A Game Called Kingory

I’ve been getting ads on this blog for a game called Kingory featuring an Asian woman in a qipao saying ‘play me.’ Intrigued, I signed up for an account to see what it was all about.

Kingory is actually a popular game in China based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel (same source material as Dynasty Warriors, Sango Fighter, Red Cliff, etc.). Below are my impressions of the game.

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Quick historical background: At the end of the Han Dynasty, China split into three kingdoms: Shu, Wu, and Wei. The novel tracks the last days of the Han, the subsequent conflicts, and the reunification of China. It’s not a dry history text book, but contains tales of heroism as well as greatly exaggerated but entertaining historical narrative. One of the most defining battles in the novel (the Chinese Gettysburg if you will) was the Battle of the Red Cliff in which Cao Cao’s massive naval army was defeated by the combined armies of Sun Quan, Liu Bei, and others following a calculated fire disaster. John Woo recently made a movie about this called Red Cliff. The novel also involves one of the most badass Chinese tacticians of all time, Zhuge Liang. He’s also known as the guy who filled boats with straw on a misty day and tricked his enemies into wasting all their arrows. He’s also a personal hero of mine, like a historical Norm Chow. Also, he’s played by Takeshi Kaneshiro, whom my former roommate Sharon thinks is the hottest man alive.

Well, enough about literature and history. Did you know the actual Chinese name for Kingory translates to Heated Blood of the Three Kingdoms. Of course, this is a very literal translation and the actual meaning is meant to convey the heat of the epic historical struggle. It was nice to see this as the setting of an online strategy game.

I’m not sure why they decided to name it Kingory. If it were up to me, I’d have named it Romance of the Three Kingdoms Online. But then again, I was a history major.

After a quick initial download and browser setup which only took a few seconds, I was redirected to a map page. Here, I could choose the gender, a picture, as well as what region of China to begin my conquest. As you can see in the screenshot, there’s a checkbox to agree to player policies. But strangely, when I was on the page, it was checked by default.

Anyway, I picked the best looking guy, named myself ‘Special K’ and ventured forth to build my kingdom.

Whoa! It’s Kung Fu Panda! Surely, Dreamworks can’t be too happy about this. That is, unless there’s some deal between the companies. I’m in no position to speculate about such things, so I won’t. Whatever the case is, I’m not sure what Po has to do with the Three Kingdoms. He sticks out like a sore thumb in a game that’s otherwise grounded in historical realism. But he does give some helpful hints.

There’s an optional tutorial system that teaches you what all the features are. However, I’ve played 2-3 similar browser games with nearly identical interfaces, so I turned that off. I consider myself a pro now.

The game itself is very familiar. In fact, if you’ve played any other recent Chinese browser games, you might be a little shocked by this. There are basically three main screens. The town screen lets you expand your town by constructing buildings like a rally point or barracks. The rural screen lets you build resource mines for the game’s four main commodities: food, lumber, stone, and ore. Then, there’s the main map, which shows all the territories and rival towns nearby.

One of the things Kingory has that other games don’t is a stronger emphasis on the hero. Unlike other games, you can equip your heroes with weapons, armor, and artifacts to strengthen your armies. The stronger your army is, the more likely you can take over a territory or conquer your opponent’s city.

I really like how streamlined the interface is. The main game functions are displayed along the bottom of the screen with non-intrusive icons. Resources, armies, and other stats are displayed on the left side of the screen.

In addition to building structures and waiting for resources to increase, you can spend money to buy in-game items that speed up production and grant bonuses. You can also embark on various quests or make alliances. But be careful, it’s easy to get back-stabbed. Thankfully, beginners are under special protection and can’t be attacked.

To defend your town, you’ll need to raise an army and build fortifications. You can train soldiers, swordsmen, cavalry, and a variety siege weapons like trebuchets and catapults. In addition to upgrading your wall, it’s important to build traps, barricades, rolling rocks, rolling logs, etc. When your opponent attacks your city, these fortifications weaken their armies before they engage your garrisoned troops.

Playing the game felt like second nature and I suspect it’s because Kingory is similar in nearly every respect to a certain other Chinese browser game. I thought the game was fun and had pretty charming old-school graphics. But I don’t quite know what to make of the advertising campaign yet. The ad that appeared on my blog piqued my interest, but not for the right reason.

I’ve never been a fan of products that exoticize the mysteries of the East, even when they come straight from China. As a student of Asian American studies, concepts designed to appeal to an orientalist mindset upset me. And to me, presenting an Asian woman as an exotic, sexualized object without background or justification represents everything that Asian American studies stands against. On the other hand, I really like the Three Kingdoms setting. So again, I’m torn.

I can only hope the folks behind Kingory will choose to focus their marketing on Chinese military history and political intrigue in the 1st century and less on a pretty ‘China-doll’ girl asking gamers to play with her. Edward Said would not be happy.

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