Royal Kingdom

App Store Editors’ Notes

Good but could use some work

Okay first off I really like this game it's a good balance of Fun and Challenging but their are somethings I would like you to add in the game. Like The Dark Knight battles I think it would be awesome if every few times you fight him you could set up defenses and he would have to Match to take down your defenses. You could also use coins to make your defenses so the coins are put to good use. Another thing is about the Electric Ball I feel like you should get it more early on in the game not like right of the bat but at least at level 100 making it not so hard to get through so many levels to get it. Also I think you should have at least Five Try’s before you lose it I mean you have to win 10 games in a row without losing the streak at all just to get it. Now I'm not saying to shorten the streak I'm just saying maybe you can give us a few chances before we lose the ball just so we’re not on the edge of our seat every level. I feel like Five Try's is good enough. Also maybe when we win that infinite lives for a period time you could let us active it on our own instead of immediately turning it on cause maybe some players are done playing for the day and they waste all that time. The finale thing is maybe adding a Richard's Journey every few times in the game cause I noticed when I got farther in the game I didn't see them that often anymore. They were a good way to get coins and a break from all the hard levels. That's all I have to say thank you for listening and keep up the good work.

Why did I think it would be different?

I saw the ads. I saw the marketing. I saw the claims of “we’re not lying”and “we are giving the players what they want” and a screen that said in big letters, “what you see here is what you get, no lies! “. And behind that line was a massive amount of images showing that the puzzles in this game would be the ones where you’re saving the king from some horrible demise due to rocks or lava or snakes or killers or whatever. I was so excited because we were finally getting the levels we always wanted. The King saver mini games made every match three worth it and I could not wait to get started! But now, I’m over 40 levels into the game and I have played exactly one save the king mini game and one other king game that was basically Frogger. WHERE ARE ALL THE KING SAVER LEVELS THAT WE WERE PROMISED? Every time I go to a new level, I can’t believe my eyes because of no save the king mini game time after time. I am unbelievably disappointed in this. What really makes me upset is all the extra effort that went in to marketing this game as having all these save the king mini games and we’re not seeing any of them. I don’t even know if I’m gonna continue to play.

Fun, but Frustrating

This game will likely attract you for a short while. It’s your standard “Match 3” puzzler with a twist. Matching multiple blocks gives you special tools which you then used to overcome the obstacles on each board. The early levels are interesting and fun. The developers have also included simple mini-games, competitions, and events to add spice to the repetitive matching grind. Unfortunately the game falls prey to a serious flaw. Instead of building on creativity in level design, the devs settle for limiting player choices. They require bigger and bigger achievements to pass a level while constricting the board and severely reducing player turns on each board. Essentially the player has to do insanely much more with fewer matching opportunities and fewer moves. This is, indeed, harder, but not in the good way. It’s like telling a football team that instead of perfecting plays and innovating, they’ll now have to run their plays on one-tenth of the field and the game will be reduced to four downs, total. Why’d we even learn to play, then? The end result is the player having to repeat later levels over and over, hoping for a magic combination of tiles to come up. It’s luck, not skill. Unless, of course, you want to make an in-game purchase to get boosts on the level, which is how they generate their income. You’ll buy your way forward until the next near-impossible level design hits. Rinse, lather, repeat.

False Advertisement

TV commercials for Royal Kingdom proudly advertise that the game is completely free to play and does not require a WiFi connection. While it is true that no WiFi is needed to enjoy the game, the assertion that it is free to play is misleading. After spending a significant amount of time on a particular board, players often encounter obstacles that prevent them from advancing. This can lead to frustration and anxiety as you brace the desire to progress to the next level. Eventually, the game creates a sense of urgency that compels players to spend their own money on package deals just to move forward in the game. Many players, myself included, find it hard to resist purchasing these deals after investing so much time and effort, fearing that all that dedication would go to waste if they don't advance. This pattern of spending inevitably leads to a cycle of addiction, where players feel pressured to keep purchasing in order to see their progress continue. I am personally disheartened by this experience, especially considering that I have enjoyed many other games over the years without feeling compelled to buy expensive packages. As someone living on a fixed income, I find the tactics used in Royal Kingdom particularly disappointing. The game’s design and marketing seem intentionally misleading, creating barriers for players who simply want to enjoy the game without the pressure of constant monetary investment.

