![]() The second game, appropriately titled Frontiers, pushed the frontiers of the world of KR as it took place outside of the main and titular Kingdom, and introduced a strangely populated desert, a supernatural jungle, a lizard-inhabited underground and a sea monster-infested beach. Further updates introduced extra areas that re-used elements of the other three, namely haunted graveyards and literal Hell. As such, the first game had three main areas: green plains, frosty mountains and dark wastelands. Story-wise, the games have a rather standard fantasy setting and lore: after all, the first game was not designed to take place in a particularly unique universe but a generic, conventional one that left room for the gameplay to really shine. Other, rarer heroes are flying units, that cannot block enemies but deal damage to them from above, and can themselves only be damaged by ranged enemy units. While most heroes use melee and special attacks as their main way to deal damage, some are ranged heroes, and though they can still block enemy units, they most likely have lackluster health, melee damage and cannot use their special attacks when blocking. The Hero will appear as a fully controllable unit on the map, that acts as a stronger footsoldier with both passive and special abilities, such as being able to teleport across the stage, inflict debuffs upon foes, summon ally units, one-shot certain enemies, buff nearby towers. In addition to units generated by Barracks, the player also chooses a Hero before the level starts from a large roster that expands as the game progresses (and unfortunately requires micro-transactions to be completed in the mobile versions). Units also attack enemies they have blocked, and vice-versa, so most special enemy traits are built on their interactions with units: whether they have the ability to fly to completely avoid being blocked, to attack multiple units at once or from a distance, to explode upon dying to damage units, etc. The enemy then cannot move again until the unit that has blocked him is dead. Kingdom Rush adds a layer of complexity to that template, can be blocked along their path: indeed, Barracks don't actually do anything by themselves but produce units that go on the path and block one enemy at once. There are four tower types in KR: Archers, that shoot arrows to deal physical damage (affected by armor but not magic resistance), Mages, that deal magical damage (affected by magic resistance but not armor), Artilleries, that can either deal physical or magical damage but all share the trait of dealing damage to multiple enemies at once and Barracks, which are really where KR's originality comes into play: in most tower defense games, enemies simply progress towards the exit and are damaged by towers on their way, the goal being to damage enemies enough so that they die before reach the exit. Now, as for the games themselves: the series' gameplay follows a basic model, that of a map with paths, entry points from which enemies arrive, exits points where enemies take lives - leading to the player losing the level - and, most importantly, pre-determined strategical points where the player can build towers. In 2014, Kingdom Rush Origins was released for mobile devices only, and, while Origins was an excellent game that received its fair share of praise especially for a mobile game, the series went into hiatus for a while. Colossal praise ensued, a strong community started forming around this strangely elaborate and polished series of flash games and over the following years, the first two games received new heroes and campaigns as well as rather successful Steam ports that removed all paywalls. Following this overwhelming success, the game received ports on mobile devices, and, as this showed to be not only another huge commercial success but an extremely good fit for the series' gameplay, mobile versions became Ironhide's main concern. In 2013, a sequel titled Kingdom Rush Frontiers, which served as a complete change of setting from the first game rather than a straightforward, expected follow-up, and enhanced every already great thing about the original, released, first on mobile and then on Flash (currently standing as the 4th most played on Armor Games, with about as much plays as there are people in Iraq). ![]() Thanks to its innovative gameplay, distinctive artstyle, catchy music and creative worldbuilding, Kingdom Rush the first quickly rose to the top, today standing as the most played game on Armor Games, having about as much plays as there are people in France. Kingdom Rush is a tower defense game series that began as a flash game published in 2011 on Armor Games and various other less noteworthy websites by Ironhide Games.
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