead do your death. Always explore as much as you can without turning corners from the entrance, then explore the closest corner first. The trap you want to watch out for is a pit bull behind a window.



If you take the top route first, then the pit will see you and cut off your escape route. This might be obvious at first, but a more complicated version can be built to deceive you.



A design like this gives you two choices, up or down, because the path to the right is filled with powered electric floors, however what awaits the player is a pit bull cutting off you’re escape route.



Taking either paths will engage the pit bull, which will follow you back towards the exit, de-activating the electric floor. However, you will have time to see the window and back off before the pit bull sees you. However, this is not always the case, a general rule is to explore the path with the fastest way of escape, another reason it is recommended to map out the place as you explore it.

This leads onto the next thing, be careful of windows, windows can trigger a pit bull and you are no longer safe to open doors, normally if a pit bull is waiting behind a door, you will still be able to react and run away, however, if the pit bull is triggered through a window, and move to the other side of a door, it will attack when you open the door.





















This is an obvious trap, but if you continue to explore knowing the pit bulls can’t escape, you might forget and accidently open a door to the pit bull.

Unpowered electric floors should also be avoided. A trigger may be off screen or around the corner and by the time you see it, it’s already too late.



Again, it is a bit obvious, when turning the corner, the pit bull will trigger the electric floor leaving you with no options. The corner may be replaced with a door.



It is advised to avoid crossing these unless you have the tools, however, it is still safe to walk into the first unpowered electric floor if anyone or any animal hasn’t seen you yet, with the exception of clock based systems. You can check for those systems by spamming right and left, walking back and forth at the entrance to see if anything changes.

Last thing I can think of to watch out for is one way traps. These can take several forms, but are designed not to kill, but to trap you. They can take the form of an electric floor, an unpowered door, a trap door or a combination of these.



The electric floor is a simple design and shouldn’t need any explanation. However, you should note the pressure plate type, some people use a toggle switch instead of a sticky, if it is a toggle switch, ensure the walls are not wired (you can move your mouse over a wall to check if what type of wall it is, if the fog of war is too dark for you to see), and there is no other way the electric floor can receive electricity, then you are safe to pass, but after passing, ensure the electric floor is live before continuing, this ensures that if you are being chased and need to rush back through, you will de-activate it without needing extra turns.



However you are advised against opening doors, because if a pit bull is on the other side, it will trigger the plate when you step onto the de-activated electric floor. Wire cutters or water will destroy the trap.



The one way powered door is identical to the electric floor, just with it replaced with a powered door. It is more expensive to build, thus more expensive to ensure an escape route (but still cheap, a door stop costs $200). Unlike the electric floors, the powered door will almost never come with a toggle switch, because the powered door cannot kill you. It is generally advised not to take the challenge unless you have the tools.



A trap door is harder to build because it requires power to remain closed, so this is never used, however I have put it in in case you encounter it. However, unlike the other one way traps, this is more expensive to ensure an escape route. Even with the tools, it is advised to avoid it due to the price of a ladder, and unless you can ensure no alternative power supply (which you shouldn’t unless it is all made out of glass) you shouldn’t rely on wire cutters or water.



By combining an electric floor and a trap door, you get a scarier one way trap, this requires a pit bull or a Chihuahuas following you two squares behind. When you step over the toggle switch, this disables the powered electric floor and opening the trap door, when you take another two steps, the pit bull will step on the toggle switch closing the trap door allowing you to continue. To bypass this, you need a ladder and a wire cutter or water (and also preferably a drugged meat) which is expensive.

When the server has few houses, the system pulls broken/robbed houses and places cash and items inside to allow people to enjoy when there are few players, this is called state owned houses. These are the easiest to rob, since it has been previously robbed so a path should exist, the only exception is pit bulls may be misplaced, preventing a clear.

Before clearing houses that require items, it is recommended to find broken houses to collect items and using those items to clear other houses (mainly the drugged meat), this is because items sell for half, so instead of selling tools when you obtain them, and buying tools to break houses, it's best to store them and only sell them when you need them. This also gives less incentive for people to kill your wife for gold, since items are all stores in the safe, and your wife holds half your cash.


If you haven’t started working on your house yet, it is recommended to scout out several broken houses, note them down, spend all your money on tools and die in the house. When you die, the house is locked for 24 hours, however, since you have nothing to lose, you can temporarily store you’re items in there and go retrieve them the next day. Also, since you have nothing to lose, you can take more dangerous routes, like proceeding through one way traps or rows of electric floors, paths people will be less likely to risk if they have a built house. If the house has been previously broken, there is a high chance that traps don’t have power.


