This is a very interesting game. "Interesting" means many things.
I recently picked up the physical release dual-pack of New Lands and Two Crowns, and have spent a few hours on New Lands. It took me about 5 hours to complete the first map - I restarted and restarted, getting utterly destroyed every time. Finally I smartened up and played while watching an experienced Kingdom player Let's Play on Youtube, where I was finally able to learn what everything was in the game.
There are games that hold your hand, games that are tough, but then there are games where absolutely nothing at all is explained. It seems that the Kingdom series is the last type. It's pretty frustrating.
I mentioned I bought the physical copy - of all the games I have ever bought in my life (there are thousands in my physical collection), this, THIS is the title most demanding of an instruction manual. Nope, nothing. Empty case, just a game cart. Not only that but it's definitely a "flew under the radar" type of game, so there isn't exactly a lot of documentation out there on it. Couldn't they have tried to explain anything beyond the initial, "go here, light fire, recruit villagers"? Even set up their own website with explanations?
If the game had a modern presentation and fancy graphics, you'd be able to tell what things did for the most part, but this is an (admittedly gorgeous) pixel-style indie game; yeah, instructions matter.
Speaking from purely a user experience perspective, this is unforgivable. THAT ASIDE - it is definitely interesting, the approach taken here. You don't have any way to monitor any of your progress. There's no mini-map to speak of, you have to keep a mental journal of everything you've built, or you are completely screwed. Starting a level and pausing, only to wait a day or two to go back to it, will leave you completely in the dark.
It's a pretty fun game, I only just beat the first level after ~10 attempts to learn the system, and I still feel like a total idiot trying to do anything. I also have no idea if I brought the right type of villages to stage 2, so we'll see if that turns into a huge disaster or not.
Taking a break from it now though to play Origami King, a game that tells me every 3 seconds how to play it. Maybe the third game I got last Friday (Spirit of the North) will be somewhere in the middle in terms of explanation.
