The first “level” was very basic, teaching the player how to handle everything. I went out and was tasked with finding the materials to make stairs. For this I needed apples and wood. I shook a tree for its apples and cut it for its wood. Finally, returning to my scroll carrier and having her produce the recipe for stairs. I could now place wooden stairs next to a cliff that had been blocking my way and move forward. The next challenge was placing some gears between a rotating mechanism and a gate that need to be opened. Once I collected the materials for gears by pick axing a wall for metals, I went and connected the proper points and opened the gate. Finally, I had to make a house for a salty old sailor to throw a party in. Once again I collected the materials, found enough essence and started building, designing around his needs for different aspects. I then left the island and went to another one where I continued this pattern.

The controls are very basic, with some waggle movements thrown in for things like chopping down trees or using a pickaxe to mine. Placement is all done with the Wii remote, which worked very well, and movement of the characters is done with the nunchuck. Sometimes it was a bit challenging to get the screen the way I wanted it, but it never hampered me to the point of not being able to play.

As the player learns more things, their houses can become more robust and better decorated, or their bridges become more refined, or their gear machines become more complicated. While the creation side of what I played was a good deal of fun, the collecting part became tedious rather quickly. However, it wasn’t really designed to entertain me, it was designed to entertain a family, so I can’t really say that it missed its mark. However, I hope that as the game progresses a more robust style of play develops, though robust and games like MySims Kingdom don’t always go together.

What did entertain me was the writing. For a game with such a cutesy characters and blatantly obvious puzzle mechanics (at least in the beginning), the thing had some hilarious writing. One of your ever present sidekicks, Buddy, is a complete idiot and spews some of the funniest stuff in gaming I’ve seen. I almost thought that I could sit through eight more hours of the same gameplay to experience his character alone. Also, the king looks like King Friday from Mister Rogers, which we were told was totally unintentional but still made me happy.

From what I played of the game it just isn’t directed at the more mature gamer. I think I’d have tons of fun with it if I was playing next to a younger cousin or something who was excited by building the houses and collection the materials, but for me as a gamer it overall felt very bland. Now there are a plethora of islands I didn’t get to experience so the game could branch out easily and become far more in depth, but it really doesn’t need to. It fulfills its own goals very well and branching away from them would make it not the game it is supposed to be. Thus I would say that I’d love to see the puzzles get more complicated and the gameplay a little bit more well rounded, but the game already plays well from what I saw as a light, family friendly affair.

There will also be a DS version of the game which I didn’t get much time with but played around the same basic mechanics with a bit more of a slant towards mini-games.

For the latest screens of MySims Kingdom, hit the big gallery button below.