Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit – Review

Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit is a Point and Click Single-Player Adventure game developed and published by Tag of Joy. The beauty of Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit will automatically hook up anyone who loves the Point and Click gaming genre because it is one of the very few point-and-clicking games that tell an amazing story with each element nailed almost to perfection. It can become anyone’s favorite game in their library after playing and observing the characters and story depth for the very first time.

Story and Gameplay

Crown and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit tells the story of an adult woman named Milda who has lost her grandfather. Milda’s Grandfather has left his home in Milda’s name which is in Lithuania. As she gets to Lithuania and discovers the place, she decides to journey through modern-day Europe to uncover the secrets of the king who was never crowned. It is an interesting story and it allows players to learn the history of Europe as well as visit some of the iconic historical locations in Europe.

The Gameplay of the game is simple, you need to Point and Click on the objects or people to interact with them and continue clicking with the options available. With the adventure and story progression, your overall experience of Point and Click will be justified as there are numerous things and items for you to gather in your adventure. Not only do you get to examine the items you get, but you can also store them in your inventory for later use in the story or give an item to a local to learn more information about a historical incident.

Dialogues play a crucial role in both talking to characters and selecting a certain decision in the story. You will be provided with three different dialogues to each scenario to which you can react the way you see fit. Apart from talking, Milda also likes to take matters into her own hands so, you will get to solve several puzzles throughout the game which are the main part of the story. And let me tell you, this game has one of the most confusing and hardest puzzles which can also be a Switch-Off button for some players. However, players who like challenging puzzles will enjoy the puzzles as they require a proper hunt for the clues to solve them correctly.

Art & Visuals

The Art and Visuals of this game are some of the reasons that make this game an amazing experience. The adventure has rich colors, and a vibrant atmosphere, and details on characters and locations that you meet and visit are the ones that will keep you engaged. The visuals of this game have 3D-Rendered character models in front of hand-drawn 2D backgrounds that delve together perfectly.

Sound and Voice Acting

The sound is also decent in the game nothing too harsh or overwhelming and keeps an overall well-balanced effect according to the gameplay. The Voice Acting on the other hand is absolutely spectacular. All the characters have performed amazingly to give life to the characters in Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit who feel very much alive and expressive. In any adventure game, if the characters are well voice acted and expressed, it automatically enhances the experience of the players and this game nails that element.

Verdict – Score 8/10

The Journey of Crowns and Pawn: Kingdom of Deceit can take around 4 – 6 hours depending on how well you are with solving puzzles because puzzles are the only thing that is time-consuming in this game. Throughout the whole journey, the story just keeps getting better but at the end, it might feel that the ending of the game was made in a rush and didn’t justify the ending that well because the last choice of the game does not have any effect on the ending of the story.

Overall, the game does justice in providing an expressive experience in the modern-day of Europe. We definitely recommend this game to players who love story-driven and especially, point-and-click games.

Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit is available on PC, PlayStation 4, XBOX One, Mac OS, and coming to Nintendo Switch on September 28, 2023.