It feels like a scam more than a game.

I have been playing this game for a couple of years all the levels are the same just different kingdoms, and they have this dark kingdom thing that isn’t really that fun because you can actually see how it sets you up to lose, the best way to get past it is lose for a while break down and buy more coins and once you have a few 1000 coins the game just lets you win. Also after you have advanced pretty far in the game that Dark Kingdom round pops up about 2 or 3 rounds so your playing all the time and like all the other rounds it’s the same thing over and over. For as much money you spend on coins the prizes should be better, for example some rounds you have to use everything you have and it maybe a challenge and as a reward you get 10 coins everything cost a minimum of 900 coins. Also they have these cards they give as reward that are useless unless you win all the cards and they change every week so you may be close to winning and then they switch so you lose what you gained. Finally if you have to lose and try again they penalize you by taking things you have already won even if you have to spend lots of money to get them. I don’t know I don’t stop playing, it’s like Candy Crush with less variety and more expensive.

If Candy Crush Didn’t Respect Your Intelligence

i can’t look at the board for three seconds without making a move before it shows you in glowing neon brackets “hey i know it’s really really hard to play bejeweled on babymode easy so here’s a move for you because god forbid you actually use your brain” because it correctly estimates that most of the gullible people who think there will be any aspect of the adverts actually being present in the game will be dumb enough to need to be held by the hand and trial-and-error their way through the puzzles that seem to use the exact same seeds every time. if you’re intelligent enough to know what that means, there will be nothing here for you but misery. there are no time constraints. there is no threat of violence subjugating our protagonist. it’s literally just candy crush, except with only four colors. if you don’t want any substance whatsoever, and don’t care that the marketing is a blatantl liar in every aspect besides the lack of ads (which is a frankly pathetic thing to use as a marketing strategy), then feel free to just sit back and watch the pretty colors explode. or better yet, just load up a tiktok of somebody jangling their car keys in frame, because that would be more stimulating than this drivel. but hey, at least it’s a functional puzzle game, so it doesn’t exactly deserve the two stars i was originally going to give it due to its insulting and deceitful nature. it is a perfectly mediocre and average free mobile app. but if mediocrity is what passes for quality nowadays, i’m literally just going to replay plants vs zombies or a dark room again, or any other game that actually respects the player.

One of the Better Games… But…

This is one of the better games available. As long as you strategically set up moves in advance, you can pass the levels without having to use any ‘boost’s’. However, like sooo many other games out there that only leave you frustrated & ready to just delete the game, along with the headache… this one aligns right in sync with those! Sure, you may advertise that there’s no ads & a game that you can play - annnd “Enjoy”? I beg to differ! Had I been ‘one of those’ that rate the game within the first 20 levels like you prompt peeps to do? You may have gotten 5 Stars. I’m not that peep! Now, after over 150 levels, the ‘enjoyment’ is done & you, like so many other’s have gotten me to the point of deleting the game! Sad, really bc you ‘had’ potential to be “The Best” out there! Nope! You only want money! It’s at this point that a player may have 20+ boost’s in each category & you’re going to have to use all of those boosts & STILL NOT PASS the level! You’ll have to “buy” help in order to pass - which I will NOT do! You don’t even have the option to watch video ads in order to get more boosts or coins as needed. Pfff… “Game Over”… you’re being deleted & labeled another failed game!

Luck based, not friendly for f2p players.

The game started out fine. Pretty easy and then got harder but still not bad. Then as you start getting into higher levels the game came incredibly luck based, hoping for the good drops to give you lots and I mean lots of power ups in order to even get close to beating the level. The amount of times a disco ball power up was 1 square away from combining with another power up was so high you started thinking they did this on purpose so you have to use a hammer. Streaks become non existent in the higher levels due to this nonsense. The amount of coins you get for beating levels and completing kingdom areas is minimal compared to the amount of coins it cost to buy 5 more moves. The amount of times that I was 1-2 moves away from finishing the level or spending real money to get more coins or just lose your streak making team event rewards very low. The levels that require a certain amount of a certain color to unlock other areas only work if you actually get that color to drop. I’ve had levels that I didn’t even have the whole board unlocked because I didn’t have enough colors to unlock it when I ran out of moves. That is a stupid way to end a streak and just incredibly frustrating to say the least. The adds you see for this game are also false advertisement and misleading.