A Kingdom for Keflings

The creative team at NinjaBee have been busier than, well, a colony of martial arts–trained bees: following the addictive and accessible XBLA titles Cloning Clyde, Band of Bugs, and Outpost Kaloki X comes A Kingdom for Keflings, yet another appealing pick-up-and-play game to pollinate your Marketplace blades. This resource-management, city-building sim takes one of the PC’s classic genres and gives it a super-cute repackaging for the console crowd.

As a friendly giant, you’re tasked with helping to build a thriving village for the tiny Kefling townsfolk. In fact, it’s your towering avatar that really separates Kingdom from similar SimCity-type titles: rather than conducting the construction as a floating hand or hovering mouse cursor, you’re right in the thick of things, manually assisting the diminutive denizens of Kefling. While you’ll spend much of your time in a supervisory role — assigning tasks, managing blueprints, searching for special tools — you’ll also be able to grab an axe and bring down a few trees alongside your little lumberjacks, or shear sheep among your talented wool harvesters. Of course, you can also snatch them by the scruff of the neck, change their hats — thereby switching their professions — and make them do all the menial stuff. If you’re feeling frustrated, you can even give them a little kick and, when you’re in a better mood, maybe reward a lowly lumber-hauler by making him mayor.

The do-what-you-like pacing, charming presentation, and endlessly addictive nature of tackling increasingly complex structures in an effort to ultimately erect an impressive castle, mirrors an addiction we haven’t experienced since the last time we preened in our pretty piñata gardens.

UPDATE: After we reviewed A Kingdom for Keflings and just before it was released, NinjaBee added the ability to import your Avatar into the game. The option to stroll our giant selves through towns and forests? We'll take it!