Talk:Kingdom Two Crowns/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Shooterwalker (talk · contribs) 21:10, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm willing to take this one on. I'll try to get some constructive comments in before the weekend. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:10, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

• Gameplay

  I really appreciate a good opening sentence to establish what type of game this is. Good start.

  "Players control a mounted monarch who must build and defend a kingdom from monsters called the Greed." -> "Players control a mounted monarch who must build their kingdom, and defend it from monsters called the Greed."

  "in which the monarch builds the kingdom and explores during the day, and must fight off the Greed at night" -> "with the monarch exploring and building during the day, and fighting the Greed at night."

  "Monarchs move left or right" -> is this implied by side-scrolling perspective above?

  "and can spend gold coins used to build their domain.[4][5] These coins are stored in a bag[1] and are used to recruit villagers found at camps outside their kingdom" -> these thoughts seem connected, and might be better rephrased as part of the same sentence.

  "serve the kingdom through a specific job" -> "perform a specific job."

  "builders who construct defenses and expand the kingdom by removing trees" -> "builders who clear land and construct defenses"

  "archers that hunt animals for coin and attack enemies, or farmers that grow gold-producing crops" -> "farmers that grow crops for gold, and archers that attack enemies and hunt animals for coin."

  "from the left and right" -> related to the above comment, is it enough to just say "both sides"?

  "turning them into "drifters" that lose their job and must be recruited again" -> "disrupting their job until they are hired again."

  "Greed can steal its crown," -> "Greed can steal their crown,"

  "Unlike previous entries in the Kingdom series, a monarch's kingdom is not destroyed upon losing their crown, but inherited by an "heir" that serves as the new player character[6] albeit the kingdom the heir inherits will be partially destroyed" -> "Unlike previous entries in the Kingdom series, the kingdom is not destroyed when the monarch loses their crown. Instead, the player continues the game as the "heir" to the partially destroyed kingdom."

  "increasing" -> "growing"

  "encounter structures" -> I don't usually want more detail, but this seems like an ambiguous statement given you tell us what the other encounters do.

  "Gems can be spent on certain upgrades for the monarch, such as statues that provide benefits for the kingdom's subjects, hermits that can be hired to make helpful buildings, or new mounts that the monarch can ride on" -> "Gems can purchase upgrades for the kingdom, such as new mounts for the monarch, hermits who construct new buildings, or statues that provide bonuses for the kingdom's subjects."

  "islands, which all serve as levels" -> "island levels"

  "As the monarch progresses between islands and builds new kingdoms on them" -> "As the monarch builds their kingdom across the islands,"

• Development

  "spin it off as a new game in the series" -> "develop it into a new game."

  "The developers noticed that players had become fond of their kingdoms, and both wanted to create a new experience focused on defending structures instead of "defeating and escaping"." -> this meaning is a little unclear, and probably depends more on context from previous games. See if you can rephrase without getting too wordy.

  "They were inspired in part by Infinity Blade to "soften the edge" of the original Kingdom's roguelike design" -> assume that most readers won't have the context of what Infinity Blade is. See if you can rephrase this in a way that explains what type of ideas they were tapping into.

  "The pixel art style was intended primarily to cut time between drawing and implementing the designs in gameplay:" -> "The designers chose a pixel art style because it allowed them to quickly implement designs."

  "van den Berg found it relatively easy to create, saying that only finding the right font and designing a "rotating style" caused some issues." -> "Aside from fonts and rotating images, van den Berg found the art relatively easy to create."

  "The layout of levels was compared by van den Berg to a panorama: Both he and van Dyke said it was challenging to create mechanics that allow for player strategy while also sticking to a "one-dimensional" design;" -> "Van den Berg compared the level layout to a panorama, and both he and van Dyke found that player strategies were limited by this "one-dimensional" design.

  "van den Berg paid specifically paid attention to forcing units to "overlap" and take the same place in a single dimension. Some weapons, such as the area of effect catapult, could take advantage of the overlap in order to hit multiple targets at once. Van den Berg felt as these elements made the game's mechanics "much less predictable." -> "Van den Berg decided to force units to "overlap" in this single-dimension, creating strategies for area-of-effect attacks that hit multiple targets, and making combat "less predictable"."

  "Van den Berg had previously opposed the idea of adding a new currency to the game, but van Dyke and Coatsink had the idea of adding gems into the monarch's bag in order to avoid complicating the existing system" -> "Although van den Berg was opposed to adding a new currency to the game, the rest of the team convinced him to add gems, without complicating the existing coin system."

  You introduce Coatsink out of the blue here, and I'm not sure you need to.

