"Kingdom Rush": An Engaging Game?
The game Kingdom Rush is a tower defence style game where the player controls the kings army to defend the kingdom from the oncoming hordes of enemies.
Who is the target audience?
To decide if Kingdom Rush engages it's target audience, the target audience needs to be identified by demographic and player type. The likely demographic that the developers were targeting for this game are male preteens to mid or late twenties and thirties people. These people enjoy fantasy and/or history genres. There do not seem to be any further demographic limitations present.
The male qualifier for their target demographic seems likely for a couple reasons. One of which is that most of the heroes that can be selected in the game are male, and two of the three free heroes are male as well. This can be seen in the image below, where the top three heroes are the free/unlockable ones. The other reason for selecting 'male' as a demographic qualifier is that the game revolves around fighting and combat in general, which is typically a draw for men.
In regards to the chosen age brackets, these seem to fit the game as on the Google Play Store the recommended age is everyone 10 and up, and on the Apple App Store the recommended age is 12 years old and up. However, going by the definition of age demographics in chapter nine of The Art of Game Design, 3rd Edition by Jesse Schell, ages above approximately 35 year old would not be as interested in this game as the younger demographics. Similarly, those under about 10 also would not be interested, as Schell's definition and the app stores age ratings depict. Schell's definition of those under age 10 in the infant/toddler, preschooler and kids groups says that they will generally prefer simpler, less challenging games and will normally be playing games with either their parents or friends, not alone. On the other hand, Schell's definition for those above age 35 says that they will generally play games targeted towards the whole family, or games with strong social components and games which do not require fine motor control. Kingdom Rush is a game which intentionally tried to challenge the player and is also played using fine motor controls, and on a small screen generally. By requiring these aspects, Kingdom Rush makes a good start on engaging their target audience.
Another demographic qualifier is people that enjoy the fantasy and history genres. This is an important qualifier as the game has an aesthetic which lends itself to these genres which is that of Fantasy. Making use of this aesthetic help the game to engage it's players by utilizing their sense of make-believe. In the game the player role-plays as the general of the army, taking control and making the decisions to survive the waves of attacks.
Moving on to the target player type, we can use Bartle's Taxonomy of Player Types here to help explain who the game is made for. In the case of Kingdom Rush, the target player type is likely to be on the side of achievers and explorers; however, likely more towards the achiever player type. As an example of how Kingdom Rush is targeted towards the achiever player type, four of the five descriptors can be found in the game. Firstly, achievers are looking to achieve goals in the game, which is presented in the game through both achievements and clear goals, such as the number of waves to survive, which show how to beat a level. Secondly, achievers aim to have the highest score or have the highest possible level in the game or be at the top of the leaderboard. In this game players can do this by being ranked on each level with a score out of three stars and a total star count for each level. Additionally, there is an online leaderboard for the games endless mode, and the stacking upgrades mechanic where a player can aim to be on top of the leaderboard and have all of the upgrades.
The endless game mode with the leaderboard in the lower left corner.
The upgrades screen showing how some need to be unlocked before others can be.
The third of five achiever descriptors which Kingdom Rush fulfills is acting on the game world, which is done through the main action of the game, placing towers and killing the enemies. The fourth and final descriptor which the game fulfills is mastering the game, or in other words getting it to behave in the way the player wants. Kingdom Rush lets the player master its game by providing simple and deep mechanics and dynamics, which can be learned to counter effectively the enemies sent in each wave.
What draws the players in?
Kingdom Rush attracts it's players by utilizing it's different aesthetics and targeting certain personality characteristics. There are three potential aesthetics to the game, identifiable as Fantasy, Challenge, and Narrative. Fantasy has already been discussed in regards to role-playing as the general, however it also embodies this aesthetic by having a lightly explained imaginary world and utilizing characters which could only be found in fantasy such as the goblins, yeti's and trolls that are encountered. Challenge is another identifiable aesthetic in the game as the player is challenged to master each level through both of the variable difficulty levels, easy through hard, and the collection of stars based on how well the player completed the level. Utilizing challenge as an aesthetic also helps to engage the target audience as it fulfills the second achiever player type descriptor as mentioned previously.
Narrative is another aesthetic found in the game, although it is less present than the previous two aesthetics. Narrative is seen in Kingdom Rush in the explanation about each level which can be seen when choosing the difficulty and game mode, as it tells a little story about why the player is controlling the army and fighting these waves of enemies. However, narrative can also be seen in the level designs, such as in level six, The Citadel. In this level, the narrative descriptor tells the player that they have arrived at the capital city, this is then reflected in the level design, as the space on the map behind the defence point is illustrated as a large castle city. Similarly, other levels change their atmosphere based on the narrative description for the level like illustrating snow on the ground on maps where it is said to be in a mountain pass. Utilizing narrative effectively like this engages the players imagination and more easily allows them to start feeling concerned for the characters they control and how their decisions will effect the game.
