Kingdoms and Castles is a great bite sized version of a medieval city builder.
My tale begins with a quaint little village called Jorgania. The citizens of Jorgania had no troubles in their lives beyond farming and making houses. Their ruler, Jorge the magnificent, was a new but promising leader. Many years passed and all seemed well. One day villagers began demanding charcoal for rubbish reasons. It was on the 13th day of Summer Dew, Jorge the magnificent ordered that a charcoal maker be constructed. The citizens of Jorgania rejoiced and began immediately making charcoal. One year later the entire village burned to the ground. Turns out Jorge The Magnificent might have overlooked the dangers of placing such perilous things like charcoal makers near flammable orchards. Plus the dragon didn’t really help things.
Okay, it may have taken me two or three villages but I did finally manage to grasp what Kingdoms and Castles had to offer. This little medieval town simulator is brought to you by Lion Shield, LLC. Additionally, this project was funded through Fig and recently hit Early Access, making quite a splash.
Why?
Well, Kingdoms and Castles does something that other games in the same vein do not. It simplified things. Which is good and bad depending on your viewpoint. Games like Banished and Cities Skylines are games that have a huge amount of complexity and depth. Kingdoms and Castles has some complexity but cuts down on it significantly, for the sake of making progress.
On one hand, I haven’t seen everything that Banished has to offer; I don’t have the patience for it. When it comes to Kingdoms and Castles, I have seen everything, built everything, and have a great understanding of what it all serves. Even if I built it wrong sometimes, ahem. Fire is bad mkay?
You can make some impressive looking settlements, fortresses and spread your Kingdom to the farthest edges of the map. The beautiful part is that Kingdoms and Castles is really easy to pick up and play. Villagers are pretty transparent with their needs and once you get an idea how to expand in a smart and economic way, the rest is cake. Currently, to throw a monkey wrench in your operation are dragons, raiders, disease, and in my case, fire. This is where the Castle part kicks in and helps you repel these issues.
Kingdoms and Castles has three modes currently available. One that is completely peaceful, no hazards and short winters. Second has hazards like dragons and normal winters. The last mode is everything sucks and you are going to die mode. I primarily played in the normal mode of the game. In my experience, you spend a vast majority of your time handling village affairs and less time on the castle stuff.
While I enjoyed crafting my villages and learning how things worked, once I did figure it all out and began growing my kingdom more and more, I realized that I didn’t really have a goal. I wasn’t heading anywhere. By cutting out the complexity and keeping the micromanagement down you more or less burn through the content rather quickly. The hazards aren’t enough to keep the game going beyond six or seven hours. To be fair, I did have fun for those seven hours and wishing there was more isn’t a bad thing, especially for a game in Early Access.
Which brings us to future Kingdoms and Castles and what that entails. Well, the developer recently put out a road map and things look interesting. We have somewhat old genre standbys like Merchant ships, coming in the near future. On the fresher side of things we have Twitch integration, which lets the audience vote how things go in your Kingdom. There will also be some sort of a hero system that involves you a bit more in the game. They are taking some nods from Civ and adding bandit camps and ancient ruins as well. Apparently VR support is on the docket as well.(That sounds odd to me too)
There is plenty of potential for Kingdoms and Castles and it has garnered plenty of attention. It’s up to the developer to keep fresh ideas rolling in and hopefully separate itself from the rest of the pack. From the road map thus far, that certainly seems to be happening.
I personally enjoyed my brief time with Kingdoms and Castles and hope there is far more to come. Jorgania will rise from the ashes and Jorge the magnificent will lead the nation into a bright and prosperous future. Once there is an update or two.
We will be keeping our eyes on Kingdoms and Castles here at B3 so make sure to check back for all your gaming needs and updates!
