United Penguin Kingdom
- March 9, 2024
- Turquoise Revival Games
- 3h median play time
Get on SteamIn United Penguin Kingdom, construct a thriving penguin settlement with various buildings like food producers, luxury houses, and entertainment venues. Protect your penguins from killer whales and thief seals by setting up defense towers. Ensure your penguins' happiness and education by providing them with recreational facilities such as ice rinks, cinemas, gyms, and museums.
PC
Windows
Reviews
- The game features adorable penguins and a charming city-building concept that is engaging and fun.
- It offers a relaxing gameplay experience with a variety of mechanics to manage, making it suitable for casual play.
- The tutorial is well-crafted, providing a good introduction to the game's mechanics and helping players understand how to progress.
- The reputation system is frustratingly tied to progression, making it difficult to advance and often leading to forced regression.
- The game suffers from pacing issues, with long waits for resources and a lack of meaningful challenges as players progress.
- Many players find the UI to be poor and the overall art style to be bland, leading to a feeling of repetitiveness and lack of depth.
- gameplay22 mentions
- 45 % positive mentions
- 27 % neutral mentions
- 27 % negative mentions
The gameplay has received mixed reviews, with many players criticizing its simplistic mechanics, poor pacing, and lack of clear communication regarding game systems, leading to frustration. While some find enjoyment in the straightforward gameplay and satisfying loops, others feel the game is underbaked and fails to innovate, ultimately detracting from the overall experience. The reputation mechanic and resource balancing are particularly highlighted as areas needing improvement.
“Fun and straightforward gameplay that allows for ease of play but challenges the longer you play.”
“There's a satisfying gameplay loop to be found here.”
“While it lacks innovation and may not stand out among its competitors, Penguin Paradise Builder offers enjoyable gameplay with charming visuals and relaxing music.”
“The mechanics are very simple, the UI looks cheap, the art is boring and ugly.”
“Had potential to be the best game of the year, ended up being another underbaked indie game with bad mechanics, terrible pacing, and terrible balance.”
“All-in-all, my intrigue turned into frustration due to the absolutely sluggish gameplay, poor resource balancing, and lack of information communication.”
- story17 mentions
- 18 % positive mentions
- 65 % neutral mentions
- 18 % negative mentions
The game's story is criticized for its lack of depth and coherence, with players noting that the quest chains provide abundant resources but fail to create a compelling narrative or progression. The exploration system offers some variety, but the absence of a cohesive story arc and the repetitive nature of quests diminish the overall experience. Players feel that while missions offer guidance, they do not contribute to a meaningful or engaging storyline.
“The exploration system uses a one-of-a-kind building you can unlock and send a submarine on a voyage to other settlements in the kingdom. Doing so can reward you with recipe unlocks as well as special quests to get some extra resources to bring back and maybe even new penguins.”
“The quests that pop up lead you into building a variety of facilities and resources, but you can shape it any way you want.”
“The yearly ranking gives yearly rewards and upgrade progression is more quest-based.”
“Not really a story, and progression is pretty much the same every playthrough.”
“The game does not give the reputation the quests and killing whales say they do.”
“The problem with that is the yearly kingdom demands quests can require you to build and use a recipe unlocked from exploration, but there is no guarantee you're going to get that specific recipe to use when exploring.”
- music10 mentions
- 30 % positive mentions
- 40 % neutral mentions
- 30 % negative mentions
The music in the game has received largely negative feedback, with many users criticizing its limited number of tracks and basic sound quality. Despite this, some players find the overall atmosphere enhanced by the music, describing it as relaxing and fitting within the charming visuals of the game. However, the consensus is that the music lacks innovation and fails to stand out.
“Basically an oxygen clone with extensive alterations... but somehow you managed to use music, setting, building appearance, and ridiculous cuteness to give it a completely new atmosphere, and it is a completely new game!”
“While it lacks innovation and may not stand out among its competitors, Penguin Paradise Builder offers enjoyable gameplay with charming visuals and relaxing music.”
“While it lacks innovation and may not stand out among its competitors, Penguin Paradise Builder offers enjoyable gameplay with charming visuals and relaxing music.”
“The music is terrible.”
“There are only a handful of music tracks, the enemy, unit, and building sounds are all limited, and the menu and UI sounds are basic.”
“Of these, the most egregious is the music; it really weighed on me how few tracks there are and how basic they all sound.”
- graphics8 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
The graphics in the game receive mixed reviews; while some players find them charming and fitting for an indie title, others criticize the lack of customizable options and the presence of mandatory motion blur. Overall, the visuals are described as average but effective in creating an enjoyable atmosphere, complemented by good background sound.
“While it lacks innovation and may not stand out among its competitors, Penguin Paradise Builder offers enjoyable gameplay with charming visuals and relaxing music.”
“Graphics options suck and lie; no matter what you disable, there's mandatory motion blur which is even more disgusting than ever, and there's no support from the community.”
“The graphics are not spectacular; they are pretty average for an indie game, but the style more than carries its weight.”
- grinding6 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be repetitive and tedious, with many expressing frustration over the difficulty of progressing beyond city status. While the game starts off as cute and fun, it quickly becomes boring as players struggle to utilize their accumulated resources and achieve higher ranks. Overall, the grind for achievements is seen as excessive and detracts from the overall enjoyment.
“It gets repetitive and tedious quickly.”
“Cute and fun for a while, but gets tedious very quickly. It's virtually impossible to get past city status. I briefly got into province status, but reputation points dipped back into city status, and I just can't seem to get back, even after upgrading all that I could. I have 150,000 science points but can't use them now; it got boring quick after that.”
“Very grindy to get the achievements.”
- atmosphere2 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game successfully transforms the familiar "oxygen clone" concept into a unique experience through its engaging music, charming setting, and whimsical building designs, creating a fresh and captivating atmosphere that feels entirely new.
“Basically an oxygen clone with extensive alterations, but somehow you managed to use music, setting, building appearance, and ridiculous cuteness to give it a completely new atmosphere. It feels like a completely new game!”
- optimization2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- -50 % neutral mentions
- 150 % negative mentions
Users express frustration with the limited space available in the game, noting that the inability to place buildings closely together hinders the creation of optimized paths. This restriction detracts from the overall gameplay experience.
“I was annoyed with how little space there is and how you cannot hug buildings together to save space and create optimized paths.”
“The lack of space severely limits my ability to create efficient layouts and optimized routes.”
“It's frustrating that the game doesn't allow for tighter building placements, which would help in optimizing my strategies.”
- replayability2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 100 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The reviews indicate that the game's replayability is a significant concern, with multiple users questioning whether it offers enough variety or incentive to play through again. Overall, the consensus suggests that the game may lack compelling reasons for repeated play, potentially limiting its long-term appeal.
- stability2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Overall, users report a positive experience with stability, noting that they have not encountered any issues or glitches, which suggests a reliable performance.
