Kingdom Rush is a tower defense game developed by Ironhide Game Studio and published by Armor Games, released as a free flash browser game on July 28, 2011, on the iPad on December 19, 2011, on Android in May 2013, and a Unity port in January 2014 via Steam. A sequel, Kingdom Rush: Frontiers, was released on June 6, 2013. The third installment of the franchise, Kingdom Rush: Origins, was launched on November 20, 2014. It was released on PC on October 18, 2018. On November 22, 2018, Ironhide Studios released a new sequel, Kingdom Rush Vengeance, in which the player plays as Vez'nan's servant, helping him regain his throne. It's scheduled to release on the Nintendo Switch on July 31, 2020.
Description
Kingdom Rush is a real-time tower defense game set in a medieval fantasy setting. Each level presents a pre-determined path with empty slots all around, called 'Strategy Points', where the player can build towers. There are four types of towers to choose from : Mages, Archers, Barracks, and Artillery, each costing a certain amount of money to build and upgrade. At the beginning of each level, the player gets some money in order to build the first towers. As enemies begin to emerge from one end of the path, the towers must be able to kill them before they reach the other end of the path. The player will also rely on a few spells and heroes to help the towers. Killing enemies generates money, which can readily be used to build and upgrade towers. Another way to earn money is to call enemy waves early, which also reduces cool down time of spells. Money is also earned by selling built towers or having an enemy reach the defence point. When an enemy gets there, the player loses 1-20 lives depending on the enemy. There are 18 levels in total and 48 different types of enemies that one will encounter throughout the levels. Completing a level for the first time gives the player 1-3 stars. These stars can be used to unlock passive upgrades that improve the effectiveness of the various towers and spells. After completing a campaign level with 18 or more lives remaining, the player earns 3 stars and the Heroic Mode and Iron Challenge are unlocked for this level. These are more challenging modes that take place on the same path and impose various constraints. In these modes, the player will only be given one life, so any enemy surviving to the defence point triggers a failure. Heroic Mode and Iron Challenge reward one star each when completed. On April 25, 2012, Ironhide Game Studio released a new updated version of Kingdom Rush for Android and iOS devices that included new features and a new level. Among these new features were a shop and a hero’s room. The shop provides items such as extra coins and dynamite that can be purchased through the winnings of gems in battle. The hero’s room provides a selection of heroes that aid in battle and can be obtained by passing levels. These heroes vary from defenders to archers and can be placed anywhere on the path. Kingdom Rush has full voice acting, most of which was done by voice talent Sean Crisden. The game was featured in a problem in the 2012 Google Code Jam programming contest.
Reception
The iOS version received an average score of 89/100 on review aggregator site Metacritic., Kingdom Rush is the most played game in the site with 58.9 million, while Kingdom Rush: Frontiers with 25.6 million plays is situated in the 10th place.
Awards
The game was awarded the first prize at the 2011 Uruguayan Videogame Contest.
Tablet and mobile version
On July 4, 2012, Ironhide Game Studio announced a comic version of Kingdom Rush that would be available for mobile and tablet devices. It became available on October 1, 2012, as a free download from iTunes.
Prequel and sequels
On August 25, 2011, Ironhide Studios announced a sequel to Kingdom Rush entitled Kingdom Rush Frontiers. The game was slated for a Spring 2013 release. On December 12, 2012, the studio revealed its first screen capture of the game. On March 20, 2013, Ironhide released a teaser trailer of Kingdom Rush Frontiers. On June 6, 2013, the sequel was released for iOS. On September 26, 2013, it was released for Android, and on November 22, 2013, for Flash. The game has a Metacritic score of 85/100 based on 16 critic reviews. The game was released for Nintendo Switch on February 27, 2020. The third installment of the franchise, Kingdom Rush Origins, was launched on November 20, 2014 on iOS and Android platforms. It is the prequel to the original game. Ironhide Studios announced their intention to make a fourth Kingdom Rush game in early 2017. On July 17, 2018, Ironhide Studios announced that the new sequel would be called Kingdom Rush Vengeance. The player plays as Lord Vez'nan's servant to help him regain his throne. It was released on November 22, 2018.
Board game
In April 2019, Lucky Duck Games, a board game company that specialises in transforming computer games in to table-top games, launched a Kickstarter campaign to produce a 2–4 player co-operative board game version of Kingdom Rush. The target amount was reached within an hour, and subsequently reached over 5000% of the target. The game, called 'Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time' is set after the events of the computer games, with the kingdom battling the 'Time Mage'. Hordes are defeated by being overlayed with polyominos. Players play as some of the heroes from the original game, and work together to upgrade towers, which are rebuilt each round. Towers are built by the buying of tower cards, and upgraded by players passing their cards to others at the start of the round. The game is set for release April 2020.
