Kingdom

This game was like crack to me: I couldn't take distance from it eventhough I wanted to stop. I eventually did stop playing after I unlocked the last achievement, because by that point any player would have seen more than enough of this simple but suprisingly deep game.

Kingdom is a sidescroller where your interactions are limited to the things you spent your money on: hire workers to build and upgrade, archers to kill, farmers to recieve more money. With the exception of one mount in New Lands, there is no other way to fend of the daily zombie-like army that attacks you every night (every 10 minutes in real time). The control scheme exists with a total of 4 buttons: left, right, shift (to run) and an interaction button. As you can imagine, you run a lot from left to right and back expanding your kingdom.

First time players might find the limited construction options questionable, like the fact that you can't place walls, towers and farms anywhere you want unless it's located on a randomly, pre-defined spot respectively recognizable with dirt, a rock and a small stream of water. This means you can't always have a good constellation of towers and walls. Instead, you have to make a choice: Do you cut through the woods to find a better spot, risking your base to be neglected for a night or two, or do you stick with what you have right now?

The simplicity has also a charm: the graphical design is calm and relaxing and the music and sounds go hand-in-hand with it. You mostly just run, time your attacks and think forward. Their are more mechanics going on than the developper will tell you about (in fact, they almost tell you nothing), which brings the satisfaction of discovery but also the frustration of trial-and-error with it. This is where most players seem to polarize.

It looks and plays simple, but not without faults. You cannot decontruct buildings to prevent archers to run for it. You also cannot tell archers to defend the other side of the map. Specificly this will grind the gears of a lot of players, because all of them will reach the point where there is zero threat on one side of the base and want to put all force on the dangerous side of the map. The same goes with the archers in the towers: they won't ever leave it till they die. In these cases you'll feel like you have to power to fight, accompanied with with the feeling that you cannot use it. Experienced players would be able extend this list of faults, but will probably still like this game a lot.

You should consider getting the mobile version of New Lands, since I found this game to be perfect to play while I'm listening or watching something else. The steam version can be windowed into ANY size, so you play it in the corner of the screen if you like.