An original Star Soft game inspired by The Settlers

An economy-building strategy game set in Dark Age Britain: a ship of Saxon settlers lands on an empty coast, and you grow their village into a kingdom.

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Genre

Economy builder

Plays on

Computer only (mouse, or mouse and keyboard)

Players

1

Inspired by

The Settlers (an original game, not a copy)

Price

Free. Plays in your web browser, nothing to install

About the game

Kingdom is an original economy-building strategy game that runs in your web browser. It is inspired by The Settlers: hundreds of little workers carrying goods along the roads, and chains of buildings that feed each other.

A ship of Saxon settlers lands on an empty stretch of the British coast. You never carry anything yourself. You decide where the buildings and roads go, and your people do the rest: carriers take goods from flag to flag, woodcutters fell trees, sawmills cut planks, quarries cut stone, and farms, mills and bakeries make bread. Guard huts, watchtowers and fortresses near the border make your land grow.

Geologists search the mountains for coal, iron ore, gold and granite. Miners dig them out as long as they are fed with fish, bread or meat from fishermen, hunters, pig farms and butchers. Smelters make iron and gold, and the toolmaker turns iron and planks into the tools every new worker needs. Storehouses keep goods close to where they are used, boats carry goods across water, and priority settings decide what is carried and delivered first.

The land is different every game and wraps all the way round from east to west, with coasts, lakes, forests, mountains and deserts. A map shows the whole land, the view zooms in and out, roads show how steep each step is, and demolished buildings burn down to smouldering ruins.

A weaponsmith forges swords and shields, and a settler with one of each becomes a warrior. Warriors have three ranks, raised with gold, and the gold your kingdom holds keeps their morale up. One of the British kingdoms lands not far away and builds a kingdom of its own by the same rules, with its own settlers, roads, workshops and army. Choose how many warriors to send against its military buildings, win the fights at the door, and take its Great Hall to win.

Kingdom is still being built, in stages. The village, its full economy, and war against a rival British kingdom that builds its own economy are playable now, with six Learn to Play lessons for beginners and a campaign of ten missions across Britain. More polish is planned for later stages.

If you loved The Settlers on the Amiga, Kingdom brings back the joy of watching little workers carry goods along your roads, in a village that grows into a kingdom.

How to play

• New to the game? Choose LEARN TO PLAY on the title screen: six short lessons on a quiet land, where your advisor shows you each step and you do it yourself.
• CAMPAIGN on the title screen has ten missions, each always on the same land, from the same landing place, against the same one, two or three British kingdoms: take their Great Halls, hold out for 40 minutes, or hold a share of the land. They start gentle and get harder. Winning a mission gives the codeword for the next; the game also remembers which missions you have reached.
• Choose a land, choose how many goods your ship brings (few, usual or plenty), and click one of the orange markers to place your Great Hall, your storehouse. Every marker has wood and stone close by and more further off.
• Right-click the map (or press B) to see where you can build. A yellow cottage marks a spot for a small building; a wide orange hall marks a spot for a large one.
• Click a spot and pick a building, then lay a road from its flag to your other roads. A builder walks out, and carriers bring planks and stone.
• Each stretch of road between two flags has one carrier. On a long road, add flags so more carriers share the work. While you lay a road, coloured pegs show how steep each next step is; carriers are slower uphill.
• Keep planks and stone coming, because every new building needs them, and build military buildings (guard huts, watchtowers and fortresses) near the border to grow your land.
• To find coal, iron and gold, click a flag near a mountain and choose SEND GEOLOGIST. Build mines by the signs they put up, and keep the miners fed.
• Every new worker takes a tool from the stores, so keep the toolmaker supplied with iron and planks. Choose which tools to make under STOCK, then PRIORITIES.
• When choosing where to land, choose LOW, MEDIUM or HIGH starting stores: how many people, goods, tools and weapons the ship brings.
• To attack the rival kingdom, fill your military buildings with warriors, then click one of its military buildings or its Great Hall and choose how many warriors to send. After about 20 minutes it attacks you too: if it takes your Great Hall, your kingdom is lost.
• The game saves itself every few minutes, and you can save from the menu.

Controls

Kingdom needs a computer. On a phone or tablet it shows a message asking you to play on a computer.

Mouse (it can be played with the mouse alone)

Keyboard

Tip: press F8 while playing on a computer to change how the picture looks. AMIGA (the default) softens the picture and adds faint scan lines, the way Amiga games looked on a 1980s monitor; SMOOTH keeps the softness without the lines; SHARP shows every pixel crisp and square. The games are drawn to look their best in AMIGA, but choose whichever you prefer: your choice is remembered.

Questions and answers

Is there a free game like The Settlers I can play in my browser?

Yes: Kingdom is a free economy-building strategy game in the spirit of The Settlers, and it plays in your web browser on a computer. Saxon settlers land on an empty coast; you place the roads and buildings, and hundreds of little workers carry goods, mine, farm and build until the village becomes a kingdom.

Is it free? Do I need to download anything or sign up?

Yes, it's completely free. There's nothing to download or install and no account or sign-up: open the page and press PLAY. Your saved games and settings are kept in your own web browser, on your device.

Does it work on a phone?

No. Kingdom needs a computer with a mouse (and a keyboard helps): there are too many small buildings and menus for a phone screen. On a phone or tablet it shows a message asking you to play on a computer.

Is it suitable for children?

Yes. There are no adverts, no cookies, no chat and no sign-up, and the game never asks for anything about you. Saved games and settings stay in your own web browser, on your device, and never leave it. There are battles against a rival kingdom, shown as small figures fighting at a building's door, with nothing gory.

Is it a copy of The Settlers?

No. Kingdom is an original game inspired by The Settlers. Its setting (Saxon settlers in Dark Age Britain), buildings, maps, art and music are all its own: it aims for the feel of the Amiga classic without copying any of it.

Download the code

Kingdom is made of plain HTML and JavaScript files: download them to see how it was made, or to play it on your own computer (how to play the code on your computer).

• Kingdom: the code

  The game and the Star Soft engine it runs on · HTML and JavaScript · zip

  DOWNLOAD .ZIP (981 KB)

The code is shared under the Star Soft Non-Commercial Licence: you may play, study, change and share it for free, as long as nobody makes money from it and you give clear credit: Based on Kingdom by Star Soft. The zip includes a copy of the licence. Its music is on the MUSIC page.

Credits

• Code, art, sound and music: written by Claude (Anthropic) for Star Soft. Everything in Kingdom is original and made in code, unless listed here.
• Intro music: Mars, the Bringer of War by Gustav Holst (public domain), played with samples from the VSCO 2 Community Edition by Versilian Studios (CC0).
• The royal advisor's voice: made with the Kokoro text-to-speech model (Apache 2.0 licence), then turned into Amiga-style speech samples.

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