King under the Mountain

About

Manage a growing settlement in a living fantasy world where every decision shapes your kingdom. Choose from dwarves burrowing deep into mountains, humans establishing trade hubs, or orcs raiding neighbors. Balance resource gathering, infrastructure, and population needs while adapting to shifting seasons and environmental changes. Your settlers demand food, shelter, and social interaction to avoid chaos or madness. Progress through careful planning rather than brute force, though combat options exist, the game rewards strategic expansion and economic growth. The game’s depth lies in its reactive ecosystems and flexible playstyles. Day-night cycles and weather directly impact plant growth and animal behavior, creating a world that breathes. Players can avoid conflict entirely, focusing on crafting thriving communities or eccentric strongholds like necromancer enclaves or dragon hoards. With over 20 distinct factions each offering unique mechanics, replayability stays high. Early access reviews highlighted its satisfying blend of micromanagement and long-term strategy, though some noted a steep learning curve. At its best, it’s a sandbox for tinkerers who enjoy watching their creations evolve.

Storyline

The game world is built on a series of interlocking systems which combine together to simulate a living, breathing world. As night changes to day, trees and plants will grow (or not) based on sunlight and rainfall. The local environment and changing seasons have effects on the native flora and fauna. Your settlers and other characters have their own personal social and physical needs that you’ll have to fulfill to keep them happy (or at least stop them from breaking and going insane!) It’s an important design goal that it’s possible to play the entire game without getting into armed conflict with other factions (if you choose to). Although weapons and combat can be significant parts of gameplay, we wanted to make sure you can peacefully build up a fully-functioning town to have the satisfaction of sitting back and watching your settlers go about their business in an “art farm” style of play. As well as different ways to build and grow your settlement (do you focus on mining? farming? crafting? buying and selling goods?), in King under the Mountain you can play as several different races and factions each with their own unique gameplay elements. You could build a dwarven fortress dug deep into the side of a mountain, a town of humans at an important river crossing, or a tribe of orcs hunting and raiding others. More than just different races to play as, we want to introduce completely new play styles as unusual factions – perhaps a lone wizard building their secret lair with golems they have constructed, an evil necromancer raising an army of the dead, a dragon amassing a hoard of gold in a giant cave system, or even an invasion of demons attacking the material world.