Kingory: Evony in a Samurai Hat.

A few months ago I posted a little report on Evony that received a rather staggering amount of attention. I hope I’ve saved at least a few people from getting involved with iEvony, their disturbingly inquisitive application.

Since then, Evony has mostly stopped advertising here, helped along by my blocking every advert URL I could discover. But there is a new contender in town. One that offers oriental exotic gameplay. One with an equally nonsensical name.

Enter the Dragon! Enter Kingory!

In Kingory’s favour, at least its advertising campaign has yet to devolve to Evony’s level of simply having a picture of an ample cleavage, and the word “Play”. Though they have been up to their usual copyright-infringing tricks, roping Chun-Li and Kung Fu Panda in to advertise for them.

So, what is Kingory like? Lets load it up and take a look!

The Kingory City Screen

The Kingory City Screen

Hmm, that looks slightly familiar.

The Evony City Screen

The Evony City Screen

Ah yes. Let’s try that again shall we?

The Kingory Farm Screen

The Kingory Farm Screen

The Evony Farm Screen

The Evony Farm screen

Kingory is a reskin of Evony. (Or it is from our point of view. Kingory in fact appears to be an English translation of a Chinese game that predated Evony. Evony was a reskin of that for western audiences.) Same buildings and troops, occasionaly renamed to fit the setting. I would say, in its favour, that it does look better, and I don’t immediately see any in-game graphics that have been stolen from anywhere, though I am quite willing to believe that is simply because I never played the game it was nicked from.

Kingory does also add a new feature: Your heroes can be equipped with items you find during your adventures. Apart from that, everything, from the quests, to the wheel of fortune, to the excrutiatingly slow gameplay that tries to tempt you to spend real-world money on in-game currency to speed things up, is the same. Success is still determined by your willingness to outspend your opponents. If I had to pick between Evony and Kingory, I’d take Kingory, but then I’m a big fan of the ancient orient genre. Luckily I don’t have to pick one, and I denounce them both as being dull.

How these guys can afford to plaster their adverts so thickly across the internet is a mystery to me. Can they really be the highest bidding advertiser so often, or are they somehow gaming the system?

At least Kingory seems to be keeping its advertising relatively classy for now. There was a big backlash against Evony’s oversexed ads, so it is perhaps not surprising that UMGE are choosing to play this shell game. Rumour has it that there are even more Evony reskins doing the rounds, but I’ve not been unfortunate enough to encounter them yet.

6 comments to Kingory: Evony in a Samurai Hat.

  • thegrimmling

    To be honest, if these games used the same development kit/engines, then their layout and game-play would be similar. Kind of like any game that used the Konfuze, Elysium Blue engine, or Greentail engine. These simple RPG game development engines use sprikes and tiles to create the items and environment as more like a hobby kit with a few mods added to them.

    So, they probably seem to be the same game due to the fact they use the same source engine.

  • Raye

    Much like Evony’s use of Age of Empires graphics, I swear, those buildings are lifted from a city building game made by Sierra (now Activision) several years ago called Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom.

    http://www.google.ca/images?q=emperor+rise+of+the+middle+kingdom

    the specific buildings do not come up in a google search, but I’ve played the game and I am certain of it. I LOVED all the city building games made by Sierra, i played them for hours on end.

  • Raye

    ah, here’s a better site for the buildings: http://emperor.heavengames.com/gameinfo/buildings what made me suspicious was the fact that they used the same colour coding. yellow roofs are government buildings, etc. though even if they’re not using the graphics, it’s basically the same idea, build a city, research technologies, go to war (but against NPC’s rather than other players) but VASTLY superior, If the idea of building cities in ancient China appeals to you, Emperor, though an old game, would be a much better investment of your time than this.

  • Rune

    The graphics look suspiciously like those from Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom by Sierra, basicly it was the chinese version of Ceaser and Pharaoh ( Both Sierra RTS/Civ games ) would’nt like to swear to those being taken from there, but they looks VERY alike.