Pixel Kingdom was a Kickstarter game project with a rather unambitious goal of $5000 in funding - a goal it met, with 0 to spare. The game was funded on February 11th, and now, a month later, has launched on Android.

Pixel Kingdom is deceptively simple, in the best way. I often lament the state of mobile games, but PK is a refreshing effort at not taking oneself too seriously, and instead just focusing on fun. The game has three control actions you can use while playing (select a unit to spawn, pick a lane to spawn it, and boost your mana regeneration rate), and your little soldiers attack and advance all on their own. Pixel Kingdom isn't the first game like this, not by a long shot. But after 15 minutes, I felt like I just took a bite out of a warm, buttered slice of homemade bread - it's so satisfyingly simple. It's so simple that you'll pick up exactly how it works in under a minute. And while It won't win awards for redefining a genre, or breaking new technical ground, or even for ambition, it doesn't matter.

Let me put it this way, in terms of mobile gaming success stories, there are really two ends of the spectrum: on the left, you have the 'Angry Birds' of the world, which take a unique mechanic and gameplay system that is highly accessible and build oceans of content and tweaks on that platform to create a franchise. On the right are things like Gameloft's ambitious Modern Combat 2, trying to emulate a 'hardcore' gaming experience on a smartphone. The thing is, both ends of the spectrum take themselves so seriously that they either get stuck in a rut (a la Angry Birds) or set lofty goals that simply can't be met (Modern Combat 2).

Pixel Kingdom is a lot more like Zombieville USA. It's highly repetitive, straightforward, and simple, but unabashedly fun. You could play it for 10 minutes, or 2 hours, and you'll still go back in a few days and do it again, because it's so easy to pick up. And then, after a month or two, you'll probably forget about it - and that's OK. The game is free, IAPs are available (but not at all necessary), and the 14MB download is absolutely worth wasting a little time on.

[EMBED_APP]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SmashGames.PixelKingdom[/EMBED_APP]