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It's easy to describe what Kingdom is, and yet it's probably best not to. This abstruse pixel-art game from two-man outfit Noio and Licorice uses familiar genres in obvious ways, and I could easily slap them on as labels. But if I did I'd ruin the enigma, because working out what Kingdom is and what you're supposed to do is the entire point. Campaigns fail and you must start again, but you do so armed with a bit more knowledge than before, and a deeper understanding of the game you're playing. Each thwarted campaign is discrete, and yet mentally they're all connected, all layers of a learning experience that together represent a whole. Other games treat failure as an obstruction to progress, but in Kingdom, a game with no manual and that offers no easy explanations, trial and error are the only way to extract its secrets.I've been playing for 12 hours now. I feverishly restarted campaigns in the hope I would discover and achieve the game's win condition and solve Kingdom's ultimate mystery for myself. But in the end I couldn't and I had to cheat: I had to ask the publisher what it was. Be assured, a win condition exists. Annoyingly I was closer to it a handful of hours ago, but it's there, coaxing me back in again, willing me to have one more shot at it.
To say I don't understand all of Kingdom isn't to say the game is complicated, because it isn't. Its beauty lies in its simplicity. Your King or Queen rides a horse left or right on the screen, and drops coins. Those coins either convince a person to join your cause, or they pay for structures to be built at certain spots. Kingdom begins by guiding you through building a small base with two stake-in-the-ground walls, and puts a hammer and/or a bow in the hands of your few followers. Then comes night, and with it a few enemies you'll easily slay. The following morning, you're rewarded with a chest of coins. From there, it's about survival. Kingdom sets you off into the world with nothing more than the words 'build, expand, defend.'
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