Previews// PAX Round-Up: Hob, Kingdom and Lords of New York

There is only one resource in Kingdom and that is gold. This is gathered by the player at the beginning of every day and is based on the size of the kingdom they have created. Forts and walls can be constructed that also have to be manned.

The player must carefully balance expansion and improvements over efficiency as a tower with no archer is useless, as I found out to my cost thanks to over-constructing and understaffing, only to see my fledgling Kingdom be overrun and my crown grabbed from me followed by the message 'A kingdom without a crown is no kingdom at all'.

There is a vast world to explore in Kingdom, but one I could not venture into without having the backing of my own realm, and that is the very core of Kingdom. The desire to explore and expand is terribly great and that alone drew me in more than anything.

You can actually play the free Flash version of Kingdom right now here, but the full release for Windows PC, iOS and Android is due to occur some time in 2016.


Lords of New York
Developer: Lunchtime Studios
Format(s): Windows PC, Mac and iOS

I have often said that videogames would be far more interesting if the people who made them didn't like Star Wars, or at the very least didn't base their entire creative endeavours around sci-fi and high fantasy. I only say this in order to have a broader spread of subjects being covered in the medium we at SPOnG do so terribly love.

Lords of New York is a sci-fi thriller set in an alternate realm where New York is ravaged by rabid giant elephants and it is up to the player to rid...

Actually, no it's not. Lords of New York is an adventure game set in 1930's New York and thankfully is bereft of any kind of weirdness. It instead focuses on what people really care about: other people.

There are four main characters in Lords of New York. Vince is the main protagonist and the player character who is a member of the mafia that is attempting to win a major underground poker tournament. The aim of Lords of New York is for the player to guide Vince to his victory by any means necessary.

Along the way he meets Tony, an undercover federal agent, Vernica, a rival poker player with significant talent, and Lucky who is a fellow mobster who has little time for Vince or anyone else for that matter. Lords of New York feeds off the interaction between all of these characters, and that is what pulled me in when I played it at PAX Prime 2015.

The visual style that Lords of New York adopts is that of a cartoon, which has more than a passing resemblance to the Broken Sword series of games. This allows the developer to exaggerate the facial features of the cast of characters within Lords of New York, and thus communicate to the player how they are reacting to their actions towards them and others.

The demo I experienced featured a poker match, which required me to not only play Texas Hold 'em reasonably well, but also stare down and even intimidate other players. Those who are familiar with poker know that a large part of the game is staring down opponents in order to get them to flinch and make a poor decision. Lords of New York exploits this fact by allowing the player to emotionally manipulate the other poker players.

All of what I have described here is essentially a videogame that is driven by characters and not a muscle-bound hero who must rid a post-apocalyptic New York that is being ravaged by rabid elephants. For that reason alone I am grateful to Lunchtime Studios in making Lords of New York and bringing it to Windows PC, iOS and Android sometime in 2016.