Kingdom for Keflings, A (X360) (2008)
Developer: Ninja Bee

Review by Faididi and Co.

Kiddie kingdom construction

Story: Average

What are Keflings? We guess they're like elves or Gelflings or something along those lines, but with freaky deformed heads. They want to build a kingdom for themselves, but they'll need the help of giants to do some literally heavy lifting. There's no real story here, just a lot of peaceful construction and medieval high-fives for everyone.

Gameplay: Average

Ninja Bee's A Kingdom for Keflings is a very simple, very casual civilization-building strategy game. Beginning with a basic workshop, the protagonist giant and the drone-like Keflings have the goal of gathering resources from the environment and constructing increasingly more advanced facilities until they produce a castle. Up to 4 Players are supported over Xbox Live, where friends play as fellow giants who can lend a hand in the host's kingdom.

Make no mistake here; this isn't a complex classic in the vein of Maxis' Sim City. There are no objectives other than to make buildings, and there are no natural catastrophes or other dangers that threaten the kingdom. Clear-cut blueprints are provided to indicate exactly where each piece of a building belongs. Even if the giant decides to demolish an unwanted building, the pieces are fully converted back to their original elements, so running out of resources is never an issue.

However, A Kingdom for Keflings is the sort of game perfectly suited to teach younger Players the lessons of organization and efficiency. All the buildings are constructed from four types of resources and their derivatives (for example, raw lumber and processed wood planks), and depending on how the facilities (lumber mill, stone cutter, and such) are located and how the Keflings are assigned, expanding the kingdom can either take forever or go relatively fast.

The game's easy, laid-back nature isn't a problem in itself, but having more options or other features would've helped. Why there is no local, shared-console multiplayer support is disappointing. Furthermore, you can't change your giant without restarting the game from the beginning, and your progress is separate for the single-Player mode and the online multiplayer mode (i.e. you cannot work on your online file if you go offline).

Controls: Average

Aside from not being able to change characters and not being able to share your progress across the single-Player and the online multiplayer modes, the controls are decent. Assigning the Keflings to different tasks is easy enough. It would be nice to have a faster way to cancel accidental constructions, though, instead of needing to manually break them down again.

Graphics: Above Average

The visuals are rendered in a friendly cartoon style, and the textures are colorful. The buildings are nicely animated, and the different hats are a handy way to indicate a Kefling's role.

Audio: Above Average

The best part may be the audio effects. The facilities noisily churn out their items, and sections of buildings are set down with a heavy thud. The bucolic music is memorable and catchy, while the Keflings let out amusing screams whenever they're picked up.

Overall: Average

A Kingdom for Keflings definitely isn't deep for a strategy game, but it's adequate for young Players. With fool-proof blueprints for constructing the buildings and no way of exhausting resources, it's perfect for relaxed, open-ended play, but those seeking a game with more traditional action and challenge should probably pass on this.

Updated Version: Average

A Kingdom for Keflings is unique for being the only Xbox Live Arcade game to have an update that allows you to play as your own X360 Avatar in place of the original giants. This is probably the best use of Avatars on the console to date, although given this game's limits, that's not saying much. You still can't change characters without restarting from the beginning, and you still can't share your file between the single-Player and the online multiplayer modes. On the bright side, only the host can demolish structures in the online mode now, so you don't have to worry about idiots jumping into your kingdom and mucking up things too much.