Alexander The 52nd’s little monologue stands at quite the other end of the spectrum from Solomon’s Wisdom.
This Alexander, the latest in a line of kings that have stuck by the adage of No Waste, No Nimiety for centuries apparently, has been a tad bit too covetous. Where his predecessors sought to unite the continent under the banner of a self-sufficient lifestyle, Alexander The 52nd wanted to stand out.
INSTEAD blames it on the lack of a proper father figure in his life but I don’t know, an old lady promising fame if only she had your favorite ring should come across as suspicious to anybody. Not to Alexander The 52nd though, for he’s quick to trade in his family’s Ring of Wisdom for a slightly different legacy.
The old lady was talking of a different legacy than what the man had in mind, it turns out, leaving his kingdom in a bit of a mess. His counsellors only think it best to throw him into exile and surname him The Tarnished.
Thankfully, he realizes what a fool he’s been giving away the Ring that supernaturally stored wisdom inherited from his ancestors and sets out for his old home in the hope of finding the witch. That isn’t even a bad synopsis for the RPG-Roguelike that Kingdom of No One wants to be.
Now games of the roguelike genre are generally known for compelling players to beat them over successive ‘runs’; a play-through is attempted, game over happens due to insufficient resources/experience, player tries again with newly acquired skill/resources in the hope of making new progress, repeat.
https://www.facebook.com/KingdomOfNoOne/videos/1558980447518873/
To stop you from throwing your controller out the window however, modern roguelikes ensure that some tangible portion of your prior progress carries over into subsequent runs. Kingdom of No One claims to go a step further by stating that its run-die-retry mechanism is not just a game-play mechanic here, but that it ties very strongly in to the story.
Every action, decision and choice taken over a run will influence future ones regardless of how miserable a player you are. Although I’m not entirely sure how unique that is, seeing as I know of at least one other title promising similar, and so I attempted to force Brahim Jomni of INSTEAD into telling me more.
https://www.facebook.com/KingdomOfNoOne/videos/1565393380210913/
He responded by calling me a bloody spoil, which I assume means we’ll have to wait till this fall for Kingdom of No One’s demo to find out more. At that point the game will also demonstrate its FTL-inspired non-linear travels, where each run will have Alexander The Tarnished plotting a course through multiple kingdoms in search of his Ring.
Each course will procedurally generate challenging happenings, calling for a strategic management of resources and the crew that you’ll be taking along with you. The former will range anywhere from food allocation to loot inventory, should you happen to run into fights along the way, while the latter will involve assembling escorts.
https://www.facebook.com/KingdomOfNoOne/videos/1734907079926208
Members of which could be loyal warriors or liars with one eye on your inheritance. It’s still an RPG after all, so expect a fair amount of equipment/items handling. Currently active on Facebook and Twitter.
