Simply keeping on top of the steady release of “AAA” game is challenging enough these days, with a larger market than ever before, and a massive number of devs and publishers trying to sate that demand. Unfortunately, that often means far too many good indie titles fly under the radar without the recognition they deserve. This weekly post aims to highlight some of those games we’ve got around to playing but never got around to reviewing.

Kingdom Two Crowns

Described in a single sentence: the Kingdom games let you move left and right across a small 2D area, collecting and investing coins in your followers and structures, and sometimes you can gallop with your steed, depleting a limited stamina meter. That’s the extent of the gameplay mechanics and your interactions with the world. Yet somehow, the two-man development team, Noio, has managed to craft an unexpectedly complex kingdom-builder, in which your monarch - a European or Japanese-style king or queen - must build up a settlement, construct a boat, travel to new lands to establish new outposts, and slowly building up the technology and resources needed to permanently destroy an ever-present threat on each island – the “greed”. There’s no real plot to talk of, just your quest to build a thriving kingdom from humble beginnings.

Every night, spawning from portals on both ends of the playable area, these diminutive creatures descend on your settlement. Attacking your troops and monarch, stealing your stash of coins, equipment, and your crown (which acts as a fail-state and will send you back to the morning save point). To avoid this, you roam left and right from your main encampment, collecting coins and gems, tossing them at hermits to recruit them, or investing them in new structures (and upgrades to said structures), which produce weapons and tools. Gems are used to take control of unique buildings and shrines that litter each island, often providing new resources or buffs for all your settlements. Before the first night falls, you’re going to want some walls and archers in place to fend of the first assault, before using the peaceful daytime hours to explore, expand, and collect the coins generated by some of your followers (from activities like trading, hunting, and farming).

The Two Crowns release (which is sort of a sequel to the first two games) added the structured campaign, but also the ability to team up - in local or online coop - and rule together (though your companions character is locked to your save file). Given the rapid day-night cycle, this allows you to explore both sides of the island simultaneously, collect more coins, and double-down on building and maintaining defences, speeding up progress through the campaign. Everything is brought together by fantastic pixel-art aesthetics and a soothing soundtrack that belies the intensity of the experience.

If I have one warning for potential players, it's that you can expect to restart your campaign several times until you get to grips with the essential upgrades. It’s more than possible to grind your progression to a halt, thanks to a few bad choices before hitting the winter season.

You can pick up Kingdom Two Crowns on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One (it’s also on Xbox Game Pass), and Nintendo Switch.

Regions of Ruin

I picked this up on whim after seeing several reviews drawing comparisons to the Kingdom games. Developed by Vox Games, a small Tasmanian developer, it certainly shares the pixel-art aesthetics and simplistic 2D world-design, but that is where the comparisons end and you'll swiftly discover a massive, complex RPG that would feel more at home in a modern “AAA” game. Regions of Ruin puts you in control of a dwarf emerging into a ruined world, long after Humanity and Centaurs battled to extinction, and left the surface infested by goblins and other evils. With the Dwarven Empire assaulted and scattered, it's now your job to explore a massive continent, aid and recruit fellow dwarves, and build up your settlement. Unlike the Kingdom games, you’re given far more mechanics to achieve these goals.

Although minute-to-minute gameplay functions as a basic 2D action game - with jumping, dashing, hacking, slashing, and looting - you’ll swiftly establish a base of operations with a few friendly dwarves that provide you the ability to travel, heal, and craft items. From here, you venture out into the wilds, travelling across a vast and diverse map, with each area you enter rendered as a simple 2D zone - usually with a quest giver on one end, and your objective on the other. Aside from your basic move-set, there is gear to find and equip (with a simple tier system); experience to earn towards skill-trees, full of active and passive abilities; and tons of resources to find, all of which aid you in building up your camp, progressing into a thriving town, full of shops and craftsmen.

I doubt everyone will appreciate the simplistic stylings, but anything you can do in a sprawling open-world RPG like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion or Skyrim, you can do in Regions of Ruin: talk to dozens of NPCs, accept a myriad of quests, level up dozens of skills, loot and lug around unrealistic stockpiles of weapons and armour, upgrade or enchant them, and trade your excess junk. Sure, the animation kind of sucks and there’s no voice acting, but the diverse environments look fantastic and the soundtrack is excellent, complementing the action - whether you’re sneaking into a camp, scoring critical hits on unsuspecting foes; flinging arrows at a horde of approaching goblins; or regretting selling a fire-resistant amulet while taking on a shaman.

Unfortunately, you can only pick up on Region of Ruin on PC, but it’ll literally run on anything.



Let us know in the comments below what you think of our choices, or if you’ve been playing an indie game this week you’d like to promote to the community.

Follow the link to see more of our picks for Indies of the Week.