Picked up as a coupon win, "Hero of the Kingdom" was left sitting uninstalled for quite a while as it was initially described as a 'clicker' game.

Well, you click a lot. But while this one has elements of a Hidden Object game with minor resource management it is enough of a difference to make it worth a look at.

In a totally generic and not at all special fantasy land, you start as a farmboy. Father goes off for trading reasons leaving you to tend the farm. Of course, something happens to father, and you have to seek out what it was and eventually save the world.

Sounds like every other generic fantasy story out there. It is not cringe inducing, but there's nothing really here to keep your attention to the overall world building. The plot is easy enough to follow and fully linear, side quests are really required to progress the main plot.

Okay, so it will not win any literary awards. But then, you are reading a gaming thoughts blog by some guy in Australia with no actual following. So... Who cares! Read what you need to do and move on, as thankfully the rest of the game has more to it.

You basically click on the active points on the map needed to progress. If you click on the wrong thing early on, you'll get more pointers on what you need to click on, and there is a handy ? in the lower right that will tell you more bluntly.

The first few missions have you tending to the farm and the aftermath of your house being burnt down. You get a few small supplies for an inventory and make your way north to find dad. Armed with an old dagger, some fruit and bread, and a little bit of gold, you use most of it getting from each map point to map point.

Thankfully most of your coin is made right back as part of the quest line. But mid way though you have to start paying attention to the order of events you take action with for a more optimal path, and a few optional quests (Not enough to call them side) give no indication on what you have to click on.

With a limited amount of HP you can walk all over the map without tiring, but assisting the villages or fighting wild beasts and monsters will wear you down. You can rest at campfires if you have the campfire specific food, or rest at an inn for gold. Inns provide a great health boost, but gold is harder to come by early on.

While all really basic, it does teach you nice and gradually how everything interacts with each other. What items you can gather and finding better routes across the small overworld area.

Aside from assisting the land, you can also do some minor trades. Items to gold, and gold to items. It would be rather hard to get into a position where you don't have enough gold/items to continue, and later on the amount of loot you pick up can be sold for a small fortune (re: don't worry about the gold achievement, you'll get it near the end).

Trade items can be various weapons. And while combat is 'click on the enemy and watch it die' you do need certain weapons equipped to fight certain monsters. And the weapons you have are, well, crap. Often breaking and causing you to backtrack to find a new one.

Other players have found ways to generate gold in game via these trades. It is possible, but unnecessary, what you need is 90% of the time on the area you are on.
The other option is to buy health/enhancement potions. To be honest, I never ended up needing these aside from some plot specific ones at the end game.

Finally you can recruit troops to join you, if you can pay, equip, and feed them to tag along. While they were useless for me for the most part, I did enjoy finding all the gear needed to get everyone together for a siege on a fort. I know it was just 'click, click, click', but the game just found a slightly different way of presenting it.

It's not a game where the world will win any awards. But the graphics, sound, and music were all functional and unoffensive. People and items appeared tiny, but were clear enough without having to go into pixel hunting mode. The exception being two non essential achievements on finding mushrooms and eggs. They're not highlighted in game and if you don't start out each zone looking for them, there's a fair amount of backtracking and searching to get them all.

Easy and charming, Hero Of The Kingdom has a nice take on a simple premise. It tries a few things to stand out, while not being too different to turn people away who enjoy this genre.

I can't recommend it to everybody, but if you have a spare 3-4 hours and want something relaxing to play it is worth looking at.

Game Acquisition: Steam Coupon.
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Thread: 1 - 5 June 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10
Processor: 1.0 GHz
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: 128 MB, DirectX 9.0
DirectX: Version 9.0
Storage: 120 MB available space
Additional Notes: Mouse or touch control