Giveaway of the Day - Kingmania

Today’s giveaway was recently given away just six weeks ago on May 25th. It received a positive 70% out of 412 votes and there were 69 comments and a thread in the forums which you can read by following the links below:

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/kingmania/#comments

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/3359#post-30714

The game downloads at just over 24Mb, and the installed game takes up a little under 27Mb

Introduction:

Quote:

Play a quick action strategy game, different from any you have seen before! Kingmania is a fast and simple, yet challenging, game that will test your ability to make quick tactical decisions. You control different buildings, using their power and the power of hordes of your lieges to defeat your opponents. And if you like online challenges, you can play with your friends in multiplayer mode!

ref: http://kingmania.300ad.com/ accessed 24th May 08

Main game features:

30 levels Over 30 structure upgrades
5 mass destruction spells
5 opponents with different strategies – find their weak spots!
Multiplayer mode to play with your friends online!

System Requirements:

• OS…………………………..XP/Vista
• CPU……………………..…1.2GHz
• Graphic Memory…… 64MB
• OpenGL recommended

I’ve tried installing the advanced beta version that’s available from the home site and it caused the previous giveaway version to revert back to a demo. (I did overwrite the giveaway one)

From the screenshots given on the download page I don’t actually see much of a difference between the normal and the advanced beta (apart from the size of the game file) and I’m using a reasonable graphics card (NVidia 8800GTS – 640Mb); maybe the shadows are slightly more defined, but in a game such as this it hardly matters (IMO)

Video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fA-b1Ducaxk

All on one page:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Kingmania/?start=all

As a slide show:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Kingmania/?albumview=slideshow

Googled Images:

http://images.google.co.uk/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=Kingmania+game&btnG=Search+Images

http://images.google.co.uk/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=Kingmania&btnG=Search+Images

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=Kingmania+&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

Worthwhile reviews:

http://www.gametunnel.com/gamespace.php?id=403&tab=3

http://www.softwareheadlines.com/modules/planet/view.article.php/233776

http://www.reflexive.com/KingMania.html

Conclusion:

I recommend downloading and trying this game out; though if you’re not sure, check out the video link that I’ve posted above as it gives you an idea as to what the game play looks like. Playing it on the hardest difficulty setting (accessible from the levels map) makes for a very challenging game. Be sure to know the game mechanics before you try it on this setting as otherwise you’ll soon lose your wizards tower and castle (and thus lose the ability to create new knights). The graphics are of the isometric form, with the ability to pan around and zoom in using the mouse cursor and simple controls that you’ll find in game. I don’t think I could play it for protracted periods though, because the game play does become a little tedious after awhile which makes this an ideal arcade game for filling up those odd few minutes you’ve nothing better to do. (I recommend playing it for no more than about half an hour at a time, but I’m not the best person to suggest such things as I find it hard to concentrate on even the best of games for more than several minutes, lol) It’s a change from the usual puzzlers, arkanoids and shooters; requiring a little strategy as well as luck to progress.

It’s definitely worth a 7 out of 10 IMO and will be staying on at least one of my computers. I discovered after checking the registry that this particular game is free standing, which means you can transfer it from one computer to another once you’ve installed the giveaway version, though do not (as already indicated above) try to install the advanced version because it doesn’t work with the giveaway version of the game.

Other information:

If the game doesn’t install a shortcut to the desktop, you can create one yourself. Make a note of where it is going to be installed to, (default = C:\Program Files\KingMania) then find the games folder once you’ve installed it. If you’re not sure how to create a short cut you can find a straight forwards tutorial in the forums. However this may not be necessary now as after downloading the demo yesterday, and installing it to one of the computers that didn’t have the one given away back in May, it did install a shortcut, unlike the previous version:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2594

check this site for preview of the game

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fA-b1Ducaxk

Watch this game and then decide whether to download it or no.