The Kingdom games are notable for their minimalist gameplay that has a handful of controls.
Starting a new game the Monarch will be guided by a sparkling trail in Kingdom: Classic and by the Ghost in New Lands and Two Crowns through a simple tutorial in which the basic controls will be taught. This tutorial is adapted to each platform and its controls.
Game controls[]
The following control scheme concerns:
- Kingdom: Classic on PC
- New Lands and Two Crowns on PC, mobile, Switch, Xbox and PS4.
 Mobile
| |
|---|---|
| Move left | Drag left |
| Move right | Drag right |
| Sprint | Drag all the way right Drag all the way left |
Drop 
|
Tap or swipe down |
| Pay (to circles)
|
Drag down |
| Unseat hermit | Flip back and forth rapidly |
| Mount special | Swipe up |
| Monarch special | Swipe up with 2 fingers |
 Nintendo Switch
| |
|---|---|
| Move left | Directional left |
| Move right | Directional right |
| Sprint | L or R |
| Drop
|
A, B, or D-pad down |
| Pay (to circles)
|
Hold A |
| Unseat hermit | Flip back and forth rapidly |
| Mount special | ZL or ZR |
| Monarch special | L, R, or D-pad up |
| Buttons diagram | 
|
 Xbox One
| |
|---|---|
| Move left | Left thumbstick left |
| Move right | Left thumbstick right |
| Sprint | Right trigger |
| Drop
|
A, B, or D-pad down |
| Pay (to circles)
|
Hold A |
| Unseat hermit | Flip back and forth rapidly |
| Mount special | Right trigger |
| Monarch special | LB, RB, or D-pad up |
| Buttons diagram |  |
 PlayStation 4
| |
|---|---|
| Move left | Thumbstick left |
| Move right | Thumbstick right |
| Sprint | L2 or R2 |
| Drop
|
X, O, or D-pad down |
| Pay (to circles)
|
Hold X |
| Unseat hermit | Flip back and forth rapidly |
| Mount special | L2 or R2 |
| Monarch special | L1, R1, or D-pad up |
Some mobile versions of New Lands feature touch controls with a virtual game pad. Other devices will accept physical extra controllers as seen in this case.
Character customization[]
The King wears the Crown and a coloured cape while the Queen wears the Tiara and coloured dress.
Players choose their monarch's appearance when first starting the game. By pressing the S or ↓ button (or by tapping the screen in the mobile version) during the loading screen, sex, skin colour, and the colour of the cape or dress will be randomised, letting the player decide on their preference. Once selected, players cannot change their character unless they start a new game.
Players also get their character a banner with random tinctures, ordinaries and charge after they establish a camp in game. The colour of the banner will be the same with the colour of the character's cape or dress.
PC & console – The pause screen allows the player to alter the banner manually. For details, see Coat of arms.
Two Crowns co-op – There is no way to customize the appearance of the second player. They will just get their characteristics randomized when they join the campaign for the first time.
Dead Lands – It's not possible to customize the appearance of Miriam, the starter Monarch. This cosmetic customization has been replaced with the possibility of changing Monarchs.
Difficulty mode[]
This section is about Kingdom Two Crowns.
When starting a new campaign, players have the opportunity to select between five different difficulty levels:
- Peaceful
- Easy
- Normal
- Hard
- Cursed.
To cicle between them, players should:
- press W or ↑ on PC
- tap on the top of the screen on mobile.
The default difficulty mode (if the players do not change it) is Normal. Once a campaign has been created, its difficulty cannot be changed.
All game mechanics remain the same between the different modes. Only the spawn rate of enemies on waves are adjusted accordingly.
The difficulty level of the current campaign can be see on the bottom left corner of the main menu. And the difficulty level of all saved campaigns are shown on their respective save slots.
This feature was added on May 2022, with patch 1.1.16. Campaigns started before the update were assigned to a difficulty level equivalent to the current Normal mode.
Traveling[]
This section is about New Lands & Two Crowns.
