Take the King's challenge in Royal Envoy! Save the wonderful land of Islandshire, made up of countless islands, from the merciless forces of nature. Construct and upgrade homes and buildings for the island citizens and become the chief city planner of this marvelous region. Think your way to triumph in this mesmerizing game of pirates, treasure and hot-air balloon adventures!
A freak storm has ravaged the island region of Islandshire, the setting of Royal Envoy. Its people have lost their housing and businesses, and are defenseless against the coming rainy season. The royal architect has designed new buildings to be constructed on the islands, and the King has assigned you the job of turning these plans into reality (after the royal architect managed to convince the King that the people of Islandshire are worth helping).
As you head to the islands with Cedric the architect, you discover that there are quite a few islands that you need to help. There is a palm island, a rock island, a desert island and even a volcano island. In your quest to rebuild the towns on these islands, you will meet many interesting people and might even get kidnapped by pirates! A torn treasure map and a hot-air balloon are just some of the things that will lead you to exciting adventures during your stay in Islandshire.
Royal Envoy is a town-building game similar to such classics like the Build-a-Lot series. In each level, you are presented with a village that is in various stages of construction or disrepair. Your general task is to turn it into a bustling town generating good income. You earn income by building various levels of housing. But houses require raw materials, so you need to build support buildings such as sawmills to provide the necessary resources. You will also need to hire workmen to do all the manual labor for you.
As you progress further into the game, more different types of buildings will become available. There's a market for example where you will receive random trade offers, paying you gold for your raw materials. You will also have to worry about various other incidentals such as keeping the people happy and clearing rubble and storm damage from the roads in order to access isolated houses. There are also a couple of buildings that are unique to certain islands.
Royal Envoy adds a lot of nice tweaks that make it different from other town-building games though. For one thing, the presence of such elements such as workmen getting lumber from the sawmill and your lackeys carrying gold from the houses to your keep creates a great medieval feel that is similar to the Warcraft style. This style is complemented by the similarly-themed artwork and soundtrack.
The way the story is told in Royal Envoy is also pretty unique. Rather than just having various levels of gameplay with increasing difficulty, it feels like the story is much more immersive and central to this game. There are plenty of cutscenes (fully voiced) that flesh out the characters and story, and they've managed to make it feel like you are an actual participant in the story instead of an invisible observer.
There are also various story elements that will interrupt your mission in Islandshire and take you on exciting adventures. Pirates will attack and kidnap you. There will be an incomplete map leading to buried treasure. There will be mysterious uncharted islands. And there's that hot-air balloon as well. You will also meet many interesting characters along the way, from the nerdy architect Cedric to the fearsome leader of the pirates (who seems to be a 12-year old girl). And there's the King who is more worried about his statues and shoes than the welfare of his people.
Royal Envoy is very well designed and developed, with many elements that make it stand out from other town-building and time management games. It is a great blend of both strategic gameplay and an exciting story to be experienced, and will guarantee hours of fun. The basic edition of the game has yet to be released, but you can get the Collector's Edition which contains exclusive extras such as hours of bonus gameplay, screensavers, guides and more!
Rating: 4.5/5.0
You can read more about Royal Envoy at
http://www.game-tycoon.com/royal-envoy.html