Kingdom Two Crowns

Lore & Background

Kingdom Two Crowns is a 2D strategy and resource management game presented from a side-scrolling perspective. Players control a mounted monarch who must build their kingdom and defend it from the Greed, a race of monsters. Gameplay follows a day–night cycle: the monarch explores and builds during the day and fights the Greed at night. The monarch collects gold coins to hire villagers, who can be equipped to become builders, farmers, or archers. The kingdom is located in the center of a procedurally generated level, and the Greed attack from both sides at night. Unlike previous Kingdom games, losing the crown does not destroy the kingdom; instead, the player continues as a new monarch called the 'heir', who inherits a partially destroyed version of the previous realm.

The game features cooperative multiplayer via split screen, allowing two monarchs to play independently and share coins by throwing them at each other. If one player loses their crown, they can still collect coins for the other player, and the game ends only if both lose their crowns. The monarch can explore islands, repair shipwrecks to travel between five island levels, and eventually build a bomb to destroy the source of the Greed on each island. The goal is to exterminate the Greed on all five islands.

Reader's Guide

Kingdom Two Crowns was developed as an expansion for Kingdom: New Lands but grew into a separate game. The series' creator, Thomas van den Berg, wanted to focus on defending structures rather than defeating and escaping. The developers reduced the difficulty of the roguelike mechanics from earlier games, allowing players to keep most buildings after losing the crown. The pixel art style was chosen for its impressionism and to reduce the time between drawing and implementing new designs. The game received positive reviews, with praise for its strategic gameplay, artwork, and cooperative play, though its slow pace was criticized. Raw Fury supported the game with several updates and downloadable content, including the Shogun setting, Challenge Islands, the Dead Lands setting with a Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night crossover, the Never Alone update, and the Norse Lands DLC. The game attracted over 300,000 players within six months of launch, and the Kingdom series had sold over four million copies by 2019.

Did You Know?

• If a player loses their crown, they continue as a new monarch called the 'heir' who inherits a partially destroyed realm.
• The game includes a crossover with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, allowing players to switch between four Bloodstained-themed monarchs.