Super Fantasy Kingdom Beginner's Guide: Surviving the Night (and the Damn Workers)
Alright, Your Majesty. Welcome to your new hellhole. It's got potential, I guess, but mostly it's got monsters trying to eat you and workers who move slower than continental drift.
Super Fantasy Kingdom throws you in as the King of... well, not much yet. It's a roguelite city builder where you try to rebuild while fending off nightly hordes. Sounds simple, but this game has layers, and the learning curve feels less like a curve and more like a brick wall. The in-game tutorial covers the absolute basics, but here’s the stuff you actually need to know so you don't just rage quit on Day 3.
Understanding This Messy Screen
The UI throws a lot at you. The important bits? Top left is your main Hero. If he dies, it's game over, run over, hasta la vista. Below that are Kingdom Stats like Level, Shards (meta-currency), and Banish (your mulligan for a screwed-up day).
Top right is crucial: Taxes & Faith (press K to switch), Idle Workers, and Resources. Taxes buy stuff, Faith upgrades your Hero. Idle Workers means someone's slacking. Resources are... well, you need 'em. Also note Hero Resources like Meals, Happiness (damage boost!), Beer (stat boost!), and Glory (kill monsters, unlock stuff).
Bottom right shows time, events, and your expansion options. Don't ignore the World Quests that pop up when exploring.
The Daily Grind: Work, Fight, Eat, Repeat
Every day follows a cycle. Morning: workers bumble off to their assigned tasks. Midday: monsters start shuffling towards your castle. Sunset: workers clock off. Nightfall/Moonrise: any remaining monsters get pissed and sprint at you.
You must kill all monsters to end the day. Once they're dead, your heroes hit the tavern and eat whatever slop you've managed to cook. Different foods give different XP amounts, leveling them up. Then the day ends, and you do it all again. Simple, right?
Building 101: Location, Location, Location
Placement matters. A lot. Build your Quarry near rocks, your Lumberyard near trees. Sounds obvious, but the time your idiot workers spend waddling back and forth adds up fast. This gets easier as you unlock more building plots with Glory.
Early on, prioritize Houses for more workers (warning: the cost skyrockets with each one!), a Sawmill (planks are vital), and Mines for stone and gold. You need these basics to get anywhere.
Your Workers Are Slow. Deal With It.
Let's address the elephant in the room: your workers are agonizingly slow. You start with two. Getting more requires building expensive Houses. Upgrading Houses helps, but requires upgrading other buildings first. It's a deliberately slow progression.
Reassigning them is also clunky. They finish their current task before switching, which wastes precious daylight. You have to plan ahead and minimize changes. Sometimes, the bottleneck isn't workers, but carriers – the guys who actually move the resources. Check you have enough of those, too.
Heroes, Units, and Not Standing in the River
Your Heroes and recruited Units do the fighting automatically when enemies get close. Pay attention to their stats and abilities. Feed them after battles to level them up. You can also upgrade them directly with resources.
Crucially, check their positioning. Some units buff others in specific patterns. Also, don't place units behind the river/bridge; apparently, they just stand there like lemons and don't attack. Weather can also affect damage types (wet enemies hate shock damage), so repositioning might be smart.
Exploring the Great Outdoors (with Glory)
Glory, earned by killing monsters (1 Glory per 10 kills), is used to build roads and unlock building plots. Building roads lets you explore, find quests, merchants, resources, and even new units.
Push those roads out far enough, and you'll find challengeable mini-bosses. Beating them gives you a daily resource income for the rest of the run. You can re-challenge them if you lose, but it costs each time. Sometimes, you'll find world event spots blocked by a tough monster. Provoking it means a harder fight that night, but unlocks the event spot for potential future goodies.
Unlocking Your Inner Necromancer
Eventually, you can unlock the Undead Kingdom. This requires either beating the second boss or earning three "stars" (seems you get these from boss kills, maybe other milestones?). Once unlocked, click the skull icon in the main menu.
This offers a totally different playstyle with skeletons, zombies, bones, ooze, new buildings, and new units. Good news: progression like unlocked units and Armory items seems to be shared between both kingdoms.
Quick Tips Before You Go Mad
Look for Corruption/Witch: Find these on the map for permanent unlocks.
Prioritize Placement: Worker travel time is killer. Put buildings near resources.
Unlock Roads: Even if you're losing a run, hitting a Glory threshold lets you unlock a road, giving you more options next time.
Check Daily Changes: World events pop up, stores refresh. Keep an eye out.
Resource Layout Changes: Each run shuffles resource locations. Adapt your building strategy.
This game is punishing, slow, and repetitive, especially at the start. But there's a surprisingly deep city builder hiding under the roguelite grind. Stick with it, manage your slow-ass workers, and maybe, just maybe, your kingdom won't be a smoldering ruin by Day 10. Good luck, Your Majesty. You'll need it.