Playing Kingdom: Two Crowns
I recently started playing a game called Kingdom: Two Crowns. It is not often at all that I try new games and play for more than half an hour; I usually am loyal to my games and like to learn everything about them, 100%-ing them if possible. Examples include that I have played Skyrim pretty consistently since 2012, same with Spelunky 2 since it came out, and I got 97% completion on Red Dead Redemption 2 before moving on.
This game was just one I thought looked really fun on Steam. For entertainment, I usually stick to strict recommendations because I don't like wasting time on random things, but this one had a really good sale available and seemed right up my alley.
Medieval-fantasy theme. I have low tolerance for sci-fi, modern/realistic games, apocalypse games, etc. but if it's any sort of medieval or medieval-fantasy, I am all in. I don't know if it was all those years playing almost only Skyrim but it's just what I love.
Decently-priced DLCs with some really cool themes, such as feudal Japan, Norse, a spooky one called "Dead Lands," and one called Olympus. I got those alongside the main game so I can jump right in once I get the hang of the base game.
I think this game was free to play on Steam up until today (October 13th), but it might still be on sale? Either way, I recommend wish-listing this one, because it has been really fun so far! It has some previous iterations as well if you want to try the older ones.
It's a 2D sidescroller, where you are a monarch building a kingdom. You get to choose your monarch character, which are unique and beautifully animated, and customize your banner. The tutorial is short, simple, and skippable: You obtain coins, and use them to hire archers, crafters, and farmers. You also use coins to build walls, upgrade your kingdom base, farms, hire vagrants to join you, and more. To get coins, your archers can hunt and the farmers can farm and pay you "taxes" basically, among other things.
You are protecting your kingdom against The Greed. These are little guys who come out at night and try to steal your coins. If you run out of coins, they steal your crown, and you lose your monarch. The Greed gets progressively harder to fend off the more time passes. I didn't want a particularly stressful game, so I was worried about the defending aspect, but it's been fine actually. They aren't that scary of an antagonist by any means, and it's not that hard on Normal mode (there is also easy, and some much more difficult modes if you do want something harder).
One thing I haven't mentioned is the co-op. This game probably shines best when played with another person. I haven't gotten the chance to do so yet, but I'm excited to. If anyone wants to play this game over steam or just friend me on Steam, let me know!