Kingdoms and Castles

A totally charming game that makes the hours just melt away. Not hugely complex; easy to get into and enjoy, and you can get a lot of play out of filling in your island and growing your city as big and happy as possible until you run out of room.

Graphics are more 1980's arcade style, which is not a compliment. Gameplay is very proscribed, and repetative. Maybe in 6 more months it will improve. Also dreadful bugs such as the household leader hopping back and forth while the household slowly starves. No feedback on vital statistics, such as how many labourers are left. No worker priority system.

It's one of the better survival/management/city builders that I've played in a while but considering Banished was the last one I played, I guess anything will look better. It needs a ton of work that could take years more to come through and I just feel like it's not worth waiting around.

I bought this on sale, I think for $5, and it was a great buy. The problem is replay value; unless this is one of those games that brings you endless joy, one solid playthrough will do ya. Question is, would you pay $5 to have 25ish hours of fun? I think so. This would be an amazing game to open up for modding. No idea whether that's planned. But the art development would be very manageable for modders.

Ok so it's a bit unpolished. There's no character models, the path-finding can be finicky, and the creative mode isn't that reliable, but I find this to be a very solid title. The closest I can think of comparison wise is Banished, in which it's both easier and harder. Easier from Banished because of a few things. 1. Winters don't kill you, they just keep ya from growing food. 2. Gold is the currency instead of resources, you can still trade resources but your going to get gold for them. And 3. Resources don't run out, they are only accessible by certain points that you can gain them, which is remedied later on in the game when you've got the right sources. And also your villagers don't die quickly from starvation, they do die eventually but it takes like half a year Now with that said, let's go about how it's harder. 1. You have threats to deal with, who have no problem with setting everything on fire, can even fly over your town. 2. Plague spreads much more quickly, and takes less time to kill people. 3. You can't assign people jobs, the most you can do is set up the Job Priority which puts job positions in a top tier list from most important to least important, and is filled when people come in. And 4. Happiness is a major factor of this game, ya can't just plop a church down and everyone is happy, and if they aren't happy they will leave. And I know there's people out there who give this game a bad rap since they only find enjoyment out of it for just a few hours, but those people probably don't play Banished over and over again, trying to see if they can survive with the land they are given. And if your that kind of player, who is looking for some more things to play with than what Banished provides, give this game a shot. And if anyone calls you out for playing what looks to be a early-access unpolished game. Remind them that the same can be said for Mount and Blade: Warband, and they'll be quiet.