Kingdom Two Crowns

The start was a little rough. In split screen the tutorial text was cropped off, and in general it takes a bit of time to pick up the instructions. But Kingdom Two Crowns is the perfect game for taking your time. It is idle and cozy, a game that calms the nervous system rather than activating it.

It has the retro charm of pixel art, but also beautiful light effects, reflections in the water and real magic within the pixels. That is an art only a few pixel games achieve, and I really appreciate the level of detail here.

It is fun in co-op because you can choose how to play together. Either you work on the same thing in the same zone, essentially on the same screen, or one of you goes off exploring while the other takes care of building the town.

It is also calm enough to be truly cooperative. Nobody gets stuck in their own game. You can actually talk about the details and spend a nice time together, instead of being thrilled and driven by adrenaline.

Of course monsters attack your town at night. But overall I would describe the experience as very comforting and harmonious. Especially if you are looking for something relaxing, this is a great fit.

To be fair, so far I have only played on easy mode, because I played it with my daughter. She absolutely loved it, which surprised me. I thought I only liked this game for the pixel style, because I grew up with pixels. So far it is one of my favorite games to play with her.

Setting up co-op is simple. With a second controller connected, the game asks at every start whether you want single player or split screen, and from single player you can switch any time through the menu in the top left. We played with two controllers, which we prefer. A shared touchscreen also works: the top player controls the upper half, the other player the lower half.

We are just at the beginning, but we really like it and will definitely keep building our town. I will report back once we have played more.