Way back in 2008 NinjaBee brought their original kingdom-building simulation game, 'A Kingdom For Keflings' to the Xbox Live Arcade, and we played it to death. Making you a giant amongst a race of tiny people with massive chins and a penchant for hats, you helped the Keflings build the kingdom of their dreams by setting them to work mining rocks, chopping down trees, and processing the raw materials into beautiful bricks, in order to put together the buildings that made up their world. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, the sequel, 'A World Of Keflings' emerged in 2010, and we played that to death too, this time with a spruced up storyline, and buckets of humour - but once it was finished, we were a bit sad. NinjaBee had hinted at the possibilities of downloadable expansions, but that was many moons ago, and we'd pretty much given up all hope - until, out of the blue, 'It Came From Outer Space' was announced. Rejoicing, and polishing off our hats, 'It Came From Outer Space' appeared on the Xbox Live Marketplace for 320 Microsoft Points (about £2.67, depending on where you bought your points) some ten months after the game's release, and we downloaded it almost straight away. But was it worth the wait?
We bet it was that meddling witch's fault the add-on took so long coming...
Seemingly, when it comes to "It Came From Outer Space", the first challenge is actually working out how to run it. Once you've downloaded the add-on, you'll have to boot up A World of Keflings, and start a brand new game, choosing to play 'It Came From Outer Space' from there. With the game sadly not explaining how to do this, there's a strong chance you'll do the same as we did, and load up your existing save game, before searching your existing kingdom for any signs of aliens. Why developers NinjaBee have decided to separate the kingdoms, we're not entirely sure - having aliens land in your already existing kingdom would have been cool, or if they really wanted to keep it sort of separate, they could have just had a new gate open up in the existing world. Luckily, this is pretty much where our problems with the game ended.
If you're not familiar with 'A World Of Keflings', you're probably wondering what we're on about, so perhaps it's best to start with Keflings 101. Playing A World of Keflings is simple - you control a giant version of your avatar that walks around the land of the Keflings, helping the little people build the Kingdom they've always dreamed of. But in order to build, the Keflings need stuff to build out of - so it's up to you to get production flowing, and get the people gathering various resources. By pressing the A button, you'll be able to picking up a Kefling - simply take them over to a tree, and plonk them down, and they'll don a lumberjack hat, then all you have to do is pick them back up again, and plonk them down wherever you want them to pile up the logs. As soon as you've placed them down for the second time, they'll be off about their merry Kefling ways, doing exactly as you asked them to. There's stone, magic crystals, ice, sand and many, many more resources you'll need to harvest like this, as different buildings have different requirements - and there are some that can only be made by turning one thing into something else, once you've built a certain type of building - for example, all you have to do is drop some rock into the Stone Cutter shop, and he'll turn it into some cut stone for you.
Your avatar will also learn how to burp fire.
But far from just being a race to build every single building you can in the shortest amount of time possible, in A World of Keflings, and its downloadable expansion, everything's tied together with a funny story, which gives you missions and objectives you'll have to complete. In 'It Came From Outer Space', you and your faithful helpers Scoobs, Doug are exploring the desert cliffs when you discover a group of aliens who've crash-landed, sending poor Scoobs into a panic, who proceeds to run off and get himself stranded in a sulphur crystal patch. Once things have calmed down a bit, Senator Hadookin introduces the group as aliens from the planet Yurbut (yes, it's a terrible joke) - made up of the Senator himself, the rather war-hungry Captain Sniggle Warfbart who wants nothing more than to blow up things, and Dr. Snippetoff, the green Ursula-alike who enjoys experimenting on various Keflings. Ever the helpful bunch, you and your pint-sized pals set about helping the aliens out of a fix, by harvesting all the nearby resources in order to put together all the bizarre, alien buildings they'll need to get their ship up and running and return to their home planet. While the characters aren't quite as memorable as the splendiforus King from the main game, they do all have distinct personalities, with some well-written and genuinely funny dialogue.
Yes, yes they are.
From there-on-in, it's basically just more Keflings - only this time with a sci-fi twist. Filled with helpful robots, and futuristic buildings, this time, in place of the usual red-hatted, big-chinned Keflings, you have an army of alien workers, who don't just don hats when you give them a job to do - they change their whole head.
A running theme through the game is that you can transform certain animal-themed buildings into other buildings with the application of a magical Metamorph Carrot. For example, feeding one of these to a Rift Rooster, a giant orange chicken that turns frauki leaves into gloop, will transform it into a blue Cosmic Rooster, who changes the very same leaves into dark matter. And as certain types of produce are required to build certain buildings, figuring out what you have to feed to which, er, building, is the key to building everything the aliens need in order to return to their homeworld.
On the left are the Gravity Lobster and its mutated Nuclear Lobster.
In fact, It Came From Outer Space is basically everything we wanted from a Keflings game - it's samey enough that it's got the same charm and addictive appeal, but different enough that it doesn't feel like we've paid to play the same game again. In fact, the only concern we really have is regarding the overall length of the add-on - playing in co-operative, the pair of us had built thirteen of the fifteen buildings in an hour and a half, and it wasn't like we'd tried to rush through it (if anything, we were willing it to take longer so we could savour it). This means you could conceivably finish the whole thing in under two hours - although it may take longer in single-player, as you're having to do everything yourself. Finishing the main game took us nearly eight hours, so this add-on is roughly a quarter of the size of the main game - but it's not a quarter of the price; in fact, it's getting on for half. Had it been that little bit longer, or priced at 200 Microsoft Points rather than 320, we'd have no problem with it, but as it stands, it works out quite expensive - but it is rather fun while it lasts, and is definitely worth a look if you're a Keflings fan like we are.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
