My Kingdom for the Princess

A terrifying tornado destroys most of a magical kingdom, waking up a fierce man-eating dragon. Distressed, Princess Helen must return to her castle to help King Olbert, her ailing father, that was struck by lightning during the storm. The helpful subjects must remove obstacles to unblock and repair the roads, allowing her to safely return home.

My Kingdom for the Princess is a time management game where the main objective is to rebuild the ruined path for the princess' carriage. The work is accomplished by serfs controlled by the player, that execute all the tasks assigned with clicks over portions of a top-view of the scenery. Basic information is displayed at the top of the screen, like the level objectives, the remaining time to finish the repairs and three counters showing the remaining resources available. The three resources are gold, wood and food, and they can be collected or produced to be used to feed the workers and perform the necessary reforms and constructions.

When the cursor is hovering over an interactive part of the terrain, a balloon appears listing all the requirements to start the work, usually a combination of resources and a number of working peasants. The number of vassals available can be increased by building more of their lodgings, from a simple shack for one worker to more complex structures housing several serfs. The houses can also be upgraded to the larger buildings later. There are abandoned buildings on certain levels that can be reformed, instead of erecting one from the ground up. Some levels have piles of resources laying around, that can be collected directly by one of the workers. The resources can also be produced by the workers, or by a specialized building. For example, a serf can fell trees to produce wood, or a sawmill can be constructed to produce lumber stacks.

A bonus meter fills slowly at the bottom of the screen, helping the player after being activated by providing temporary extra serfs, more speed to the workers and freezing the timer for ten seconds. The tasks vary from level to level: in the first levels the objectives are fairly simple, gradually introducing the basic gameplay mechanics to the player. The path has to be unblocked by cutting away overgrowth and tree stumps, sections of swamp have to be converted into paved roads and specific buildings have to be built before time runs out. The time meter has a marker indicating the start of the night. If the player is able to finish everything before nightfall, the castle receives an upgrade.