Kingdom

"No Crown, No King" - Kingdom's game over screen sure likes to rub it. This resource management, kingdom builder, tower defence roguelike is challenging. There are no easy lessons here, you need to learn everything the hard way. Well, unless you check out videos of other people playing that is.

Kingdom is a rather unique mix of elements that originated as a browser game. New indie publisher Raw Fury Games stepped in to help usher this game into a more polished shape and onto Steam. The player is a king or queen (randomly decided each time you start a game) who rides around on a horse, collecting and dispensing coins. That's basically it, but it's the decision making that goes into each coin drop that immerses you in the game and hints at the great depth that's on offer. You need to protect your domain, and keeping your kingdom safe from the horrors that come out at night is initially about two things.

Establishing a solid economy and building defences in the shape of walls and towers (where archers will position themselves) is key. Later on there is a more offensive part of the game, but that is something you need to explore on your own, so we won't spoil it. Exploration and discovery is what Kingdom is all about. Things aren't explained in-game and that's a good thing.

Your economy is mainly to built around either killing animals (rabbits and deer) or building farms. The former is a cheaper means to build your economy at first (just have archers roam around and kill whatever they happen upon), but longterm investment in farms and farmers is key to longterm success.

You'll recruit new subjects in camps, they typically spawn two people per day. Drop a coin and they'll walk towards your castle and pick up a tool (that's how you assign their roles - archer, farmer or builder). Off to the edges of the world you'll also find other things of interest: statues once activated (with coins of course) will give you buffs, chests, and the portals from where enemies pour out during the night. Survival is your basic objective, but there is a way to finish the game as you level up your kingdom.

As Kingdom is a game of in-direct control you don't really engage in combat yourself. Your archers will shoot arrows at the enemies that pour out of portals far to the left and right of your castle during the nighttime. The monsters come in different variations, from the basic walkers (that reminded us of Spirited Away) through to more dangerous trolls and flying enemies. With time the attacks grow more and more difficult, and every fifth night there's a blood moon and you'll see the number of monsters increase by at least a factor of five (basically it's just one giant blur of enemies).

One unique aspect of Kingdom, compared to similar management games, is that it's side-scrolling and you need to move an avatar around the world in order to set things in motion. Therefore distance is another thing you need to manage (it's almost a second currency). Spreading yourself too thin means a lot of travelling, so there's a neat risk and reward scenario every time you expand and build new walls further out to the left and right of your domain.

Power is quite a potent drug, and playing as a king or queen here is utterly addictive. Hours go by and you'll have missed out on meals and sleep. You just want to see the next day and face whatever threats or treasures it brings. It might be a bit repetitive in nature, but that doesn't matter once the effective gameplay loop has its hooks into you.

The problem with procedural generation is that sometimes you get really lucky, like spawning next to a couple of really great resources in Civ. At other times you can get a world in Kingdom where you'll need to go past a "portal" and risk provoking enemies just to be able to start using stones instead of wood for walls and towers. Sometimes you get a potential farm (the best economic building) right next to your town centre. At other times you need to sacrifice a camp (where new subjects spawn and can be recruited) in order to have a farm nearby. Tough choices, as both coins and people are the most basic and essential building blocks.

All is not well in Kingdom. The AI behaviour is sometimes a little unpredictable, and we also encountered one or two glitches. There are also some design issues we're curious about, for instance builders load catapults, so a catapult with builders nearby can fire off multiple boulders during a blood moon. If there's no builder nearby, you won't do nearly as much damage with the catapult. It's not an ideal design, although there is some degree of control as to where builders end up.

Another issue is that if you just scrape by one of the blood moon events, there's this state of existence where you're not defeated, but there's simply no way for you to turn things around, you're just too weak. There simply isn't the option of scaling things back and turtling up while you rebuild your economy. It's a minor flaw and when that happens we tend to simply reboot and start our kingdom from scratch.

While it would compromise the concept of a roguelike we would love to see an option of being able to say choose one "resource" that will spawn right next to camp. Adapting to the situation you're thrown into is part of the fun, but it would be nice to be able to set out with a certain strategy in mind.

Overall, we've enjoyed our time with Kingdom. It features lovely pixel graphics and enchanting sound design (that you'll soon learn to rely on for hints of what is happening off-screen). It's wonderfully addictive and with a bit of patching and tweaking it could be even better.