Kingdom - gamescom Preview

Kingdom is one of those rare games that comes from humble beginnings and has the potential to instantly stun the masses. It’s not a AAA action packed shooter, or an alternative puzzle platformer, but a simple, pixel art, strategy-cum-tower defence game that stole my heart at gamescom from the get go.

In what was originally designed as a Flash game, Kingdom is the brainchild of Dutch developer Thomas van den Berg. His idea, which began life as a simple 8-bit drawing of a man on a horse, has since been picked up by Raw Fury Games and is now being rebuilt for PC, Mac and Linux.

The premise is simple. You take control of a randomly generated King or Queen -- the game generates everything from gender, to race, horse colour, attire and regal flag -- and have to build your kingdom, making it secure from beasts and bad guys who fancy their chances come nightfall. You roam across the 2D-plain using your coins to build walls, watch towers, farmland and weapon depots, everything that helps make your kingdom impenetrable and create income. Walls and defences can be broken down without game over being declared though. Unless the crown is taken from you (i.e you are killed) the game continues; while your inhabitants lay maimed and walls crumbled, it’s business as usual until you’ve had the beautifully blunt ‘No Crown, No King’ appear on screen.

As for the day/night cycle itself, it’s still a working progress, while I’m sure it will be perfect come release, I couldn't help but feel it was a little too quick. This was particularly noticeable during earlier stages as you familiarised yourself with the essentials.

The game was described to me as a minimalist strategy, everything has a purpose, working together for a single goal, but I also felt there were elements of a tower defence game, the build, upgrade and protect parts that are so established within the industry. Imagine a tower defence where you roam the tower walls from the ground, rather than with a god-like view, and you’ve got the idea.

It doesn’t stop there though, and Kingdom’s beauty shines through once you leave the relative safety of the kingdom walls. This is perhaps where the strategy side begins to surface and the tower defence drifts off. To the left and right of your under construction kingdom is a randomly generated wilderness, the further you traverse, the greater you will be rewarded. During my playthrough, I came across chests brimming with cash, overpowered and angry enemies, shrines which can upgrade infantry and straggling members of the public ready to be recruited for your kingdom. It’s the risk-reward combination that you get in any exploration game, on a simple and digestible scale.

To tell you that Kingdom is beautiful would be like telling you that nighttime is dark. The simple design, originally based on limitations of a Flash game, transcend into the gaming mainstream and looks as relevant as a AAA cinematic. The world is a mystical landscape with swaying trees and moving clouds, the water in the foreground reflects the surrounding world in a calming manner and fires crackle and pop as night turns to day. You can tell everything has been carefully thought of, everything is there for a reason and there’s no sign of filler or unnecessary images.

Everything, from the look, the feel and the sound of Kingdom should be enough to convince you to play. While there is still no solid release date, the guys told me it would likely be released late this year or early next, but it’s ready when it’s ready. Having played on a PC via a Dualshock 4 controller, I was also quick to ask if Kingdom would be coming to consoles. Again, there was no definitive answer, but I was told that they wanted to eventually roll it out on consoles, after all, it felt completely natural playing with a controller.

With that in mind, if you’re looking for a calming, beautiful and tactical experience, then whenever Raw Fury decide the time is to drop Kingdom, I implore that you try it, regardless of platform. 

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There is still no hard date for Kingdom's release, but you'll be able to play it on PC, Mac and Linux when it drops.