Doodle Kingdom

I wanted to like this. I really did. I'm returning it less than 10 minutes in.

I kept getting in-game advertisements for their other works. This would be understandable in a free-to-play game, but in a game I paid money for? It's annoying, and unacceptable.

EDIT: They've removed the ads.

If you truly want a review on Doodle Kingdom in a nutshell then I can summarize it for you in three words. Bad. Mobile. Port.

This is a bit of a shame to be honest. I can genuinely see myself really enjoying this and JoyBits' other Doodle games quite a lot on a mobile device. That was what the game was designed for and that is where it is best experienced. However, unlike some other developers who port their games onto Steam as a bit of a money grab I genuinely believe that the developers here thought that their game would play well on Steam. Certainly they would have thought that it deserved to be received better than Doodle God which was the first game that they ported across to Steam.

The game has three modes. Arguably the best of these is the elemental match game where you have to pair elements, people, building, lands, etc. together to create something new. This is fun enough for a short play but can become rather irritating when you feel yourself missing out on combinations. It also doesn't control very well with a controller - or certainly as well as it could or should. Mouse makes the game easier to play and takes away much of the frustration.

The quests are a little short for my liking and are a classic sign that the game has been made with mobile devices firmly in mind. The horde runner style mode is nothing innovative and becomes exceedingly boring far too quickly Again, it would be better on mobile where you can pick it up and put it down and you would view it as an acceptable investment of a few minutes of your time but as a PC game on Steam it falls short.

I'd love to get my hands on this on mobile and spend some time with it there. Unfortunately, it's not a great PC game.

For similar reviews and fantastic giveaways visit Steamified.

Update: I read the game was updated a bit since I wrote the review on 15th of June 2016. Finally got to 100% this game after a couple of hours more play time. The endless mode finally encourages some active gameplay. For example, if you go for the gold quest and spam open gold chests, you can use the gold you earned to "purchase" quest completions for extra experience.

Original review:
Got it when it was 25% discounted on lauch, still wouldn't recommend it if it was cheaper.
The basic idea of the game is kind of neat; you have 3 different game modes to play. The most fun ones for me were the element matchings but that's over quite fast. I think I was done with the game after 1-2 hours, then only the hero mode and 3 more achievements were left for me.
Hero mode feels like an endless mode but without enough interaction. Your hero runs a path if you have enough energy/stamina, and you need to push a button on your controller or click the button with you mouse so he keeps running instead of walking. You basically do that every ~30'ish seconds. The other button is hero healing, you don't need it that often, if at all. Whenever there's a treasure chest above your hero, you press another button on your controller, or you click it with the mouse whever you spot it. That's 99% of it.
The last achievement for me is to get to level 21. After 13 hours of playing, I just hit level 16 (the second to last achievement for me). Getting to level 21 would require another 24 hours, I assume...so I'd rather spend that time on something else.

tl;dr - nice idea, you'll most likely be done with it after 1-2 hours though