Kingdom Two Crowns
In the award-winning Kingdom series, players took on the role of a monarch struggling to build their kingdom up from nothing. Hundreds of thousands of players across the world explored, recruited loyal subjects, and defended nightly against the persistent threat of the Greed – but they did so in isolation, and as with all things in Kingdom, nothing lasts… until now. Kingdom Two Crowns builds upon the challenging micro strategy experience with an evolution of the celebrated franchise. Introducing the brand-new campaign mode, monarchs must now work to build a kingdom that stands over time until finding a way to defeat the Greed for good. Recruit new unit types and develop advanced technologies to bolster your defenses. Explore fresh environments to discover new mounts and secrets hidden in the deep. Revisit and revitalize your kingdom in its entirety as you move onward through the campaign.
Steam User 67
GF: All you do is run left and right..
Me: Exactly.
Steam User 40
Somehow both extreamly relaxing and stressful. 10/10
Steam User 42
The greed took my dog... so naturally I went all John Wick on them and destroyed every. Single. Portal. That existed. My dog is now safe. 10/10
Apart from that, the core game doesn't change too much, but adds in new things that really sweeten the experience.
Steam User 40
great for autism
Steam User 150
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Steam User 33
Fun game to play with a friend, but is missing quality of life features that would make the game much more fun. Frequently buggy, occasional game breaking bugs. Achievement hunting is a pain and a half, especially when trying to do it with a friend at the same time in a multiplayer world. Some achievements can only be achieved if you are the host... so that's rough. The wiki is often confusing and unhelpful.
Overall its fun, but I can't take it too seriously because of the apparent spaghetti code.
Steam User 27
Kingdom Two Crowns is like being transported into an unfamiliar, yet recognizable world.
TLDR:
Kingdom Two Crowns is not complicated; it’s almost ruthless in its efficiency. The gameplay mirrors your thought process, and your thought process is informed by the way you play. Mechanics and environment go hand in hand, and provide a story that the game never needs to spell out for you. Although the gameplay can be repetitive, if you engage with the mystery of the world you will have fun.
Brief Summary:
Purple goopy monsters who are hungry for everything gold attack your village every night. It is up to you as the regent to protect your town and its citizens. Utilizing the left, right, up, and down keys (yes, that’s all you need for gameplay) you learn to distribute resources, hire citizens, and build up defenses against the nightly onslaught of the enemy. This game does not have combat or save slots. There is only an autosave feature. If your defenses fail the purple monsters will ravage the land and its people, and most importantly, they will steal your crown. There is no king without a crown in this game. The next regent (you, but as a new character) will have to restart the process of building a kingdom from the beginning if you are defeated. Winning means stopping the enemy for good.
What It’s Like To Play:
Picture this: you’re dropped into the middle of the forest. No, not you, your character. Whoever they are (your royal changes in each life) is on horseback. There’s also a ghost, another once king or queen, with an outstretched arm pointing toward the distance. They simply tell you to follow them. Unsure whether or not to say yes, you hesitantly reach around, tapping the normal buttons for movement on your keyboard. When you hit the right button, the horse moves. Following this spirit through the forest, you see the husks of two men in rags wandering back and forth. The ghost ushers you forward, encouraging you to give. Through iconography and trial and error you figure out how to give each man a coin, how to give them tools, and, slowly but surely, how to rebuild the kingdom. By the time you have nascent ideas about how to succeed, the spirit disappears, and then you have to figure out everything else on your own. The game explains little, and though the ghost appears to show you how to get where towns used to be every level, much of this game is a mystery that you are in charge of solving.
How you play from that point is up to you. What are these old structures for? What happens if I give to the land? You have to balance your income with your curiosity, figuring out when you can give, what the consequences of giving are, and if you will even get something back. Although the ways to spend coins are often clear through the iconography of the game, how to get coins is a far more mysterious process. Rather than spoil it for you here, I'd suggest keeping your eyes peeled for opportunities to get your coin back, and think logically. For example, if you build a fence in the middle of this field, where will the animals you want to hunt graze. Keeping your coin purse full becomes even more of a challenge when introduced to the enemies that target the area.
So What?
Without any more spoilers, it’s easy to tell people to buy these games. The pixel art is exceptional. I found myself just stopping and staring at the screen, thinking how beautiful this world is. The gameplay is intuitive in some senses and completely a mystery in others. Having the gameplay mechanics inform your tactics recreates the feelings that you imagine the protagonist should feel. When you don’t know how to play, the protagonist is similarly lost. As you grow more confident in the controls and mechanics, and the character simultaneously moves through spaces with more confidence, the game feels natural. It feels like a story unfolding before your eyes that you can feel and experience with your own emotional reinforcement as you play.
Combat is quite simple in that there isn't any. If your defenses fail and your crown is left vulnerable you die. Your rule ends and the land suffers. There are no retries or second chances for a single player experience. However, with the death of one royal comes another. You have the opportunity to rebuild again.
Rec or No?
Beyond good or bad, (and I enthusiastically place Kingdom Two Crowns in the good category) this game is a reminder about studios being intentional in the hows and whys of game creation, and that is always something worth supporting. I wholeheartedly recommend this game!
Kingdom Two Crowns is a reminder that a beautiful game doesn’t need to be overly complicated, or have a novel’s length worth of writing to craft an amazing experience.