[This section is outdated for Kingdom Two Crowns.] Once on board:
|
|
As long as the player doesn't skip it, the boat travel scene appears to be indefinite. At some point even the music will end, leaving just the sounds of the sea.
Challenge Islands[]
This section is about Kingdom Two Crowns.
To access a challenge island:
| 1. | Press Esc to open the menu | |
| 2. | Click "Challenge Islands" | |
| 3. | Click: |
The crowned skull for the Skull island |
Cancel order[]
Trees cannot be unmarked and walls cannot be removed. Once the Monarch gives an order, it cannot be cancelled. There is no cancel command, cancel task, cancel job, cancel work, or cancel build. For further details, see: Cancel.
Players can however exploit the autosave as if it was a "check point".
Beta[]
When there is public test beta branch available, this is how to access it:
- Right click “Kingdom Two Crowns” in your Steam library
- Go to properties
- Go to the “betas” tab
- Select “public-test” (or anything similar) in the drop down menu
- Restart Steam.
In order to experience balance changes you will need to start a new campaign.
Alt-tab without pausing[]
This section is about Kingdom: New Lands on Windows.
If the player alt-tab to a different application, minimizes the game window, or click on any thing outside the game environment (for example, while using a second monitor), the game will stop running. The game creator Noio explains this behavior:
“ It's simply a choice we made. The game pauses in the background to prevent the player from accidentally changing window and losing the game. I could easily change it but I'm not sure how many people rely on the current behaviour.—Noio on Reddit, 7 September 2016. „
Waiting for the boat to reach the dock can take several in-game days and this generally happens when Monarchs have done every task they had to do on that island. In moments like these, even if players spend some time appreciating the music and the pixel-art, they may end-up considering being away from keyboard (AFK) a suitable method to deal with the lack of in-game tasks.
On all platforms, players are limited to stop playing while letting the game open. On Windows though players can alt-tab to other applications without pausing the game. Follow the steps below to keep the game running even when it's unfocused:
- Have the game on windowed mode rather than full screen
- Click the game's icon in the Windows taskbar
(if the music keeps playing, you know that the in-game time is passing)
You can now alt-tab from the game—and to whatever application you want—during the boat pushing or while going for the Day C achievement without pausing the game.
Steam controler for single player[]
This section is about Kingdom Two Crowns.
The Steam controller shouldn't cause any trouble in Classic or New Lands. In Two Crowns however, it is set by default to give access to a second player, and will pop up a message requiring a confirmation for the split-screen. If the player wants to play solo with a Steam controller, this default behavior might be a bit frustrating. But there is a way to use Steam configurations to change that. Follow the steps below:
- On your Steam Library
- Right-click on the game “Kingdom Two Crowns”
- Click on “Properties”
- Down on the “general” tab,
On the box under “Steam Input Per-Game Setting” - Select the option “Forced On”
- Restart the game.
Sticky keys on Windows[]
Sticky keys is a feature in Windows that can help users with physical impairments. By default, it can be turned on by pressing Shift five times in a row. But this shortcut can be easily triggered by mistake by users who do not need the sticky keys, especially while playing games with the keyboard. Here's how to turn off Windows 10's sticky keys feature for good, and disable that shortcut:
- Press the ⊞ Windows logo on your keyboard
- Search for "Ease of Access"
- Select "Ease of Access keyboard settings"
- Toggle the switch under "Sticky Keys" to "Off"
- Turn off also the shortcut.
Multiplayer[]
For instructions on how to access local co-op (split screen) and online co-op (full screen), see: Co-op.
Options[]
The Options panel for Kingdom: New Lands
The game options (image at the right) are self-explanatory, with the exception of blazon setting, explained here.
The player is able to choose zoom, sound and music levels.
The language options are English, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Chinese, and Danish.
Exporting save files[]
- In Two Crowns version 1.1.15, developers "added a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+F12 on Windows/Linux, Cmd+F12 on Mac) that immediately exports your save file and logs to a zipped file on your desktop. This should prove helpful if you ever need to report an issue to our support portal."
