Originally released on the Xbox Live Arcade back in 2010, A World of Keflings quickly sucked up a lot of our spare time. A game that saw your giant avatar helping out a bunch of square-chinned, hat-obsessed Keflings rebuild their kingdom, rescue a princess and befriend a dragon, A World of Keflings was a light-hearted city-building game, where you needed to harvest resources - wood from trees, wool from sheep and ice cubes from piles of snow - before turning them into the constituent parts for each building, and arranging them as described in each blueprint to make a fully-fledged building pop up in it's place.
Why thank you Princess.
Despite being published by Microsoft Games Studios, and long being assumed (at least by us) as being a Microsoft exclusive, it seems NinjaBee have no contractual obligations towards Bill Gates and co, with the announcement that A World of Keflings is due out on Nintendo's Wii U before the year is out (it's also coming to Windows 8, which should please all four of its users). Presumably seeing your Mii stepping into the oversized shoes your Xbox Avatar once wore, what's less clear is whether the Wii U version will include the game's multitude of expansions or not, each of which added an extra kingdom with their own story to the game, whether you were helping aliens get back home, reclaiming Candy Peak from the evil wizard Waldorf or rescuing the princess from the terrifying Zombiesaurus. Will we get a mega super version with them all included, will they be paid for extras, or will they never materialise after all? As much as we like A World of Keflings, we've already completed the Xbox 360 version - a little something extra would likely help persuade many more in the same boat to buy it all over again.
So far, the only things mentioned about the Wii U version are fancier graphics, and some Touch Screen controls courtesy of the Wii U GamePad, as the game's art director Brent Fox explained - "The Wii U has allowed us to significantly enhance the game's visuals and, with the Wii U GamePad, explore new ways to interact with the game and its characters". Not quite the mind-blowing new features we were hoping for, but with the game not hitting the console until the end of the year, there may still be more announcements to come - fingers crossed.
Of course, the GamePad also lends itself to one of A World of Keflings best bits - the co-op multiplayer. With the ability to enlist the help of a friend or three to lend a hand with your kingdom, harvesting more brambles, keeping an eye on the Keflings or converting sand into glass, as the saying goes, many hands make light work - and while only two players could play together on the same console, perhaps this may be upgraded for the Wii U thanks to the GamePad.
NOT EVEN CHOCOLATE CAN SAVE YOU NOW
While it seems odd that a Microsoft published downloadable game is making it's way to a competitor's console, we're not really going to complain - A World of Keflings is some seriously good laid-back fun, and for those that never got an Xbox 360 is well worth a download. It may even open the floodgates for other awesome Ninja Bee classics, such as Outpost Kaloki X, Band of Bugs and Ancients of Ooga - or maybe even some new Wii U exclusive titles. Only time will tell.
