Set in a world where the orcs have conquered all races but the humans, Shadow Kings puts you in charge of building and leading an army of all three races against the ever growing threat. Though its colors are vibrant and its songs are cheerful, do not underestimate the strategy needed to master its menu. As an RTS, or real-time strategy, you command a city and all of its inhabitants in the same vein of gaming as Age of Empires and StarCraft.

The introductory walkthrough is split between and a dwarf and an elf that teach about the different buildings and people you can create along with upgrades. They even lead you as you attack a nearby orc city resulting in your first victory and level up. Leveling is handled through an XP system where each quest and victory increases your amount. The city itself is run off of the resources wood, stone and bread with each produced in a different building. After achieving success on different events, you are rewarded with coins and purple diamonds. Gold is then used to pay for buildings, soldiers, upgrades and the like. Diamonds are used to increase building time and are also the only element of the game you can buy with real money.

The tutorial, though entertaining, is far from instructive. It hand feeds the player everything, taking away their ability to learn the enormous menu through trial and error as they piece together what to do. When you finally are allowed full control of the game, it’s hard to figure out just what the focus should be. While the orcs do need to be defeated, there are taxes to collect, a city to expand and little people to manage. In the end, based on map size and resource location indicators, Shadow Kings seems to be more of a leisurely expansion game than an actual RTS. The game has been open for an hour now on my screen and the orcs have neither attacked nor advanced their technology, making them seem like a peaceful bunch.

On a whole, Shadow Kings is best suited for adults and children that don’t like a lot of pressure when they play games. It is a simple introduction to the genre with about as many functions as its full-fledged counterparts. Its graphics, sounds and interface are clean, making it one of the better free-to-play RTS games out there.