We can pause there. The article is generally good and I'm confident it will reach GA status with a bit of work. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:20, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

@Shooterwalker Thank you for the review! I think I've addressed all your points ‡ The Night Watch ω (talk) 07:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

• Let's continue.
• Release

• Rename this section to Marketing and release
• "The game was teased without a release date through a demo at the Game Developers Conference in 2018, with the teaser introducing the new mechanic of co-op" -> I'd rephrase this without discussing the absence of a release date. It's normal to market a game without announcing a release date at the beginning.
• "which would be included upon launch" -> you can probably drop this without losing anything
• "quality-of-life changes" -> I know what this means, but I would avoid using jargon.

• Reception

• "lauded the game" -> "called the game"
• "was generally better in comparison" -> can we be a little more specific?
• "Kotaku felt that the pacing suited the game world, but could become frustrating in the case of a "big setback" that forced the player to rebuild." -> "Kotaku felt that the slow pace suited the game world, but also might also become frustrating when a player has to rebuild after a setback."
• "sedate" -> this is unclear, and not really grammatical.
• "with Push Square in particular highlighting it alongside a criticism that it could be difficult to learn some of the game's mysteries" -> Just make this its own sentence.
• "Nintendo Life singled out the pixel art, saying that the player would spend time looking at the scenery and that its "tranquility" would appeal to some.[2] and Nintendo World Report agreed.[3] " -> This feels out of place in the section. Do we really need it?
• "Comparing the game to its predecessor Kingdom, GameRevolution said that the Kingdom Two Crowns contained themes of "loneliness" and "detachment" that were taken away by multiplayer. The reviewer felt as though the elements of the earlier games were replaced with a desire to win in an "exploitative way", and was disappointed by how different it was from its predecessors.[7]" -> This would fit better with the above paragraph about cooperative play. I might also try to say it in a shorter way.

• We'll pause there again. The article is coming along. After those revisions we can do more one more pass and hopefully wrap this up. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:52, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Shooterwalker I've addressed your concerns. Note that I also added a new paragraph to development, but I'm not sure whether it should stay there or be moved to Marketing and release. Thoughts? ‡ The Night Watch ω (talk) 02:34, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Let's try to finish this with some last few comments.

• "Kingdom Two Crowns is a 2018 strategy and resource management game developed by Noio and Coatsink and published by Raw Fury." -> "Kingdom Two Crowns is a 2018 strategy game developed by Noio and Coatsink and published by Raw Fury." (This makes the opening sentence read better. Resource management is implied by strategy, and the detail can come up in the body of the article.)
• "spin it off" -> Try to say this plainly and avoid jargon.
• The mention of Infinity Blade is confusing without more context. I'd leave it to the article body unless you think it's truly important.
• "Kingdom Two Crowns received generally positive reviews on release, with praise focused on its strategic gameplay, multiplayer, and artwork, while its slow pacing was criticized." -> "Kingdom Two Crowns received generally positive for its strategic gameplay, artwork, and co-operative play, while also earning some criticism for its slow pacing."
• "Once recruited, villagers remain idle until given a tool bought by a monarch, after which they perform a specific job." -> "Once recruited, villagers remain idle until the monarch buys equipment for them, leading them to perform a specific job."
• "The developers noticed that players had become fond of their kingdoms" -> it's not clear how this first part connects to the next part. Rephrase? Or just drop it.
• The connection to Infinity Blade still isn't clear. Why were they focused on this game, and what did they learn from it?
• There are a lot of colons and semi-colons in the development section, and they might be better as full-stop periods.
• "Van Dyke, who started off in the franchise in game design and balance, became the new manager of the series." -> "Van Dyke became the new manager of the series, after working as a designer on the previous games."
• "On the other hand, GameRevolution felt as though multiplayer made the game compromise on its "emotional appeal", saying that it made the game more "tactical" while sacrificing the value of the atmosphere and music. The reviewer felt as though the elements of the earlier games were replaced with a desire to win in an "exploitative way", and was disappointed by its differences" -> "On the other hand, GameRevolution felt that the cooperative mode encouraged players to win in an "exploitative way", and that multiplayer undermined the game's atmosphere and "emotional appeal"." (Shorter.)
• "Some reviewers felt as though the game had a slow pacing, and would not appeal to everyone." -> "Some reviewers felt that the game's pacing was slow, and would not appeal to everyone."
• "Push Square and Nintendo Life both thought that some players would not enjoy the "sedate"[2] gameplay." -> the word sedate here is confusing and can be rephrased without a quote.
• "Push Square also included a criticism that it could be difficult to learn some of the game's mysteries" -> "Push Square also criticized the game's mysteries as difficult to learn."
• "and Nintendo World Report agreed." -> I'm sure the article didn't explicitly agree, and this is an awkward way to end the section. This is a good chance to expand the last sentence with something meaningful.

That should address everything. We're very close to a good article here. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:58, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

@Shooterwalker  Done ‡ The Night Watch ω (talk) 03:29, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for addressing most of the comments. I made a few additional copy-edits and I'm happy to give this a pass. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:45, 5 December 2022 (UTC)