Let’s play The Hundred Year Kingdom!
Last week, we looked at a charming little Japanese indie title called The Hundred Year Kingdom. It’s brought to us by Chorus Worldwide’s new sub-label Waku Waku Games, which intends to focus exclusively on small-scale indie titles by solo or very small dev teams.
The Hundred Year Kingdom is a very good game. It takes the principles of massive, sprawling strategy games like Sid Meier’s classic Civilization and condenses them into a much more easily digestible, non-violent game that, once you’ve played it a few times, almost feels more like a puzzle than a grand strategy affair.
Since this one’s likely to fly deep under the radar for a lot of people, I thought it well worth making a video to showcase what it’s all about. So here it is!
The possibilities on offer in The Hundred Year Kingdom expand considerably as you repeatedly play through the game — and a single playthrough takes less than an hour, so this is a great lunchbreak game. In this particular playthrough, we’re making use of one of the “Oracle” companions that you’ll unlock after your initial run through the game, and the default layout of land to build upon.
Along the way, you’ll see how numerous different strategic opportunities present themselves to you as you build up your kingdom — and how it’s necessary to build with a particular endgame in mind rather than simply filling up the map willy-nilly with whatever you think looks nice. Of course, there’s actually nothing stopping you doing that, too — but if you want the best scores after your century in power, you’ll need to think a bit harder about what you want from your land!
The more I play this game, the more I like it — and it makes me excited to see what other treats from teeny-tiny developers Waku Waku Games might have up their sleeves for their subsequent releases. I also very much hope someone considers doing a limited physical run of this — but then I say that about all the games I end up liking, don’t I? I can’t help it — I just like having my favourite games on my shelf!
The Hundred Year Kingdom is available now for PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch. Don’t forget to subscribe to Rice Digital on YouTube!
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