Kingdom: New Lands

I picked up Kingdom: New Lands a few days before No Man's Sky unlocked on PC to tithe me over, and it managed to enthral me so much that I'd forget about the space game completely while playing it. And I haven't dropped it since the release of Hello Games' space epic either, it's beauty and simplicity hide engrossing depth, and while extended play wore me down a bit, the persistent upgrades and sheer loveliness of it all kept me coming back every time.

Kingdom is about as simple as it gets. All you can do to interact with the world is move left and right and throw money at things. There's little in the way of instruction from that point on, after a seamless opening segment you come across a clearing in the forest and you're taught how to enlist the island's unusually abundant supply of homeless folk and supply them with bows or hammers, and from then on it's up to you to find out what throwing money at specific things does.

Chances are that'll end badly for you, as the green things I've come to know as Wigglers come out at night, break your walls, reduce your peasantry to beggars again and nick the crown off your head, bringing your reign to a disappointing end. Not to worry though, as you'll start again with a new randomly generated King or Queen with hopefully better chances of survival.

And once you've gotten to grips with the basics, there's still discoveries to be made, and plenty of depth to be found in decisions based on the random environments. Clearing a patch of forest makes room for farmland and fortifications, but will get rid of a shelter for the beggars you need to recruit, for example. And you'll need to time your expeditions if you want to get new fortifications built in time for the next night. Not to mention the slew of unlockable features of the landscape you'll get by picking up a map in each island before completing your main objective.

I won't spoil any of those upgrades, as discovering them is all part of the joy, but the main feature of the New Lands expansion is a new goal to occupy your mind with: rebuilding your crashed ship. By pouring cash and builders into the repairs you'll eventually be able to push the thing along to a port at one of the two sides of the map, load it with knights, workers and archers and sail to New Lands. Where you will crash and start all over again.

And of course your new kingdom will be under a more fervent onslaught of wigglers. If you lose your crown, you start again on the first island, but collecting the maps on later islands earns different rewards, which can still show up on any island, so your job will get easier the more you succeed. It's a simple, but effective way to keep things fresh beyond simply surviving forever, and gives plenty of reasons to come back. Playing for extended periods weight down on me over time, likely due to the simple nature of it all, but even as I write this now I want to go back for another few nights.

And this is without talking about how beautiful it all is. It's a gorgeous game, with amazingly detailed pixel art and an absolutely lovely soundtrack and FX board. There's a serenity to everything you do, conjured by the ambiance, soundtrack, and the lack of any overbearing HUD elements reminding you of objectives or spouting tutorials. During the daylight hours, I feel at peace. At night, with fortifications on all sides and a strong army supporting them, I feel safe. And then when the walls fall down and everything goes to tits, I still feel somewhat at peace, knowing that I can start all over, with all the pressure reset and on a far easier island. Probably with some new toys to play with too.

So yeah, Kingdom: New Lands. Lovely little thing. Well worth the price and a rather nice companion to Thursday's write-up subject...

No Man's Sky. Yup, I've been swallowed whole by this gorgeous beast, and I'm going to have a little write about it Thursday. I'll try to avoid writing about whiney internet children that hate things not being for them. Too much.