Card-based city-builder Tiny Kingdom might look cosy, but there's no time to relax when the fate of the realm is literally in your hand

Island with a couple of houses and trees
(Image credit: Neltile)

On my never-ending quest to find the most compelling city-builder, I stumbled upon Tiny Kingdom's demo. This game is a building and management roguelike deckbuilder, where you collect cards, balance the books, and try to expand your tiny village into a glorious kingdom.

After a quick first game, I felt like I was almost getting the hang of things, so I decided to give it another go to see if I could beat my high score of a village of 20, you get 2 villagers for every house you build so I didn't think it would be too difficult. Fast forward to an hour and 15 settlements later, I finally made some serious progress and ended with a village of 168, which is probably more like a small town at that stage. But after running into a dead end, I had to abandon the run and start over again, roguelike-style. 

Tiny Kingdom isn't terribly complex, especially compared to city builders like Manor Lords or Synergy, which have intricate economic and social systems that you also have to account for. Instead of trading or cutting down nearby trees, in Tiny Kingdom, you build your city by collecting cards.

You can get cards that let you build houses that'll grow your population size and allow one free draw from your deck, cards that'll let you plant hops of wheat that'll give you two coins in return, and a card for a pier that'll grant you new island pieces that you can use to expand the land your kingdom is built on. The longer you play, the more cards you'll unlock: averns, mills, bakeries, and castles, each one has its own perks. I actually don't know how many there are—it's something that I'll find out as I reach higher population sizes. 

If you thought managing the buildings sounded hard, the cards in your deck aren't unlimited.  To get more, you either need to build structures or gather resources. Trees and stone appear on random island pieces, and can be gathered if you use a lumberyard or quarry card. Gather the resources and the game will automatically add a wooden or stone house to your deck for later use. But if you run out of cards in your deck, then that's the end of the line—you'll have to pack everything up and start again. 

Island full of houses and trees

(Image credit: Neltile)

You have to monitor the kingdom's coffers, too. It costs one gold coin to draw a card, and as you only start with 10 coins, you need to turn a profit consistently throughout the game to be able to draw more cards and carry on playing. Planting crops will give you a small amount of money, but I found the best way to build your hand is to use house-building cards. These will let you pick up a subsequent card after you place the cottage down, so it's an excellent way to stay on top of your money. 

There's a clear cycle of extracting and building in Tiny Kingdom, and once you get the hang of it, everything takes care of itself. But it's precariously balanced, and sometimes all it takes is one bad deck for it all to come crashing down. 

That's part of the fun of roguelike deck builders—luck does play a small part in your success.

The cards you get are quite random. There is some pattern as to when you unlock different ones, but it's not always predictable. One run I had, where I was doing really well for my kingdom with a healthy coin purse and a bustling population, was stunted because no matter how many trees I cut down, it only gave me houses and no piers, which meant I couldn't get any more land, so after a while, I just ran out of space to build.

This can be frustrating, especially when you lose a run due to circumstances that feel out of your control, but that's part of the fun of roguelike deck builders—luck does play a small part in your success. 

I haven't been able to expand my kingdom beyond 168 people so far, but that hasn't stopped me from trying. And no matter how many times I play, I always seem to end up with an island that looks completely different. I've taken a screenshot of my kingdoms at the end of each run just to compare how different each one is. I've had kingdoms full of ponds, vast blocks of land full of trees and fields of wheat, and one that ended up looking like a cosy megacity where I built every house in the same area. 

Like I said, I haven't progressed past 168 residents so far, so I don't actually know where the limit is to finding new cards and expanding your island. As this is only a demo, I'd expect even more to be added once it releases in full (although there's no specific date for that yet). But for the time being, Tiny Kingdom is a brilliant deckbuilding roguelike demo with a moreish premise and plenty of options to make a kingdom the way you want it to be. 

Elie Gould
News Writer

Elie is a news writer with an unhealthy love of horror games—even though their greatest fear is being chased. When they're not screaming or hiding, there's a good chance you'll find them testing their metal in metroidvanias or just admiring their Pokemon TCG collection. Elie has previously worked at TechRadar Gaming as a staff writer and studied at JOMEC in International Journalism and Documentaries – spending their free time filming short docs about Smash Bros. or any indie game that crossed their path.

Read more
A mountain block dropping into place in Drop Duchy.
Drop Duchy is an unholy fusion of city builder, roguelike deckbuilder, and Tetris, and you can try it for free right now
Screenshot from tile-based city building game Dawnfolk
Dawnfolk is a satisfying city builder puzzle game that works great on Steam Deck
A flying city fighting off small airplanes
High-flying RPG city builder Airborne Empire has launched on Steam, and it's testing my balancing skills in more ways than one
A castle being beset by horrors.
Cataclismo review
A robot destroying the opposing castle with its laser eyes in Castle V Castle.
You've got to try these 5 brilliant free roguelike deckbuilder game demos before Steam NextFest ends on March 3
Cozy Desktop Konbini screenshots
My favourite Steam Next Fest game, Cozy Desktop Konbini, combines my love for shopping management sims and desktop idlers
Latest in City Builder
A citizen of a city
Cities: Skylines 2 celebrates 10 years of Cities with more nuanced homelessness and six new DLCs
doctors treat plague-stricken peasants in the medieval-ish city-builder Nested Lands
Nested Lands is a 'brutal' survival city-builder about guiding villagers through a plague-infested world, and you can play its open alpha right now
A medieval city
'It may seem like a whole new game': One of my favorite medieval city builders just got a huge update with a ton of new features
All Will Fall - A concrete and wood ramshackle city in the middle of an endless ocean
This 'physics-based survival city builder' stuffed all my favorite words into its title so I'm automatically psyched
People swimming in a pool and lying on floats
Planet Coaster 2 isn't the financial success that Frontier needed, according to a report, which means there's more pressure on Jurassic World Evolution 3 to bring in the big bucks
A flying city fighting off small airplanes
High-flying RPG city builder Airborne Empire has launched on Steam, and it's testing my balancing skills in more ways than one
Latest in Features
Sphene applauds in Final Fantasy 14's patch 7.2 story.
I'm not yelling 'we're so back!' yet, but Final Fantasy 14's patch 7.2 story could be the first sign the MMO is returning to what made it so critically-acclaimed
Several tight-wearing superheroes surge towards the camera in a heroic fashion in City of Heroes.
One year later, City of Heroes' officially recognized fan server has me praying it's the future of dead MMOs
Immortal Pillars expansion for Age of Mythology: Retold
Age of Mythology Retold's new Chinese pantheon expansion takes a bold stance on updating an old game: Just make good new stuff
Ragnarok Battle Offline
After punishing my graphics card with Monster Hunter Wilds, I've returned to the rock-solid frame rates of my old hunting grounds: Windows XP
Ghoul in sunglasses
I'm convinced being a ghoul in Fallout 76 is the best way to vibe in West Virginia, thanks to these powerful perk cards and my new true love: Radiation
Steel Hunters hands-on
Steel Hunters is like a more tactical Titanfall, but as an extraction shooter it's undermined by boring loot