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Kingdoms and Castles is a game in which you can build your own medieval city. The main objective of the game is to build and grow your own city (at your own pace and in your own style) while keeping your city safe and your people happy. The game features 3 difficulty settings; Paxlon (which is a peaceful sandbox), Sommern (which is the normal difficulty setting, and features raiders and dragons), and Vintar (which is similar to Sommern, but harder).
There are no other modes to play the game. All you can change except from the difficulty setting (and regular settings) is your landscape and settlement, which isn't very appealing, since all landscapes are very similar. These landscapes include grass, water, trees, annoying decorative rocks, and stone and iron available to quarry/mine. Other than that, there are clouds that move around the map. The grassland is also varying in three ways; Barren (not available for farming), Fertile (available for farming) and Very Fertile (available for farming, + it gives bonuses for farming).
You start the game by picking your landscape and placing your Keep somewhere on the map. From there on out, you can start creating your dream city. Using your resources wisely is the hard part. There are limitted resources. You can get more wood by chopping off of trees (which usually stay down) or by getting yourself a Forester, which cuts trees and replants them. Iron can be obtained by placing an iron mine onto iron available to mine, stone can be obtained by placing a quarry onto stone available to mine. These are the basics to getting resources, which you can use to build houses and city requirements such as a hospital, a well and roads. Gold can be obtained by building treasure rooms, and is often needed for town buildings. Food can be obtained from farms and orchards. Hovering over city improvements tells you from the get-go what every building does. It's really pleasant to know about it all from the start. Other resources contain charcoal (usually for bigger houses), tools (for industrial activities like those from the Foresters and Miners), and armaments (for the 2 harder difficulty settings in which your village might get attacked and you're in need of an army). By having such limitted options and clear descriptions on each building, the game is really easy to understand. This comes at great cost of the fun you're having while playing. Personally, I felt like I'd seen it all after 2 hours of gameplay. Especially when you've played bigger city building games like Cities: Skylines. The enemies are funny, in a way that you can't take them seriously, but they're a fun addition to the game.
The graphics aren't all that spectacular; it's very simplistic. In being simplistic lies both its strength and weakness. The game doesn't feel very immersive or realistic, even for a medieval city builder. The low-poly art style is cute and fun, but won't keep you interested for too long. The way clouds disappear and rain falls are fine within the art style. The graphics are simple and lack any appeal, other than a reminder that this game is made by two people, which clarifies it's simplicity. The shadows are solid. Other than the drawn graphics; the text sometimes vanishes a little (like a broken typewriter), but not annoyingly whatsoever. I haven't spotted any visual bugs or glitches.
The audio, just like the graphics, are simple and cute. A simple tune encourages you to play the game. The weather effects (lightning and rain) are spot on. Other than that, it lacks what the game lacks: length. It's just too simple to be played for more than a few days.
In conclusion: Kingdoms and Castles is a basic, yet fun addition to the genre of city building simulation games. The atmosphere of medieval simplicity is refreshing, yet the game doesn't deliver enough depth to be standing out in any way. It's a game that will probably take max. 10 hours for a casual gamer to play. It's a solid title, but is just very similar to other city builders, without much difference, which makes it a mediocre entry.… Expand
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