Throw One Back Thursdays – Kingdom/Kingdom: New Lands

Heya everyone! Yes, it’s been a really, really long time. Yes, I missed you. Yes I am sorry. Now that the days are longerish and it’s Summer, I hope to provide you with some new fun things in the land of craft beer and indie games.

This week, I’m trying something new with Throw One Back Thursdays, in which I will highlight a game I’ve played recently (probably an older one because that’s what I do these days, the sweet smell of nostalgia is strong) or a beverage you may find appealing.

I’ve decided to kick off the series with Kingdom and Kingdom: New Lands. The two games are mostly the same, but Kingdom: New Lands is available in the Steam Sale for dirt freaking cheap. (No, seriously, it’s 70% off, GO NOW: http://store.steampowered.com/app/496300/Kingdom_New_Lands/) I personally play it through gog.com, where I picked up Kingdom originally. New Lands adds some features and refinements and is more readily available, so it’ll do just fine.
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The game is in the pixel art style, which, if that bothers you, stop right here and return to what you were doing.  If you’re still with me and don’t mind this, you’ll start by selecting if you will be a queen or a king and what color variant you will embrace. This will also influence the banner that will appear as you grow your settlement, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Keep in mind the tutorial will not tell you HOW to pick your poison so you will need to use your up and down arrows to pick it before the loading screen finishes.

You begin by galloping across an expanse and collecting some coins. These will be your seed money to start your Kingdom, be it ever so humble at first. Find your settlement and press down to fill the empty hole above you with a coin. Congratulations, explorer, you’ve got yourself a town.

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As night falls you will be assailed by these troll things that want your gold and ultimately, your crown. If they get your crown, you fail and you have to start all over. The more coins you have on your person, the less likely they will succeed, mostly because they will take those.  During the day you must “recruit” the beggars in the countryside and provide them with weapons, tools and other accessories, which will assign them to roles.

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In turn, the recruits will either defend, build/repair or do menial jobs around the settlement, which result in cash or protection. If you stop by some of them long enough, you’ll get even more coins that you can invest in people and expansion.

The further out from your initial spot you wander, you will encounter treasure chests, odd monuments, new horses, more beggars, etc, etc. The goal is to expand as far as you can without getting robbed by the greedy little trolls.

If you fail, you just start again, learning where you should invest your money, your people and your time. If they get attacked by the trolls, you’ll have to recruit and equip them again, but you’ll learn what’s best as you go.

That’s pretty much it. It’s a simple but sometimes frustrating title, but I kind of enjoy it. It’s something you can throw a few minutes into, or a few hours, depending on your time and attention span.

Again, right now it’s on sale in the Steam Summer Sale, and if you think you’d enjoy it, you have until July 5th to grab it at a fantastic price. If you miss out, it’s around  $14.99 list.

TL;DR:

Title: Kingdom: New Lands/Kingdom

Developer: Raw Fury/Licorice

Type: Strategy

Platform: PC/MacOS/Linux