Other than making effective use of it's aesthetics to engage players, Kingdom Rush also knows which psychological preferences it will engage with more easily. These psychological preferences can be described using the Myers Briggs Personality Index. For this game, there are four personalities which would fit the target audience well. These are INTP, INTJ, ISTP, and ISTJ. Between these four personalities there are two similarities, they all include introversion and they all prefer thinking over feeling as psychological preferences. On the other hand, the game seems to cater fairly equally well to people with either intuition or sensing psychological preferences, and likewise for people with either perceiving or judging psychological preferences. Because these are the psychological preferences the game is likely targeting, there are associated personality characteristics that Kingdom Rush would appeal to. The first few correspond to the INTP personality type, which are being innovative, curious and logical. An example of how these characteristics are appealed to is through a couple of the games dynamics. One of the dynamics is experimenting with combinations of different tower types, such as grouping towers with one of each type, or all of the same type for example. This directly appeals to being innovative, being curious about what works best, and using logic to find the optimal grouping of towers. Another dynamic is finding the best location for a tower, which appeals to being curious and being logical as possibilities need to be examined before placing the tower.
Another set of personality characteristics that the game appeals to and can engage with is being imaginative, being strategic, and being a planner; traits of the INTJ personality type. A game dynamic which appeals to these characteristics is creating 'fallback points' where enemies can still be slowed down and stopped with either the 'meteors' or 'reinforcements' abilities. This appeals to those characteristics as preparing a backup plan is both a strategic thing to do and good planning; also, the player can be imaginative in how they want to design their fallback point. The ISTJ personality type's characteristics can also be appealed to using the same dynamic, since being practical, fact-minded and reliable are also useful when designing fallback points. This is because it is practical to have a backup since there is a good possibility that enemies will make it past your initial defenses; additionally, having a reliable backup allows the player to focus more on the facts they are presented with, such as the number of enemies and the types of enemies in the next wave.
The other personality characteristics that Kingdom Rush can appeal to and engage with are those related to the ISTP personality type. These characteristics are being bold, being practical and being experimental. A dynamic of the game which engages these characteristics is focusing defenses at specific points, and then selling and rebuilding the towers in another point for the next wave. This allows the player to be bold by focusing all of their forces against one set of enemies while also being practical if the enemies at this point are much stronger and more likely to break through a split defence. Additionally, this dynamic allows for experimentation since the player will need to find a combination of towers that will let them defeat the group of enemies quickly to pivot and defend against another wave if it comes from a different direction.
A Casual Game?
Having now looked at who the possible target audience is and what may be attracting them, we can consider the type of player that will play the game, whether they would be considered a casual gamer, or a hardcore gamer. Kingdom Rush is probably more targeted towards, and better able to engage with, a casual gamer. A casual gamer will better engage with the game for a few reasons, such as the length of the typical play session, the type of controls in the game, the accessibility of the game, and the ability of a player to slowly immerse themselves in the game. When looking at the length of a typical game session it is not likely to be too long, since the game is divided into levels which can be finished in ten minutes each, approximately. This gives players the chance to jump in and out of the game when they have time available. On the other hand, the game probably appeals more to casual gamers as well since it has easy to understand controls. In the game the controls do not get much harder than buying a tower, upgrading it, and selling it when necessary. Similarly, since Kingdom Rush is a mobile game it makes it very accessible to people that want to game in their spare time, while also being broken down into easily understandable slices, the levels. This allows players with little available time to still play, while being able to follow the narrative and gradually immerse themselves in the story, leading to better and longer lasting engagement with the game's players.
While Kingdom Rush is more targeted towards the casual gamer, it does have some hardcore gamer aspects which need to be mentioned. These include the infinite mode, which can take a long time to finish if the player is good enough to last, as well as the replayability of the game. Since hardcore gamers will generally enjoy longer and more frequent play sessions, these factors lend some appeal to this type of gamer.
Does Kingdom Rush engage it's target audience?
In short, yes, Kingdom Rush does a good job at engaging it's target audience given that the dynamics and aesthetics of the game, as well as it's other design decisions, can all provide a reason for being appealing to the audience that has been identified. Like the general in the game trying to defend the kingdom, the players of Kingdom Rush have reasons to come back and continue playing the game.
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