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video game reviews

Dungeons & Kingdoms: The Survival Game That Does Too Much

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Disclaimer

I was sent a free copy of Dungeons & Kingdoms to review for my blog. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I won’t let it sway my opinions. This will be my honest review.

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Table of Contents

What is Dungeons & Kingdoms

Dungeons & Kingdoms is a survival game with village management and dungeon delving mechanics. The game is currently currently on Steam Early access. I will try to be a bit more lenient with my review because the game is not finished, but these are still my honest opinions.

The Hook

You have landed on the shores of the new world with only the shirt on your back. With the help of the few who have traveled with you, you must reform the world around you into the kingdom that will be your home. Gather resources, build your city, command its citizens, and go an adventure you will never forget. Can you forge to greatness from humble beginnings, or will the harsh environment consume you?

Gameplay

Dungeons & Kingdoms is an RPG where you build a kingdom, manage citizens, and delve dungeons. If this sounds like a lot, it is.

Survival Game

Players start their run with only the clothes on their backs. They must explore the world and gather its resources in order to discover the recipes they need to build a mighty empire. What sets Dungeons & Kingdoms apart is that players can command NPCs to help in the building effort.

Kingdom Builder/Management

One of the goals of Dungeons & Kingdoms is to build a mighty empire from scratch. Players get to command a growing population of NPCs to gather, build, craft, and send them on adventures. Like other village management games, players will need to be mindful of their citizen’s happiness. It is a very intricate game with many moving parts, but there is also a bit of dungeon delving to keep things fresh and interesting.

Dungeon Delve

Players can delve dungeons in search of treasure to fund the growth of their empire. Combat in this game is pretty simple, but requires a bit of fines to get the kills. Whatever flavor of the game you like, Dungeons & Kingdoms does a lot for its player, but is it any good?

Review

The game does a little too much, and none of it works well at this stage of development. While I like the game’s concept, you really need to be okay with the janky state the game is in. As far as Early Access games, you can do worse, but you can definitely do better. I like Core Keeper is my favorite survival game, and Pathless Woods if you want something a little more cozy.

Aesthetic

I am not a big fan of the visuals for Dungeons & Kingdoms. The world is boring, and feels a little too empty. The character and visual design is a little too pixelated and ugly. It feels like they are mashing too many styles for their assets together when they should try to go for something consistent and simple. The game is doing way too much and I can’t expect it to be realistic and perform well enough to be fun, not that it already is. They need to find a theme for their world and stick to it whether it be the weird 3D pixel art or something more realistic. I prefer a little weirdness personally.

Gameplay

I like that the game has a lot to do. The blending of genres is a very interesting idea with a good amount of potential, but all these moving parts can be overwhelming. If the game can successfully onboard players through those awkward early stages of the game, it can have its growing fandom. Unfortunately, the tutorial is boring and not very good. It doesn’t help that the performance isn’t great. While I like the idea of a survival game with all of these elements, the execution isn’t good enough to make a positive impression. If you have the patience to fight through the bugs and performance issues, your time is still better spent elsewhere. I really liked Enshrouded.

Performance

I usually give Early Access games a bit of a pass because they aren’t finished yet, but the performance issues make the game more work than its worth. There is a general wonkiness that carries over to every task. The game has bad UI that makes navigating through the many menus a chore. It got to the point where I was working too hard and wasn’t having fun. The problem is that the game is trying way too much at once. There are so many moving parts and while some may be working fine, I didn’t have it in me to get to that point. Most gamers won’t either. I am willing to try the game in a couple of updates if the performance improves, but I can’t recommend it in its current state.

Conclusion

Dungeons & Kingdoms has some cool ideas, it doesn’t do any of its parts good enough to earn a recommendation. For every genre this game mashes together, you simply have better options. Even if you want to help test a game that will most likely have a long early access, you can do so much better. I am willing to try a better version of what I got to test out, but I can’t ask people to spend their hard earned money on something that is this rough. Go play anything else and wait for a few more updates.

Dungeons & Kingdoms is currently on Steam Early Access.

video game reviews

Exploring Sintopia: Sinful Strategy in Game Management

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Disclaimer

I was sent the Sintopia demo to review for my blog. I understand the game isn’t finished yet, so I will be a bit more lenient with my review. That said, I these will my honest impressions.

Shameless Self-Promotion

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What is Sintopia?

Sintopia is management god game planned for Early Access on September 4 2025.

You are in the business of sin, and sinners are your most valuable resource. Structure your bureaucratic hellscape to tourcher repenting souls you’ve led astray while keeping your employees happy. Use your powers to grow, guide, and kill off Humus to keep a healthy supply of sin flowing. Can you run your world efficiently enough to gain recognition from the big guy himself?

Gameplay

The demo is the game’s tutorial. Players learn important fundamental mechanics and enjoy a bit of flavor and lore. Sintopia is a management game, with a few different parts: overworld, underworld and employee management.

In the over world, players influence how a society grows and expands. Players can kill kings they don’t like, they can influence people to sin, and kill them to feed their souls to hell. The humus, for the most part, will grow and expand their civilization on their own and react to a players actions.

Once souls go into hell, players can farm them their sin through different buildings and structures. Players are essentially creating and managing a maze. Players will need to hire imps, give them a wage, and keep them happy. Players must also create a maze that can effectively harvest sin from lost souls, while also managing the living. All this is done to earn the currency needed to upgrade the buildings that will make hell more efficient.

The imps that run the various points of a player’s hell also have needs. On top of managing and maintaining a civilization of Hummus and their souls, players need to worry about their imployees. Imps have needs, require breaks, and expect a certain wage. They also have their quirks that can affect productivity. Finding the perfect staff of imps that doesn’t bankrupt you at an early stage of the game is important. Juggling this with the other two tasks is what is going to make or break this game.

Impressions

Sintopia is a very interesting entry to the genre. The game has a cool artstyle, a fun tone, and terrific flavor. There is clearly a lot of effort being put into making this game silly and lighthearted, but also offer an engaging and meaningful experience.

The demo does provide a good sense of what to expect, but the tutorial is slow. I like to jump into these games and figure things out on my end, then look up tutorials for any mechanics I might have missed. This isn’t the right way to do things, but it is how I have fun. I’ll need a full version before I can make my decision.

Sintopia has some interesting mechanics that are worth looking into. If you like management games, this is a promising title, for those who enjoy a busier game. There is a lot going on in this game. It is manageable, but it can feel like work if you aren’t approaching it with an appropriate strategy. The tutorial does a good job of giving the players the tools they need with a fun voice acted story, but it is so slow. I just want to sit back and build stuff. I also wasn’t a fan of the overworld tasks. Killing Humus feels tedious sometimes, keeping track of what they do feels like work, and I never really knew when to kill their king. There seems to be too much going on, if you’re looking for a casual management game. If you are looking for a hardcore management game with fun flavor, this one looks very promising. While I am not just yet convinced if I like this game, you should definitely check out the demo if you like managing resources, building efficient infrastructure, and aren’t afraid of a little sin.

You can check out the Demo now on Steam.