Dead pit bulls, Chihuahuas and cats should be noted and used to your advantage. Pit bulls and Chihuahuas will avoid stepping within 2 blocks from a dead animal, unless you are one block away. This can be used to shield you from live pit bulls.
















The example shows a pit bull trapped above the dead pit bull, allowing the player to walk around without fear, as long as you do not walk onto the block to the right of the dead pitbull (the red X), you will remain safe. The map was recreated to better show what is behind the fog of war.

Often with broken houses, you want to take the same route the previous person took, so that means to look out for broken walls and destroyed traps and follow that route.

Here I will have examples of previously mentioned things that are currently found in houses. If any of these houses belong to you and you want them removed from here, let me know, but since these images are of abandoned homes, it is unlikely someone will come to claim them.













Here is an example of a clock, each time I take a step, the electricity turns on and off, allowing me to walk through the trap doors and electric floors without danger, this could be triggered to stop, trapping you in the middle using an animal hidden out of view, however, this is not the case for this house, I have left this up and running for anyone who wants to give it a try. We can also see the pit bulls don’t chase me because of the cats fallen into the pits.


This example I will take screenshots of me running through a whole house.



Here I see 2 columns of electric floors with dead cats, this shows that it has been broken before. I want to avoid those, because it may still be powered, even if most likely it was the cats powering them on.



After stepping forward, I see a pit bull blocking the other paths I would want to attempt, here I would want to back off, however I see that the pit bull does not follow, letting me know that a dead animal is 2 blocks below it, however I still don’t want to approach it as it can still kill me when I step onto the cross road. I came back later with drugged meat.

















Following the broken walls, I find a large open space, this is most likely an unused area and should pose no danger, but I use the previously mentioned method to explore open areas.



I explore to the right, but nothing really interesting. Instead of exploring up or down, I return to the broken wall and explore up.



There is nothing besides some electronics, and I keep to the lower part of the screen and explore to the right.
Finding nothing again, I return to the broken wall again and go to the right and turn down the corner, keeping to the wall.

















I find another corner and after turning it, I find more electronics. I keep to the bottom because it is the fastest way to the exit.



I move right and find nothing else. Now knowing that the safe is hidden somewhere else, I would normally abandon this, but I return with some wire cutters and explore the other routes for this example, but if you have nothing to lose, you can take the risk without items, knowing that there is a high chance that the traps were disabled.



The initial entrance presented 4 paths through electric floors, I was unlucky and only found the right path on my 4th guess. However no traps were sprung.



After passing, I found a destroyed power source and what was previously a combination lock.



Proceeding further in, I find destroyed traps and the safe. Mission Complete.
By using previously obtained tools instead of selling when obtained and buying when needed, I increased my profit.
Profit: 2000 – 200(wire cutter) – 150(3x water) – 50(drugged meat) = 1600.

While I was exploring other houses, I found a very interesting trap.

Here we are presented with 2 paths, the closer bottom path or the further top path, both with what looks like a one way commit trap, however, the top one allows us to step on the first electric floor and look around the corner safely (if no pets have seen us or any clocks are operating).

After peering around the corner, we notice a pressure plate that can be toggled and on closer inspection, there is no power source, no wired wood walls. We can proceed further or try our luck with the bottom route, if we continue through the top path, and a pit bull spots us through a window, as it is closer to the exit than us we will not be able to escape without items. However, if we explore the bottom path instead, assuming that it is also not powered, a pet may trigger the electric floor, or both could be combined, making it a less obvious commit to the top path.

But unfortunately, the house I explored had none of this. So when designing your house, think about what the intruder will see and what he/she will think.

I added this section because when I saw this trap, I was thinking of the worse case and was impressed with what could be done, but I was very disappointed when I found out that nothing was used except a bluff to deter people.

There are lots of stuff to watch out for, I have listed the most common stuff to watch out for, and I am sure I have missed a lot, so if there are any other common stuff to watch out for, let me know and I will add it here.
The biggest thing to keep you safe out there is to keep what is mentioned here in the back of your mind while thinking of what the most dangerous thing behind a corner, door or window is. The more you explore, the more you will get familiar with and the more ideas on how to improve your own home you will fine, even exploring destroyed homes will be beneficial for this reason.
And above all, remember to NOTE THINGS DOWN.