BrokenFace Review: A World of Keflings

Developer: NinjaBee
Publisher: NinjaBee
Platform: XBOX 360
Price: $10

Have you ever wanted to be a giant? How about being tasked with building a world for those who cannot build for themselves? What about managing a wide variety of resources and putting them to use building a highly customizable village? If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, A World of Kelfings may just be exactly what you are looking for.

A World of Keflings stars your XBOX 360 Avatar in the role of a giant that has recently been thawed out of a big block of ice. How you got frozen in the ice is a total mystery, but your new goal in life is very clear. You quickly learn that it is your job to build and populate three fully unique kingdoms for little citizens known as Keflings. The Keflings' village towns are not in very good shape and they need a lot of help to prosper.  These little guys are determined not to let you do all the work by yourself, however, as they are willing to do a lot of hard labor and a ton of heavy lifting every step of the way. Together, you will make something wonderful.

A World of Keflings is a laid back world building game with a big focus on resource management. To populate a town, you must first build buildings. To build buildings, you must first manufacture various blocks. To manufacture those blocks, you need to gather resources.  There are quite a few resources to wrap your mind around and, thankfully, the game does a great job of starting you out with only a few to worry about and having you work your way up from there.

Gathering resources is as easy as finding a supply of them on the map and going to work with whatever tool is required to mine them. As long as you have the right tool, it is as simple as walking up to a resource, pressing the A button, and then carrying them back to one of your various manufacturing buildings. Each Kingdom has unique resources such as the Forest Kingdom's lumber, the Desert Kingdom's sand, and the Ice Kingdom's snow. Once you have the items required, you use various buildings to build parts that are used to assemble more buildings. You will also use special buildings to turn some resources into other resources like wool into cloth, regular wood into special carved wood, and other various examples. There are even special buildings that turn regular Keflings into smarter, educated Keflings.

There are quite a few different buildings to make and you are constantly getting more blueprints as the story progresses. Your main goal is to build your way up to produce each kingdom's biggest and most important building. One example is the Castle you must build for the King of the Forest Kingdom. It's a long road to building each capital building and one that will take you back and forth throughout all three Kingdoms before even one of them is complete.

All of this would be a much harder job if not for the help of your very grateful Kefling citizens. The Keflings are not just there to watch, they are ready and willing to help you in every way that they can. This includes mining, gathering, and transporting the resources. You can assign duties simply by picking up a jobless Kefling and placing them on an untapped resource. They will then spend their days mining that resource. It also works the same for gathering and transporting - simply place a Kefling on a mined resource and then pick them up and place them where you want them to take it and they will follow that order until they are either relieved of duty or given new direction. Each Kefling also levels up as they do their daily work and they become better at what they do naturally over time.

You are also given several ways to interact with the Keflings. There are quite a few different emote animations that your avatar can perform and the Keflings will join in on the fun. You also have the ability to be a little mean and kick your Keflings right in the behind and watch them fly through the air. There is also a fun little system in place that involves building, placing, and customizing cannons with special sounds and animations for your Keflings to be shot out of. All these little things really add to the charm and help each Kingdom feel more alive.

A World of Keflings is a fun and laid back experience. It's perfect for anyone that wants to kick back, relax, and enjoy a break from all the crazy adrenaline that so many games these days are focused on. It is a game that gets more complicated as it progresses but also manages to stay simple in its core design and is perfect for people that love to create and personalize their own little worlds. It's also a game that can be enjoyed by the whole family, and also a fantastic release for the holiday season

                                                        The Breakdown

Presentation: A World of Keflings is a very colorful game with a wide assortment of different buildings and characters. It has three completely different environments to explore and each Kingdom is fully realized and has completely unique visual effects and features.

Sound: NinjaBee has gone for a very chill approach with the music choices and the game also has a very cartoony gibberish feel to the characters speach during the cut scenes.

Playability: A very easy to understand game which also manages to still find some creative depth for those that want to personalize every detail of their Kingdoms.

Lasting Value: The story can be rushed through in about under 10 hours but players can spend as much time as they want customizing their Kingdoms and playing both local and online multiplayer modes.

                                                                                                   

Comments

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