A small-scale strategy game about keeping your king alive
King Pins is a real-time strategy game played in short rounds of 20 to 60 minutes. You pick one of four civilizations — humans, goblins, elves and the undead — and each one plays quite differently from the others, with its own set of buildings, units and upgrades. Your job is to gather resources and push out across the map to claim territory, all while keeping your king alive. The king is your main unit, and the moment he dies the match is over for you, so expansion and defense have to happen at the same time. Maps are randomly generated, so a match rarely plays out the same way twice.
Playing with your group
King Pins supports local multiplayer with up to 4 players using controllers, and it also has Remote Play Together, so friends who are not in the same room can join a local session over the internet. Beyond playing against each other, you can set the computer-controlled AI to three different difficulties for a match against the machines, or simply let the AI factions fight each other while you watch. The four civilizations give a group different options to try across a session, and random maps keep the matchups from repeating.
Before you start
There is a campaign of about an hour made up of challenging levels. It introduces the game's mechanics step by step, so it is the natural first stop if the real-time pace is new to you. Rounds are designed to be short — 20 to 60 minutes — which fits a single evening's session, but do budget for the full hour if you end up in a close match. Expect to be managing resources and territory while watching your king's back at all times; the loss condition is immediate, so a careless move can end a round faster than the timer suggests.