Introduction

MySims, huh?

Yep. The MySims franchise was one of EA's attempts to capitalize on the then-new Nintendo Wii and DS platforms and the babies and casual gamers who owned them. Mostly the babies. What these babies wanted, EA decided, was a squeaky-clean simple-shapes spinoff of The Sims--a concept which rapidly expanded into a series of games covering nearly every non-violent game genre that EA could think of. These games were probably supposed to be shovelware, but, as it turns out, no one told the developers that. As kiddie titles go, the MySims games can be surprisingly good.

MySims Kingdom is the second title in the series, an unholy combination of the original MySims and an old-school fantasy RPG. Imagine an RPG that's all sidequests and no combat, and you're about halfway there. Seriously, we have a silent protagonist and everything. While it's not the strongest MySims game--it feels like a halfway point on the design journey between the games being simplified Sims spinoffs for children and being their own weird things with actual plot--Kingdom has its share of the snappy writing and utter silliness that are a hallmark of the series. Also, if you've ever played a MySims game before (or if you followed my LP of MySims Agents) you'll be seeing a lot of familiar faces here. All the games in the series draw from the same large cast of block-headed mascots, blithely recasting them as necessary.

Kingdom was released in 2008 for both the Wii and the DS, although the two games were significantly different versions of the 'fantasy kingdom' theme. We'll be playing the Wii game, which garnered enough attention at the time to be nominated for some IGN award or something. It was in direct competition with Animal Crossing: Wild World, though, which (rightfully) stomped Kingdom flat. Like most Wii games of the period it suffers from an awkward control scheme--but that's my problem, not yours.

So what will we do in this LP?

We're going to save this broken-down old kingdom from rot and decay, that's what we're going to do! We'll repair old stuff! We'll build new stuff! We'll paint all the stuff! Then we'll decorate that stuff! We'll be fishing and mining and planting and herding and acting and oh my gosh we will do a lot of things. There are a lot of Sims out there and they all need the help of the Royal Wandolier--but, unfortunately for them, they're going to get the Assistant Pig-Boy instead.

We'll also be playing a lot of dress-up. Fantasy dress-up. Nothing wrong with that.

This will be a lightly-narrative screenshot LP with bursts of italics to denote stuff I made up. Updates should drop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I'm usually pretty good about letting the thread know if the LP is going on hiatus. There will be stuff to vote on later, too!

Please keep any spoilers behind spoiler tags. Also, don't be creepy.

- Box art, front and back
- Opening Movie (Polsy'd)
- Closing Credits (Polsy'd)

Possessed Halloween Sam, from SystemLogoff! Check out the extra-possessed thumbnail:

Eeek!

ultrafilter points out that Morcubus' frilly cuffs and white gloves make him look like he's flipping the bird with both hands; CapitanGarlic does the necessary with style and panache.

Click here for the full 702x1600 image
Captain Fargle makes a sweet prediction as to how the game will end, and may not be too far off the mark!

The Let's Play Archive

MySims Kingdom

by Picayune

Introduction