Survival Kingdom is as I mentioned, a town management game with a lot of resource management/delegation throughout. You play a king attempting to build up a kingdom after an orc invasion. You maintain all of your resources, purchase upgrades for your structures, and hire warriors to fend off said orcs. The game seems monotonous and to be honest, it definetly does become that after an hour or two. The gameplay is interesting, and it does change things up, such as little choose your own adventure things in between each level, and the battles that happen. The battles are pretty basic, you pick one of four locations, each with their own merits and drawbacks, and then you set it and forget it. I wish it would do something like a turn based strategy battle, but the set it and forget it method works well enough.
The game uses old style pixel art that is very reminiscent of late age pixel art PC games like Sid Meyer's Colonization. I do like this style, and it does include a vibrant enough color palette to keep it light, but it's nothing unique and with all the pixel art games you see, it really isn't differentiating itself too much. The music, however, is very good, and I enjoyed the tracks as a sort of mood setter, and they do not repeat too much, but I wish there were more tracks in the game because it really is a good soundtrack.
The game's story really can boil down to all I say and doesn't have a lot of weight on the game overall, but it works well as a sort of wrapping paper to tie the game together with a nice little bow. The ending battle screen when you inevitably lose also shows off this orc victory and looks really good, so in a way, it doesn't add much, but that is sometimes a good thing.
Alas, as I said earlier, the gameplay does get boring after a while with almost no progression shown on screen over time, and it ends up with you doing the same things like selling food, but you will be working with larger numbers. After a while, the little choose your own adventure things also start to repeat, giving you a sense that you have seen all that this game is going to throw at you, and this is the case, as you will see pretty much everything the game has to offer after only an hour or two. That's why even though this game contains some fun gameplay, a decent story, and some solid pixel art in movement, it lacks in content and earns itself a 5 out of 10 with a label of "sparse".
