Long ago, before the Rizz Lord ruled the land, a battle raged for the kingdom. The year of the battle? 1986. The place? Every small town from every 80s movie all rolled into one. The enemy? Weird little goopy alien guys. The latest installment in the popular Kingdom series, Kingdom Eighties, has arrived like an Easter egg-filled blast from the slightly more recent past. It is also the first game in the series that I have played. The series was familiar to me but not something I had placed high on my priorities. I had no idea the series focused on fighting weird little goopy guys called The Greed. I thought it was a standard war/battle sim. That’ll teach me not actually to look into things.
Kingdom Eighties comes from publisher Raw Fury and appeared on my social media radar. I am a sucker for 1980s media, and after following the game’s development for a bit, I decided to pick it up immediately. The marrying of 80s aesthetics, teen movie tropes, and management sim finally drew me in. For those unfamiliar with the Kingdom series, as I was, the premise is simple. You are a monarch, or in this case, simply Leader, and it is up to you to build a camp, recruit an army, expand and fortify your stronghold and beat back The Greed.
In the case of Kingdom Eighties, you are a teenager known only as Leader who takes up the hero’s mantle with a group of friends. Your friends are Champ, Tinkerer, and Wiz. Champ is the brawn, Tinkerer helps to build and upgrade things, and Wiz is the tech expert. You must recruit them before you can utilize their skills, which means growing your army.
Kingdom Eightes Invokes Everything I Love About 1980S Culture
You grow your army by dropping coins to civilians in the Kingdom series. From there, your new recruits can take up several different jobs. Kingdom Eighties is no different in this respect, but there is one major difference apart from the time period. The civilians you recruit to fight The Greed are kids. Yes, you are building a child army and sending them out to fight horrible goop monsters. Rad!
Initially, only two jobs were available for civilians, archers and builders. The archers will go beyond your camp walls and hunt the wildlife, which will drop coins. Whenever the archers go past you, they drop the collected coins. Builders will also collect coins to a lesser extent from cutting down trees. You insert coins at the campfire to upgrade your camp, gradually unlocking further jobs for your army.
In the original series, some farmers generate a lot of coins by harvesting crops. In Kingdom Eighties, there were other opportunities to generate precious coinage. Unlocking buildings like recycling centers, destroying parking meters, and operating food court stalls all get you that much-needed cash. In the case of the mall food court, it will also get you a small child saying “Pizza!” in the funniest voice I can possibly imagine. I don’t know why it brought me such joy, but it did.
Kingdom Eighties Wears Its Influences on Its Sleeve
Each level of the game is a different area of town. You start at the summer camp and make your way through the goop-covered and deserted streets of town toward the mall to rescue the adults. You and your friends traverse the world on your trusty bikes. Well, your friends do. You get to unlock new and occasionally ridiculous modes of transportation gradually. Each new mount has its own stamina and speed, and really it comes down to choice. If you do switch vehicles, it will cost you additional coins to switch back each time. Keep that under consideration.
The transportation options are one of the many ways that ridiculous and dopamine-releasing easter eggs are inserted into the game. There’s Elliot’s bike from E.T. complete with E.T., the DeLorean from Back to the Future, and the Hoverboard also make an appearance. Some are unlocked without much fuss. Others have a lot of environmental fun surrounding them, all decade-themed and riddled with delicious pop culture. Many little references are also in the background, including the true King of the Eighties, Rick Astley. The game also features an excellent synthy soundtrack with excellent 80s vibes and a clear influence from Stranger Things.
Wrapping Up
As an entry point in the series for new players, you can’t go wrong with Kingdom Eighties. It’s a shorter, standalone experience than the rest of the games (how do I know this as someone who has never played the other games? I’ll get to that), and it also has a more developed plot and characters than previous games. Where your failure in the earlier games leads to a new monarch taking over, Kingdom Eighties is the same protagonist.
I loved this game. In fact, I loved it so much that I immediately played it again on a different difficulty after finishing. Then, when the Steam summer sale began, I bought all the other games in a bundle. Then I spent the Canada Day weekend playing Kingdom Two Crowns and the Norse Lands expansion. This is my life now. I am Queen of many realms and rider of many steeds.
